Twitter can be a powerful promotional tool for your blog or website, but it also makes a great supplement.

Twitter adds personality to your brand

Many top blogs are becoming like online magazines. Staffed by full-time professional writers, there is a tendency to become overly factual.

But through a Twitter account, many corporate bloggers feel more free to be themselves and lighten up a bit. By bringing these two tools together, you can provide both informative content and a little personality behind it.

Twitter helps you get to know your readers

Blog discussions in the comment section can serve the same function, but I find them to be less spontaneous than the back-and-forth nature of Twitter. For any blogger, it’s important to build relationships with your readers, and regular communication is the way to do that.

Twitter expands your network

I’ve probably met more new people through Twitter than any other social networking tool. Whether it’s another blogger or a business you wanted to find, Twitter can help open doors and establish connections.

Twitter is an idea goldmine

If you follow the right people, just watching the tweets stream by for a few minutes can give you lots of fresh ideas and interesting links. I use TweetDeck to carefully monitor a select group of people’s tweets, and usually check in a few times each day.

Additionally, you can get a lot of very good ideas by asking questions to your followers. Whether you just want a second opinion on your logo design, or need to do a more in-depth survey, it’s a very convenient to have real time feedback.

Twitter is also a great research tool

Twitter is a recorded stream of consciousness of the web. Entering keywords into search.twitter.com helps you measure the pulse of what people are thinking.

Twitter is the preferred subscription method for some

Some people would rather receive your blog updates on Twitter than through RSS or email. Whether the motive is accessibility or security, cross-promoting blog updates on Twitter is a good idea for these people.

Let me ask you: Does Twitter help you as a blogger? Drop by my shiny new Twitter page and let me know.

Kristy and her husband were not happy with their recent stay at a Utah Comfort Inn. A lack of daily room cleaning and the busload of noisy teenagers staying on the floor above (“like sleeping under a herd of elephants”), caused her to complain to hotel management. Unsatisfied by a discount offer and apology letter, she tweeted about the hotel – getting the attention of Choice Hotels (the parent company).

This story was posted on the Consumerist yesterday, with most of the readers siding with the hotel in this case. Whether this person had a legitimate grievance is debatable, but the bigger issue is that guests are now taking their complaints online.

They go to Twitter

Kristy isn’t alone. A quick search on Twitter reveals hundreds of hotel complaints each day. The stream-of-consciousness format makes it very easy for guests to share what’s bothering them.

They go to their blogs

Ranting about a poor hotel experience on a blog is nothing new: there are whole blogs built around this concept.

The problem with a negative blog review is that it typically has a long shelf life – and can rank highly in search engines for your hotel’s name. This greatly increases the chance a potential guest will find it when they look for you.

Another interesting thing I’ve observed is that unhappy guests will sometimes post a complaint on a seemingly unrelated blog. For example, Wyn complained on my Hyatt Twitter Concierge story that unless the company fixes their customer service and loyalty programs, Twitter isn’t going to help. (point taken)

They go to TripAdvisor, Yelp, Qype…

Of course. You know that.

But even if you have the good humor to create staff t-shirts with 1-star reviews – like San Francisco’s Pizzeria Delfino – these negative reviews can seriously cut into your hotel’s profit.

They go to OTAs

In my experience, hotel marketers generally check guest reviews on sites like Travelocity and Orbitz less often than TripAdvisor.

Unless you monitor your reputation here as well, negative comments could fly under the radar and reduce the revenue you receive through these channels.

They go to Facebook

More and more hotels are moving to set up a presence on Facebook, and as with Twitter, the convenience makes it easy for people to share a bad experience with hundreds of their friends.

They go elsewhere

People can post complaints anywhere on the web: YouTube, Flickr, forums – the possibilities are endless. The reality is that the internet empowers consumers like never before. Anyone can say anything – with a megaphone.

It’s a control freak’s nightmare, but shouldn’t be a huge concern to hotels that make guest satisfaction a top priority.

The lesson

Customers are quickly taking their complaints online if they don’t receive a satisfactory resolution. Neglecting to solve problems offline could really damage your reputation online.

Your Homework: Make sure you’ve set up “listening tools” to quickly catch if someone makes a comment about your business like this.

For a list of free listening tools – plus an action plan for managing your online reputation – see my article on beating negative hotel reviews.

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