Some statistics I have been noticing for lodging properties and this is focused on lodging with under 15 rooms:
On average inns with under a thousand but over 400 followers, if a special or news item regarding the inn with a link is tweeted (the same information) 3-4 times per day, It gets between 22-27 clickthroughs, if it is has a really catchy lead in title it gets more hits, this is quite similar to using catchy headlines in e-mail marketing.
Inns that do only one burst with a link included get on average 2-6 click throughs, so repeats seem to work better.
Information with links gets retweeted by others with approximately 16/1 ratio unless the comment by itself is either amusing or very informational (like breaking news) so including links is a good thing, as people are reading them or at least clicking through to were they lead to.
The most traffic (and the most followers talking about them, not just retweets) seems to come from lodging that is providing information not just about their inn but about their surroundings, area events or happenings and links to recipes (from themselves or others)
People that stay in lodging almost 35+% of the time tweet where they are staying, 3-7% include a link url back to the lodging website.
In the last 2 months I have been tracking certain lodging through follows and primarily twittersearch because I can’t pay attention to tweetdeck ALL the time. 
and also a good 30+ lodging people* that I do search for are not ones I personally follow.
*Some have tweeted (repeatedly) in their streams that they are in need of marketers, logo or graphic designers or web people, I don’t follow people or interact with people when they are on twitter that need services like that, I follow people to build relationships, make some buds, I happen to love talking to other inns, some of my best friends are innkeepers and hopefully to pass on some useful information, I’m not on it to market myself. I need a clone as it is and quite frankly would be embarrassed to say something like “hey you should use me for XOXOXOXO” A friend said the day she sees me post a blatant marketing post for myself will be the day she keels over. I know she’s kidding but I would feel uncomfortable doing it. The funny thing is if I were still a chef, I would happily blast out egotistical tweets like “come eat here, we have the best damn crab cakes on the east coast and BTW we have Hartenberg Pinotage on spec this week!” or “Our clam chowder won the Best of the Cape chowder three years in a row and the secret ingredient is one only I know!) THAT I could feel comfy with, but I digress.
What I have been noticing is tons of articles on tourism/hospitality marketing with twitter and yes you should do so and use it, blah blah blah blah but no really comprehensive list of some ideas of what to do, they chuck a couple out there at you but not any real meat.
These would be some suggestions that as a marketing (non-guru but someone that tries to pay attention) person and someone with a background in the hospitality industry and also that I see first hand that a lot of these things are working well for the restaurant industry (because I also track that also) and have been keeping track of what I find awesome and eye catching tweets from lodging, this is what I would tweet about if I was an Inn or B&B (now there’s a run on sentence for ya!) Hopefully the next post can provide some ideas and possibly useful information. Stay tuned for Part 2 as I really need to go eat some dinner and shut the darn computer off.
Takeaways:
- Links are good, more chance of being retweeted and attention drawn to your business
- Use catchy headlines/tag lines
- Provide information, be interesting, link to others, don’t make it all about “you”
- People that stay in lodging almost 35+% of the time tweet where they are staying, 3-7% include a link url back to the lodging website.
