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8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter

Twitter is the new big thing. With everybody from Britney Spears to Barack Obama now on Twitter, it is safe to say the social networking platform has gone mainstream. For many users worldwide Twitter has become a crucial tool for maintaining contacts, exchanging opinions and making new connections. But what does this mean for the service, and how can we, website owners, actually use it for our purposes?
I posted my first tweet in November of 2006, only 7 months after the service launched. For me, it was a way to keep in touch with new friends. It was less intrusive than instant messaging and less formal than email. I quickly became hooked. For the longest time, it was the tool of geeks. My friends laughed at me as I tweeted from the pub; my family stared blankly as I explained the service. However, that has all changed now.

Twitter is the new big thing. With everybody from Britney Spears to Barack Obama now on Twitter, it is safe to say the social networking platform has gone mainstream.
Some time ago I was wrong to lament on Twitter about it becoming a marketing tool; I should embrace it as a tool I can use. Nevertheless, like everybody else, I need to be careful how I use it. I do not believe Twitter users will allow the tool to be reduced to a broadcast mechanism for pimping the latest blog post or special offer.
So how do I use Twitter? I guess the first thing to say is that I am not a huge Twitter success story. However, Twitter is turning into the third facet of my online presence, alongside my blog and podcast. With that in mind, let me share a few tips that have helped me better use this interesting new tool.

1. Above All, Keep It Personal

Although Twitterers like CNN breaking news have been very successful, generally, corporate Twitter accounts are a mistake. Twitter is about person-to-person communication and not a broadcast tool for faceless corporations. To use it in that way is to miss the potential of Twitter.

CNN Breaking News Twitter Page
Does that mean you cannot have a Twitter account for your organization? Not at all. For example, if John Boardley created a Twitter account, you may not recognize the name. However, if he used the name ILoveTypography, you would be more likely to follow because you know the I Love Typography website.
It is not the name that matters so much as the tone of the posts. Tweets should be more than an endless string of press releases and links. They should include personal content and a dialogue with followers.
This is important because it enables you to make a connection with your followers. An open and honest relationship with followers is very powerful. It builds trust, loyalty and engagement. It encourages repeat traffic and word-of-mouth recommendation.

2. Learn From Others

I have learned a lot about Twitter just by reading the tweets of those I admire. Merlin Mann, for example, injects a lot of humor into his posts, and his followers really respond to that. Darren Rowse, on the other hand, strikes a good balance between recommending content others have written and promoting his own posts.

TweetStats.com allows you to build up a picture of how successful twitterers use the service.
In addition to examining the styles of others, you could also examine statistics. Use a tool like TweetStats to examine how often others tweet and how often they reply to their followers. All of this helps to build a picture of what makes a successful tweeter.
There is also a growing number of great websites that give advice on how to get the most out of Twitter. One of my personal favorites is TwiTip, which covers such subjects as “The Merit of Twitter Competitions” and “How to Get Unfollowed on Twitter.”

3. Get A Good Desktop Client

Without a shadow of doubt, the most powerful Twitter client currently available is TweetDeck. This AIR application not only runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, but also provides a range of superb tools for managing your life on Twitter.

TweetDeck is the most powerful desktop Twitter tool available
With TweetDeck, you can create groups, filter tweets, monitor certain subjects as well as post tweets, replies and retweets. In fact, it is so powerful that it can be somewhat intimidating at first. Don’t let that put you off. Check out this short tutorial on TweetDeck’s core features, and you’ll be up and running in no time.

4. Use Twitter On The Road

If your Twitter account is going to be personal as well as professional, then you will almost certainly want to use it on the road. One option is simply to use Twitter’s mobile website. However, if you are fortunate enough to have an iPhone, then there is a wealth of Twitter clients available to you.

I have paid for and tried almost every Twitter client on the iPhone, but the winner hands down is Tweetie. I love Tweetie. It has a clean, easy-to-use interface and yet is packed with powerful features, including the ability to:

• handle multiple Twitter accounts,
• navigate reply chains,
• view Twitter trends and perform custom searches,
• access complete user profiles.

In many ways, it is even better than TweetDeck because it has much of TweetDeck’s power but in a much cleaner interface. If only they made a desktop application!

5. Tracking The Results

TweetStats is just the tip of the statistical iceberg. There is an ever-growing number of tools you can use to track your activity on Twitter. However, the ones that really interest me are those that track click-throughs. What I really want to know is, if I post a link on Twitter, how many people click through?

