Twitter and WordPress are a match made in heaven. With plugins like Twitter Tools it has the power to streamline communication so that you can play in all the “social networking” sandboxes, without having to manually update each one.

Here’s an overview of the plugin from the author:

Twitter Tools integrates with Twitter by giving you the following functionality:

* Archive your Twitter tweets (downloaded every 10 minutes)

* Create a blog post from each of your tweets

* Create a daily or weekly digest post of your tweets

* Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post

* Post a tweet from your sidebar

* Post a tweet from the WP Admin screens

* Pass your tweets along to another service (via API hook)

The integration is fairly simple and straightforward. If you need assistance you can contact WP-TravelDesign for assistance.

After installation If you’re comfortable with making a quick replacement of code, a couple of hacks that improve the quality of your posts==>tweets.

First, set your twitter tools settings to automatically create a tweet from a blog post. Then edit the /wp-content/plugins/twitter-toools.php file starting at line 171 as follows:

Change
$this->tweet_prefix = ‘New Blog Post’;

to

$this->tweet_prefix = ‘CruiseDeal’;

Or something else that more accurately reflects an intro.

and change

$this->tweet_format = $this->tweet_prefix.’: %s %s’;

to

$this->tweet_format = $this->tweet_prefix.’: %s %s #cruise #travel’;

to include the “Hash Tags” that can be searched in Twitter. Upload and test.

wptravel

Here’s the complete list of WordPress plugins recommended for every travel website with links to download. Read the rest of this entry »

The top question I am asked is, “Pay-per-click or Organic?”

My answer is, “It depends.”

Fuzzy? You bet. Sorry about that. The bottom line is that it depends on what you’re marketing. Recently I launched a campaign for a travel agency client wanting to increase cruise bookings.

Starting with a gemtravelsite base website, built on the Wordpress 2.6 platform, we determined how to integrate the content they received from their consortium for cruises.

The biggest issue all agencies & home based agents face is making sure they aren’t getting buried in search engine ranking by using canned content – it’s duplicate content as far as the search engines are concerned, period.

Next, we built pages for the cruise lines they wanted to sell, featuring the fact that they’re a specialist for a specific cruise line – but ALSO adding content for the features of the cruise line that consumers are probably searching for.  Think: dining options, wedding options & kids programs.

Building the pages allowed us to utilize the built-in marketing features of a GemTravelSite, including tags, categories and search engine friendly pages.

Within a couple weeks, not only were they ranked as the #1 travel agency for the cruise line, the leads were coming in, without having spent a dime on Pay-Per-Click, which would have certainly generated immediate requests, but also immediate spending.

Microblogging, or liveblogging is a method of blogging which involves sending short bursts of information – usually less than 160 characters at a time – the primary purpose being speed.

The most popular service is Twitter, which has come under fire in the past for instability and network issues. Since about early August 2008 it seems to have mostly ironed their issues out.

Twitter accepts messages, or “tweets” via the web page, Text (SMS) message and also through a variety of third-party services and downloads such as Twhirl.

Some of the larger news organizations are using twitter, including the New York Times, CNN, and NPR and several businesses. There’s even a famous story of a disgruntled client of Comcast Cable being contacted after tweeting about her dissatisfaction.

Personally, I think this is a huge opportunity for the travel industry. Imagine posting a special with 1500 or more followers. It’s free, easy – by design – to use, and has huge potential.

In this new era of marketing the active buzzword is “social networking”. It is everywhere, cleverly disguised with names such as web 2.0, the new ‘net or social marketing. It’s really very simple. It’s connecting with others. If you’re a business then you hope that connection is a lead or a booking.

The methods are varied. MySpace is popular, but I find it fairly useless for business. Personally, I prefer Facebook. I also use Twitter, which is a microblogging program that’s gaining every day in use and popularity. Getting started is the hardest part, but well worth it.

The main thing is this: the real purpose of the Internet was to connect. Websites were fairly impersonal and one-sided. The new era is more of a conversation. In that spirit, I ask you… what programs do you use and how?