Photo: TwitterButtons.com
The twitter-verse is growing at an alarming rate, and now is the time to jump on the bandwagon. For those of you that have been under a rock, Twitter is a bursting social networking site, that has reportedly grown 1382% in the last year.
How to use Twitter:
Twitter is very basic. Sign up for a Twitter account to begin. All you do is ask yourself the simple question: “What are you doing?” and type your answer in 140 characters or less. Your answer (tweet) is broadcast throughout the public twitter feed, and directly to anyone who chooses to “follow you”. If you like what someone else is tweeting, you can “follow” them too. You will find plain ol’ people like me on Twitter, and you will also find travel agencies, hotels, airlines, and cruise lines.
How to use Twitter to find travel deals:
Tip # 1 Follow people in the travel business.
From your Twitter home page select “Find People” and type in keywords such as “travel deals” or “hotel”. A list of Twitter users will pull up that have those keywords in their name. Follow those that interest you by selecting the "follow" button. If you have a favorite hotel or airline, search for their business name and follow them from here. Often, these companies will post their newest travel deals on Twitter right after they go live on their site, so you can be the first to know about it. Some Twitter suggestions for you to follow: Travelzoo, Hotel Max, Fareologist, Fourtraveldeals, Applevacations, and of course, myself, Pamela_Jones.
Tip #2 Search directly for travel deals to your desired destinations.
Twitter has a new search engine, where you can search for what people are tweeting in real time. If someone was tweeting about booking a sweet hotel deal in Miami 5 seconds ago, you can search for it on Twitter. On Twitter’s search engine, type in the travel deal that you are looking for. For instance you can type in: Miami hotels. Today, this keyword term pulled up a post with a link to a 4-star hotel for $78/night. The more brief you can be, the better. Check these search operators to narrow down exactly what you are looking for. For general travel deals, you can type in the universal #travel deals. You never know what you might find on Twitter search!
One note of caution: Anyone can post anything on Twitter, so make sure that you are purchasing your travel from a reputable company. Read travel website reviews and research them online to make sure they have a good reputation.
I’m new to Twitter myself, and I’d love it if you followed me. I’ll re-tweet all the great travel deals I find on Twitter to you. See you in the Twitter-verse!
If you enjoyed this article, I suggest that you read:
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Twitter while you travel...seriously
Comments
Check out inoqo (www.inoqo.com), who have a unique hotel rooms service that runs on twitter.
Or you could check out www.voyij.com, they have loads of travel deals sourced from twitter.
I found some good travel deals on accommodations at www.twitter.com/newyorkhabitat or at their main website www.nyhabitat.com. Check out the vacation rentals in New York, Paris, London and the South of France
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