If the link points to one of my own websites, I could use Google Analytics’ URL tagging tool. However, this is somewhat fiddly and only works if I am linking to my own website. What’s more, these URLs can get long, which is a problem when you’re limited to 140 characters.
Fortunately, there is a tool called TwitterBurner, which solves these problems. It shortens URLs and tracks all click-throughs, even to websites you do not run yourself. Best of all, it is now supported directly in TweetDeck (although not in Tweetie, unfortunately).

6. Follow And Be Followed

Always remember that Twitter is a two-way conversation. A big part of successful tweeting is replying to those who tweet you. Twitter is not just about who follows you, either. It is also about who you follow. One service I find particularly useful is Mr Tweet. Mr Tweet provides two type of information:

• first, it suggests people you might want to consider following, because they fall within your broader network (i.e. people who are followed by your friends),
• secondly, it suggests those from your list of followers who you should follow back.

For each of these people, it provides various statistics, including:

• the number of followers they have,
• the chances of them replying to you,
• how often they update.

This is a great way to extend your network of contacts and increase the chances that your tweets will be retweeted. It’s also a great way to meet new people!

7. Integrate Whenever Possible

If you intend to use Twitter for anything other than personal use, it needs to be incorporated in the rest of your Web strategy. That means it needs to link to your other online activity, including your website and other social networks. There is no shortage of tools to help you do this, from the basic Twitter widget to a tool for sending your tweets to Facebook.

One tool that caught my attention is called TwitterFeed. It posts content from an RSS feed to Twitter, which is a convenient way to update your followers on new posts. However, use any tool that automatically posts to Twitter with caution. It can easily become annoying if used too much. Also, it lacks the friendliness of a personal post.

8. Don’t Over-Think It

Of course, the problem with all these tools, statistics and analysis is that they can suck the spontaneity and personality from your tweets. While some of those late-night drunken tweets are best left behind, you want to avoid making your tweets too sterile.
Let me explain. I am naturally a fairly good public speaker. However, once I attended a public speaking workshop. The instructors taught me about all of the techniques that make for an exceptional speaker. However, instead of improving my skills, they made me so amazingly self-conscious that I was paralyzed. I started over-analyzing what I was doing.

Twitter for Beginners

1. Work Out Why You Want to Use It

One of the key things to do early on is to work out what your goal is. It could take a little while to work this out but the sooner you nail down what you’re going to use twitter for the better. There’s no right or wrong with how to use Twitter – your focus might be:

• to use it on a personal level to share what you’re doing with real life friends and family
• to build up you and your blog’s profile in your niche
• to unwind and have fun with new friends
• to build up your network in a niche

The list could go on (and it could include multiple goals) – however knowing them up front will help you as you explore how to use it.

2. Start Tweeting

One of the things that I noticed yesterday adding all 538 twitter users is that a number of them had only ‘tweeted’ once or twice (and a couple had never tweeted at all). I asked one person why this was and they said that they wanted to build their follower numbers up before they started using it.
The problem with this thinking is that one of the best ways to build your Twitter network is to be active. Your Tweets are your best advertisement for people to follow you – if you don’t have any (or many) what reason do people have to follow you?
So start updating your Twitter account. Don’t just write about anything – remember that every Tweet you make can either take you closer to or further away from your Twitter goals.

3. Start Following Others

I spoke to one new Twitter user yesterday who told me that the ‘Love-In’ had brought them over 100 new followers – but that they’d increased this even further by finding other interesting people to follow herself.
This user had discovered the power of adding followers on Twitter. She’d invested time into seeking out other twitter users who were Tweeting interesting stuff.
This process is a bit of an experiment and involves following people and then seeing if their tweets ‘resonate’ with you. Sometimes it means you’ll follow someone for a while and then unfollow them – but you’ll eventually find a group of people that you enjoy conversing with. Which leads me to my next point….

4. Get Interactive

OK – so you know why you’re using Twitter, you’re actually tweeting, you’re following what others are tweeting – the time now is to start reaching out to others and getting a conversation going.
This happens on a couple of levels:
Firstly it’s about writing things that others will want to interact with. The best way to do this is to ask a question. People are wired to reply to questions so start asking some. Keep them relevant to your goals and be willing to reply to people’s answers.
Secondly it’s important to respond to what other people are saying. The ‘reply’ feature on Twitter is key and should be used regularly, otherwise your use of Twitter will be quite one sided.
After a while you’ll find that the conversation becomes quite natural as you get to know others that you mutually follow and track what they’re doing, what your common interests are etc.
The beauty of being as interactive as possible with other Twitter users is that you’re talking to them in public and you’ll find your other followers and their other followers will chime in and make the conversation a little more multi-dimensional – it’s a great way of finding new friends to follow also.

