How you could use Twitter to find potential customers

Most hotel industry examples out there have been exposed on past posts here and there, but I realize again today that very few hotels use Twitter as a way to find potential customers who could walk in their doors quicker than they can think of.

Hotels haven't really used Twitter for finding qualified leads.

Today I asked on my Twitter account:

"Let's see if Parisian hotels are listening. Where is the perfect hotel in Paris to hold meetings in the lobby or over a coffee?"

Guess how many hotels did respond to that question? Big zero. And some of you warned me afterwards that they would be surprised to see any answers.

When I was in Boston earlier last month, I tweeted "Arrived in Boston" and almost within 1 hour I had 2 or 3 hotels in Boston already sending me a greeting message and invitation to come to their hotel.

How did they guys found me?

Pretty easy.

You just have to use the SEARCH function on your Twitter application or use simply search.twitter.com and type some relevant key words that could end up in some interesting reaction with potential guests.

OK. So what do I need to search for? Key words like "hotel paris" would be a good start.

Now imagine that you're a hotel who knows the answer for Edward Westwick. Who do you think Edward would remember when he will back in Paris, pending he had some good advice for the pub :-)

What about this guy who says he's at the Pullman Hotel. You could have send him a tweet like "Welcome to Paris,, I hope you're enjoying your stay. Feel free to come by our hotel bar, we are only 5 min walk from the Pullman." Again, what do you think Welly_tj will think when he will receive this?

Using Twitter is dead simple. Use it for your own benefits and stop advertising your best deals that nobody cares to look at.

I am still waiting for answers for good hotels to hold meetings in the lobby with some nice coffee :-)

Comments

[Scroll Wedding Invitations]

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[Jaipur Hotel]

Really twitter now is become popular. We are laxmipalacehotel.com from jaipur.

[Guillaume Thevenot]

@Luxury Hotels yes even though we are still early stage

[luxury hotels]

Hi Guillaume,
Twitter now is become popular even significant increase their members and people use it. Hotels start to use as impact can safe time and money with great exposure

[Resideo.com]

Get on our "Hotels On Twitter" list!

http://resideohotels.blogspot.com/2009/07/hotels-using-twitter.html

We're on a mission to list every hotel that's on Twitter. Just follow us - we're @resideo - and we'll follow back & add your hotel to the list.

[Bill Todd]

The time is right for Twitter- but this is an action way overdo!The U.S. based Airline Reporting Corporation has just launched a new electronic payment system for hotels and tour operators. I just saw a demo and my first question was ,why did our industry take so long to eliminate the mountain of unnecessary paperwork associated with FIT bookings.
The Airline Reporting Corporation was the same team that 10 years ago converted the airline industry over to e-tickets from old fashioned paper. Yet it took us till 2010 to drag the wholesale and FIT bookings process plus the antiquated paper vouchers into the 21st century. Hats off to Starwood who is reported to have lobbied the ARC to take on the project. This one simple payment system will give our accounting teams back hundreds of hours each year. There is nothing more than a small token fee for hotels to pay- hopefully that will motivate the industry to get onboard as soon as possible. It's about time!
www.Hotelimpact.com

[Guillaume Thevenot]

@Daniele - ok. fair comment. Have a look at what Roger Smith hotel is doing on Twitter and you will see that the hotel found the time to use Twitter efficiently.

@Nuno - no worries. Next time then. Thanks for sharing your experience with Twitter.

@Kate - not sure but feel free to share the URL on the commment box

@Evan - Thanks Evan. It's great to hear some insights outside the industry as well.

[Evan Leong]

Great material. I know a ton of hotels are using twitter now to promote events and such. I work for a furnishing company that mainly sells to hotels for contract furniture so I'm around hotel content all the time. I completely agree it is easy and pretty effective. The new wave I believe is going to be mobile marketing through text messaging from the companies. It's already begun but i wonder when its gonna blow up. Follow me on twitter! elementscf!

[ranbir]

really good one

[Kate Kristensen]

There was a post written last year with a video about lodging targeting future guests on twitter. I don't remember who it was by but it was a restaurant consultant with some weird name. Feng something

[TiaraHotels]

Hi Guillaume,

I see we've missed a chance to answer you "on time", but unfortunately I was enable to tweet yesterday.

I use TweetDeck and either you don't know how to use it... or you don't care, because it is really smple to find potential clients, in-house guest, groups arriving, clients at the bar, etc, etc... with simple keywords #'s

We always reply every time we see a destination/city request for a hotel and many times we suggest as well other properties when ours don't match the "client" needs. It's always good to help... and to tweet within subjects about your destination.

Cheers,

Nuno Valinhas
E-Commerce Exective
Tiara Hotels & Resorts
nuno.valinhas@tiara-hotels.com

[Daniele]

Well Guillaume maybe hotels are too smart here and don't want you to just go and use their lobby for free... Jokes a part we have experimented with this approach for months and it turned out to be too time consuming for the ROI.