Web 2.0 marketing for hostels, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

[Hostels]

There are several "micro blog" services that you can use to get extra exposure for your hostel on the Web.

• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Jaiku
• Pownce
• and others...

Here is an example of a hostel that runs several micro blogs as well as uses other Web 2.0 services:
http://www.twitter.com/hostelcolonial
http://hostelcolonial.tumblr.com/
http://pownce.com/hostelcolonial
http://hostelcolonial.jaiku.com/

As well as a full hostel blog:
http://hostelbuenosaires.blogspot.com/

One advantage of using the micro blog services is the piggy back marketing effect, where your external pages start to rank well in search engines for your target keywords and then send traffic to your own Web site.

I mentioned them in another post, but very few hostels are using these services, or even using hostel blogs.

There are great techniques for hostels to get extra exposure online that have not become widespread yet, but that work very well...

[boofer]

Hello community,

One year ago I startet a blog of our Hostel. I would inform the visitors of our homepage, whats happend in our nice town Dresden, our enviroment and in our Hostel. Sometime I found at a newspaper information, where I think they are importend for the guest - so I write this for example in our blog.
Guest get in this kind of information, importend news, pictures and many more.
I think, if somebody have time, will be in contact with guest,also future guest, he should start a blog.
A homepage is a static page, with maybe some flashs, news, but not communication. Any time to ask the webmaster, please rework this or this....
I can recommend wordpress.com..
Ok - at the moment we need more pictures and news, and guests, they are send us a comment.... we have time....:)
boofer

[Hostels]

Thanks for listing your hostel blog.

For anyone interested there is also a hostel blog poll. Do any other hostels here have a blog?

I'm currently working on a tutorial for hostel blogs that shows how to significantly increase bookings through use of a hostel blog. I'm surprised that so few hostels have them.

[Hostels]

Is anyone else on Twitter?

I've moved the HostelManagement Twitter account to http://twitter.com/joshhostels

Twitter is sort of a combination between "micro-blog" and instant messenger. If you connect it with your IM software you can post a "tweet" (message) to the world (and your contacts/followers) by typing an instant message... You can also broadcast a message with SMS.

It's a very interesting idea. There is a short video on the homepage about how it works.

A couple of people have signed up for HostelManagement.com through my Twitter profile and I think it has potential for hostels, though I only know of one hostel regularly using it (Hostel Colonial).

[Hostels]

More tools for Twitter:

twhirl is a free program to manage your twitter profile:
http://www.twhirl.org/

You can alternatively use your chat program like Gmail or Pidgin/Jabber/AIM to interact with Twitter. I like the chat method because it allows you to follow certain keywords (like "hostels") and get a message whenever someone mentions that keyword.

There are also ways to integrate Twitter with Facebook accounts:
http://explore.twitter.com/

There are also badges that can be displayed on Web sites or blogs to post your twitter updates:
http://twitter.com/badges/

[Hostels]

Some more resources on Twitter:
Tweetstats.com shows you interesting graphs of your Twitter activity.

Quotably.com shows threaded Twitter conversations. (Example)

Why Twitter dominates microblogging (Techcrunch).

Tips for companies that use Twitter:
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/04/2...companies-101/

[Hostels]

Another advantage to the exposure on those "Web 2.0" sites is the piggyback content effect (also mentioned in my free ebook on hostel marketing).

"Piggybacking" is when you put your content on other Web sites in order to get more exposure in the search engines.

Here is an example where a hostel is piggybacking content on the social networking sites, which has pushed down the rankings for the booking engines on that query.

That means that backpackers who are searching for the specific hostel by name are more likely to land directly on the hostel's Web site and avoid booking commissions.

There are many fun applications for this technique

[Hostels]

Here is another interesting Twitter tool that shows your Twitter friends and which ones are connected to each other:
[EDIT: I deleted this link because Tweetwheel no longer exists] (my Tweetwheel page)

I think Twitter is breaking ground for future of social networking and search. You can ask a question on Twitter and often get answers from other people.

There are still only a few hostels on Twitter, but there are quite a few individuals from large travel sites including hostel booking engines...

[Hostels]

An interesting article about Twitter getting $15 million investment from Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com)

I've found Twitter to be very good for networking. If you haven't seen it, there is a "Travel Twitterati" list here (Twitterers from the travel industry).

And an interesting article about how the t-list uses Twitter. A hostel, Hostel Colonial, is one of the top travel industry users by Twitter followers and updates.

I stopped using Twitter for a while because the IM support was broken, but I've started using Twitter with a program called Twhirl and it's working well.

[Hostels]

Here's an example of a business using Twitter for customer service:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/jetbl...mer-wheelchair

Wanda Morillo needed a wheelchair for the plane and decided to send out a Twitter plea to @JetBlue instead of contacting customer service at the airport.

"JetBlue, I need a wheelchair!"

Three minutes later, JetBlue replied.

"@metschick Are you in an airport? shoot me a DM [direct message] and let me see if I can help"

The customer got what she wanted and Jet Blue got lots of online media coverage, including in a high traffic blog:
http://consumerist.com/5093978/jetbl...er-service-rep

Twitter doesn't send massive amounts of direct traffic, but it can lead to other great things through online networking.