5. Don’t Spam

Another thing that I noticed happening with a few of those that I added yesterday is that the only thing they were using Twitter for was to promote their own content. While it’s possible to do this I wouldn’t advise it. I do promote my posts on Twitter – but I try to balance them with other natural and organic conversation as well.
Another tip is to not just promote your own links, promote others. Keep them on topic and interesting and your followers will thank you for the links that you suggest.

But Wait – there’s more…

There’s a lot more that can be said about using Twitter – but I want to keep this as basic as possible for those just getting into the medium. Start with these five basic things, work on them for a week or so and then you’ll start discovering your own way

Tips for Using Your Twitter Profile to Get New Followers

Since Twitter’s focus is on saying a lot with very little, it makes sense that the Twitter profile space is very brief and the default settings leave little room to present yourself in detail. It’s also the first and last thing potential followers will see before deciding to click “Follow” or to click away from your profile. Here’s a few tips to customize your profile so that potential followers will be convinced they can’t miss your Tweets!

1. Create a Custom Profile Page Background

Since the visual impact of your Twitter background is the strongest tool you have available, customize it to give people an eyeful of who you are.
You can make your own image on your computer and upload it under Settings – Design – Change Background Image. The first 200-250 pixels width on the left hand side is a great place to put additional profile information and list websites.
For a quick solution, you can create just the sidebar (250×700) as your background image with “no tile” selected. Then, modify the rest of the Twitter color scheme to complement it. You can use the first 200 pixels from the top for your picture or “header” for a possible logo and tagline.
The rest of the 400-500 vertical pixels should be used to tell others what you’re about and most importantly, what you’re looking for. Are you using Twitter to get business? To gather ideas for a project? To get feedback from customers? This is the best place to reflect your interests and other facets of your professional life if necessary, so that others can see it immediately.
Alternatively, you can use it to tell people how best to contact you like @garyvee who encourages people to email him instead of sending a Direct Message on Twitter.


Still not sure about the dimensions? You can use Browser Shots to see what it will look like on different screen sizes and browsers.
For an in-depth look at how to create a custom Twitter background, read the Twitip article – Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background.
Also check out these resources on Background images”

• Boinblog provides two different Photoshop templates to download, or you can create your own!
• Several templates for free at TwitterBacks

Other interesting uses of Twitter backgrounds:

2. Create a Twitter Landing Page as your “Web”URL

@pistachio had a great tip for this months ago when she created a “Twitter landing page” instead of sending users to the front page of your website. Advertisers create custom landing pages for different markets, so why not treat your Twitter audience differently, too? You can create one that explains to potential followers how you use Twitter and how to interact with you.
Some things you may want to include on your Twitter landing page:
- who you are / an abbreviated intro with a link to your more detailed About page, if available
- how you use Twitter (including frequency of Tweets, topics and if you use Twitter to tweet your new blog posts)
- your “follow” policy and how others should contact you if they want you to follow them back (with a “@user hello,” for example).
See Laura’s (@pistachio’s) Twitter Landing Page (Who is @pistachio?) as an example of this.

3. Use a Profile Picture that Reinforces Your Brand (You!)

Keeping your profile pictures consistent across all your social networks will help people find you and recognize you online as well as offline. A picture of you with a hat obstructing your face or you in your Halloween costume should probably be swapped out for a picture that looks like you almost all of the time. A hard-to-recognize picture may result in users squinting at it and clicking away instead of clicking “Follow.”
Of course, using a photo of your face may not be the only way to be “recognizable”:
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of Wordpress, has a profile picture which is simple a bright pink square. It’s certainly recognizable in a Twitter lineup, but unless you’re on magazine covers like he is, you’ll want to use your picture as a way for people to identify you and to create a visual and hopefully emotional connection with your Tweets even if they haven’t met you in-person.
If your company has a memorable logo (and you have the permission to display it) you may consider using it to increase brand recognition. Note that this is best when the content of your Tweets is close to your company’s mission/communication strategy.

4. Utilize your Profile “Bio” to your Best Advantage.

Be clever, be witty, or just be yourself! In a few words, sum up who you are and make it sound interesting. Since that’s what Twitter is all about, writing an intriguing Bio in such a small space shouldn’t be hard. Here’s also another opportunity point your audience somewhere. If you are going to point users to a site that is not your website or Twitter landing page, I recommend putting it here so that users see the entire URL instead of in your Web link which gets cut off. Transparency is always best.
@jowyang uses his Bio to give a brief explanation of who he is and points those interested to an article he wrote “How I use Twitter.”

5. Break up any @ Reply Marathons with Useful Tweets

If your potential follower is still on your profile page, and they’re not yet convinced about following you, they are going to check what you’ve been tweeting recently. Hopefully, they won’t see a sea of @ replies, which might insinuate that you spend a lot of time in micro-conversations that they may be left out of if they follow you

5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence

1. Leverage Other Profiles

Do you have an existing online profile somewhere outside of Twitter (big or small)? Use it to springboard into Twitter. If it’s a blog, mention that you’re using Twitter in a post and link to it from your profile and contact pages. If you’re on Facebook use one of the numerous tools available to drag in your Tweets to facebook. Add it to your email signature, business card, mention it in interviews or guest posts that you might do…. etc. The same applies with any online (or even offline) presence that you have – link to your Twitter page and link to it often (if you’d like to connect with me on Twitter my feed is here).

2. Tweet and Tweet Often – But Create Space for Reactions

The more active you are on Twitter the more likely you are to have someone find you from within Twitter and add you as someone that they are following. Every Tweet you do comes up on the Twitter Public Timeline – so upping your Tweet numbers can help have you appear more often there.
Warning – Tweet too regularly and about nothing worthwhile and you run the risk of losing followers. What I’ve found is that on days that I’m more talkative than others that there can come points where I’m talking so much that my followers don’t have room to respond. Twitter can actually become quite confusing once you have too many trains of thought going all at once so I try to stick to one topic at a time and create pauses between them to let others interact.

3. Be Conversational

Apart from a good influx of new followers when I announced I was using Twitter at first the days that I get most new followers are those days that I interact with other Twitter users. Everytime you reply to someone and have them reply to you your Twitter ID appears in the feeds of others which exposes you to potentially thousands upon thousands of other Twitter users. Asking questions is perhaps the best way to get conversational on Twitter. Get 10 people to answer a question you’ve Tweeted and if even just one person signs up from each of those 10 people’s replies to you you have 10 new followers. Just as important is to participate in other people’s Tweets also – reply to their questions and ideas as much as possible.
The key with this approach is to be conversational about topics that will interest others. For example if you ask a very general question like ‘what cereal do you use’ and get a lot of answers – but i suspect you’ll get more answers AND new followers if the question was more relevant to people’s lives in some way (read on for more on this).
Another thought on the ‘art of conversation’ on Twitter is that I find I do better when I’m not talking about me. No one likes to hang around with people who just talk about themselves – so get the balance right between talking about yourself and talking about others and other topics of interest.

4. Provide Value

Tweeting on a personal level is fun and for many that’s as far as it goes – but if you’re interested in growing your Twitter influence you need to provide your followers (and potential followers) with value. It’s the same principle as growing a blog – if you help enhance people’s lives in some way they are more likely to want to track with you and read more of what you have to say. As a result your conversations should ‘matter’ on some level. Sure you can throw in personal tweets and have some fun with it – but unless you’re providing something useful to people (information, entertainment, news, education etc) they probably won’t follow you for long.

5. Tweet in Peak Times

Last week I tracked when I had new twitter followers add me and found (as I expected) that the frequency of ‘adds’ where made during business hours in the USA. My being situated in Australia can have some positives and negatives but one of the things I don’t enjoy about it is that I miss out on a lot of interaction with my followers who are on the other side of the world from me. I try to be online when the US wakes up (evenings for me) so as to make the most of the opportunities of being awake in this overlap time (similarly first thing in the morning for me can be good as my US friends are sometimes still at work or online at home in their early evenings). Tweeting during these times only increases the chances of someone finding you and adding you as someone to follow.

Bonus Tip

These are some of the things that I’ve noticed about my own Twitter follower numbers. I probably should add that for me it’s never really been a concerted effort. I do have the advantage of being able to do #1 quite well quite naturally but my last tip would be to just be yourself and Tweet form the heart. Don’t stress too much about the numbers but connect genuinely with the Twitter followers you already have and let the rest take care of itself!

Top 9 Twitter Tips for Medical and Laboratory Sales Reps

In the spirit of Shane’s article, I’ve decided to put up my own list of Top Ten Twitter Tips for Medical and Laboratory Sales Reps.  And pharmaceutical sales reps, clinical diagnostics sales reps, hospital equipment sales reps, surgical supplies sales reps, pathology sales reps, imaging sales reps, biotechnology sales reps, genetic research sales reps, medical device sales reps…..
1) Use your name, or a name that makes sense with your business.  Unless your twitter account isn’t a business tool for you…then you can do whatever you want.
2) Use http://www.twellow.com/ to find the people that are like you or are in your space. So, I searched medical, laboratory, molecular, pcr, diagnostics, clinical laboratory, and others like these….
who should you search for??
3) Use http://www.monniter.com/ to “monniter” the twitter world for 3 keywords to watch what people are saying… like I did with Twellow.
4) Follow anyone who looks like your clients, your suppliers, your vendors or your experts.  And, follow anyone who has something of interest to you….I follow a lot of internet marketing specialists – not related to me, but of interest and useful.
5) Don’t spend too much time on Twitter.  You can literally Twitter the day away.  I suggest a short time every day.  Like anything you do, make sure that the value that you receive is worth the time that you invest in it.
6) Ask questions on Twitter – someone on there knows the answer.  About everything.  No kidding.
7) Don’t forget to talk about your work.  That’s what we want to hear about….not really what you are having for dinner (unless it is really interesting).  We want to hear about the conferences you attend, the talks that you hear, the books that you read, the mentors that you love, the vendors that you hate, the articles and blogs that you could not live without, and we want to know what you do so that we can recommend others to you!
Be consistent – at least 10 posts a week or you aren’t a real Twit.
9) Learn the code.  The “at sign” (this guy: “ @ “).  Use it when you want to send a public message (called a “reply”) to a specific person.  If you sent “@salesrecruiter : testing Twitter” it would reach me AND it would show up in my “Replies” tab (near the top of your profile page…on the right.  Check here whenever you sign in to Twitter; it’s where people send replies or public messages specifically to you.  (Note: if you send a reply message, make sure that you don’t add punctuation right after the name.  “ @salesrecruiter “ will reach me.  “ @salesrecruiter: “ (note colon) would not

5 Tips to Increase Your Twitter Presence

1. Leverage Other Profiles

Do you have an existing online profile somewhere outside of Twitter (big or small)? Use it to springboard into Twitter. If it’s a blog, mention that you’re using Twitter in a post and link to it from your profile and contact pages. If you’re on Facebook use one of the numerous tools available to drag in your Tweets to facebook. Add it to your email signature, business card, mention it in interviews or guest posts that you might do…. etc. The same applies with any online (or even offline) presence that you have - link to your Twitter page and link to it often 

2. Tweet and Tweet Often - But Create Space for Reactions

The more active you are on Twitter the more likely you are to have someone find you from within Twitter and add you as someone that they are following. Every Tweet you do comes up on the Twitter Public Timeline - so upping your Tweet numbers can help have you appear more often there.

Warning - Tweet too regularly and about nothing worthwhile and you run the risk of loosing followers. What I’ve found is that on days that I’m more talkative than others that there can come points where I’m talking so much that my followers don’t have room to respond. Twitter can actually become quite confusing once you have too many trains of thought going all at once so I try to stick to one topic at a time and create pauses between them to let others interact.

3. Be Conversational

Apart from a good influx of new followers when I announced I was using Twitter at first the days that I get most new followers are those days that I interact with other Twitter users. Everytime you reply to someone and have them reply to you your Twitter ID appears in the feeds of others which exposes you to potentially thousands upon thousands of other Twitter users. Asking questions is perhaps the best way to get conversational on Twitter. Get 10 people to answer a question you’ve Tweeted and if even just one person signs up from each of those 10 people’s replies to you you have 10 new followers. Just as important is to participate in other people’s Tweets also - reply to their questions and ideas as much as possible.

The key with this approach is to be conversational about topics that will interest others. For example if you ask a very general question like ‘what cereal do you use’ and get a lot of answers - but i suspect you’ll get more answers AND new followers if the question was more relevant to people’s lives in some way (read on for more on this).

Another thought on the ‘art of conversation’ on Twitter is that I find I do better when I’m not talking about me. No one likes to hang around with people who just talk about themselves - so get the balance right between talking about yourself and talking about others and other topics of interest.

4. Provide Value

Tweeting on a personal level is fun and for many that’s as far as it goes - but if you’re interested in growing your Twitter influence you need to provide your followers (and potential followers) with value. It’s the same principle as growing a blog - if you help enhance people’s lives in some way they are more likely to want to track with you and read more of what you have to say. As a result your conversations should ‘matter’ on some level. Sure you can throw in personal tweets and have some fun with it - but unless you’re providing something useful to people (information, entertainment, news, education etc) they probably won’t follow you for long.

5. Tweet in Peak Times

Last week I tracked when I had new twitter followers add me and found (as I expected) that the frequency of ‘adds’ where made during business hours in the USA. My being situated in Australia can have some positives and negatives but one of the things I don’t enjoy about it is that I miss out on a lot of interaction with my followers who are on the other side of the world from me. I try to be online when the US wakes up (evenings for me) so as to make the most of the opportunities of being awake in this overlap time (similarly first thing in the morning for me can be good as my US friends are sometimes still at work or online at home in their early evenings). Tweeting during these times only increases the chances of someone finding you and adding you as someone to follow.

Bonus Tip

These are some of the things that I’ve noticed about my own Twitter follower numbers. I probably should add that for me it’s never really been a concerted effort. I do have the advantage of being able to do #1 quite well quite naturally but my last tip would be to just be yourself and Tweet form the heart. Don’t stress too much about the numbers but connect genuinely with the Twitter followers you already have and let the rest take care of itself!

6 Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices

Jan 12, 2009 Jennifer Huber

Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices - Screenshot/Twitter.com

Destination management organizations are flocking to Twitter, the mobile social networking site. These marketing tips will help tourism offices maximize micro-blogging.

Twitter

 

Post information about events, activities, the quirky roadside attractions. When doing so, include as much information as possible such as the event date, time, and location or URL link where followers can find the information.

DMO Twitter Tip #2: Start Following

Following twitterers (people who use Twitter) allows you to see what interests potential visitors. Once a dozen or so tweets have been posted, find other twitterers with an interest in the destination. Begin with twitterers living in the community. Chances are they maintain a blog and will probably post about travel in their hometown, especially if they receive useful information. Follow local newspapers, news stations, travel journalists, and bloggers. Utilize tools on the Web to find others, such as WhoShouldIFollow.com, Twitterholic.com and TwitterLocal.net. See who your followers are following.

DMO Twitter Tip #3: Return the Follow

Most twitterers will return the follow, which means the marketing message can reach more potential visitors. When a twitterer follows the DMO, follow them back. In most cases, they are a potential visitor and have the potential to bring revenue into your community. They most likely have a sincere interest in the destination.
Send new followers a genuine thank you tweet or direct message (DM) and let them know you are available if they need trip planning assistance. Word of caution, do not abuse the DM function or harass and/or stalk twitterers. This is uncool and not tolerated. Being annoying will probably result in being unfollowed or worse, being blocked.

DMO Twitter Tip #4: Interact, this is Social Networking

Find a balance between posting events and posting about life in and around your destination. Reply and interact with your followers but remember to keep it professional. The most successful tweeting DMOs have passionate twitterers who interact with followers and demonstrate they are real people. Remember, this is social networking and relationship building. Think of it as a virtual cocktail networking reception except the handshakes and smiles are @ replies.

DMO Twitter Tip #5: Consistency Counts

Some empty DMO accounts sit in the twitterverse and they were probably registered because someone attended a conference, sat in a Twitter lecture, and thought it would be a good idea. An idle account is not effective marketing. The successful DMOs using Twitter are consistent. Social networking is time consuming and this does not mean DMOs should be monitoring their Twitter accounts 24/7, but they should be updated regularly.

DMO Twitter Tip #6: Tell the World

Issue a press release, include it in your communications to your industry partners and database, and post a link on your Web site telling the world your DMO is utilizing Twitter. Before doing so, be sure to have dozens of posts and a handful of followers. Telling the world the DMO is utilizing Twitter yet not having any tweets or followers looks as though the organization does not know how to use the social networking site.
Twitter allows tourism offices to increase visibility and create buzz about their destination. Utilizing the micro-blogging site is a cost effective way for DMOs to send their targeted message to potential visitors


Read more at Suite101: 6 Twitter Tips for Tourism Offices: How Destination Management Organizations Can Maximize Micro-blogging http://www.suite101.com/content/6-twitter-tips-for-tourism-organizations-a89014#ixzz1FalgzMfM