TomTravel2

I am travelling with family, including a five month old girl who is the light of my life. She and I spent the morning watching the traffic on Burton Lane below our suite at Raffles L’Ermitage. This is a lovely property to say the least. The bathroom is huge and so well appointed! I barely had time to scan my email and check my replies before going off to take some photos and schmooze some hotel people. Always a good time!

Last night we ate a wonderful meal at Jaan here at L’Ermitage after driving over from Phoenix with baby and much gear in tow. She travelled well for the most part, but we did have to pull off the freeway and tend to her needs a few times. We were up late at The Writer’s Bar visiting with my best friend from college who has lived here for many years. We had much to catch up on!

To Follow, or Not to Follow? That is the Question!

I just spent about half an hour going through all the new people who followed me this week. I try to get at that task more often, but on a busy week I just don’t. I was pleased to find many interesting folks who showed up. I followed most of the new tweeps back. There were a few I did not choose to follow back which is the subject of this missive.

When I started on Twitter six months ago, I followed everyone back. I did this until I started hitting limits on who I could follow when I hit the magic number of followers. I began to look at who I was following and who was following me in a new light. I also became more selective in who I decided to follow. What “follows” is the loose set of rules I now use to pick who I will follow and who I will not. If you are new to Twitter you might find this helpful if your goal is to have people follow you.

I won’t follow you if…

• If I can’t figure out from your profile and your tweets who you are, I won’t follow you. You may be a swell person, but how am I to know? Put a picture of yourself or an icon that says something about you on your profile! Describe something about your work, your interests, or where you are from. Put a link to your website or at least a Facebook or MySpace page. Write some tweets that tell me something about who you are and what you are about. I look at all this stuff, and if I still don’t know anything about you, I won’t follow you.
• I won’t follow you if you are a robot. If your tweet stream is  just tweeting the same link over and over, I have no use for it. If your tweet stream is a constant flood of news items or press releases you can count me out (I made exceptions for airport updates and my local weather). If you are relentlessly selling something you are not for me.
• If you are trying to recruit me for anything then you are barking up the wrong tree. I generally will not follow MLM , network marketing or affiliate marketing people whose sole purpose on Twitter is to recruit. I make some exceptions for those who offer interesting tweets and only the occasional self promotional tweet. Twitter is a social media not a broadcast media. If you are sociable you are more likely to be successful promoting yourself.
• If your tweet stream is trying to convert me to your religion I will not follow you. I am very happy with my own, and I neither want to hear about yours nor want to tell you about mine.
• If you are angry, extreme in your views, or mean spirited, I will not follow you. I have no room for hate or flame wars in my tweet stream.
• I won’t follow you if you are linking to your porn site. No matter how hot your picture looks.
• If I think you are trying to game the system, I won’t follow you.

Some Leeway?

These are my general guidelines for who I follow and who I don’t. They are not set in stone, and I do bend them quite a bit. I don’t have much time to decide “Do I want to follow this person?” I do take the time to look at each new followers profile though. If I can’t see a reason that I would want to add them to my tweet stream, or I do see a reason not to I just move on. I am much more likely to follow you anyway if you are in the travel business. I am more likely to follow you anyway if I can see that you live in Arizona.

I am not the only person who uses discretion in following. Many have expressed some similar philosophies in blogs and tweets. If you are wanting more people to follow you back, you might learn something from this post that could benefit you. If I did not follow you back because you lacked a complete picture for me to look at, add to your profile, post some friendly tweets, send out some @replies, unfollow me and then follow me again. Chances are good I will follow you back.

What is this?

I was told that I had to check out Twitter by a relative of a friend, so I checked it out. I decided to create a profile name and Tomtravel was taken so I became by accident @Tomtravel2. At first I was baffled by the whole thing, as I was only following a few people who were not tweeting much. Then I listened to a podcast by Laura Fitton @Pistacio on the marvels of Twitter. Much of what she said focused on the utility for business networking and made a lot of sense, so I followed her.

Now I had something! Adding a prolific tweeter livened things up a bit. I began to look at who she was following and followed them. Things got even more interesting, but still being confused I sought clarity and guidance. I followed some of the people on the Twitter Elite list at Twitter Grader. Through the tweets of these “elites” I followed links to some much needed guidance and advice on Twitter usage, strategy and ethics.

Building a Community

While I was in the early stages of my Twevolution I was teaching myself about web site design, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine marketing (SEM). I searched for some likely sources of information in these areas and followed some great tweeters. I live in the Valley of the Sun, or greater Phoenix metropolitan area, where  Phoenix meets Scottsdale so I searched for the Twitter Elite in those two cities and followed them as well. Ditto for Arizona.

I am a travel professional and began to seek people who work or in my field. I also looked for people who expressed an interest in travel. I searched for cruise lines, hotels, resorts, and other travel agents. This activity has made up the bulk of both my following and follower lists. I also followed anyone recommended by or mentioned by the travel tweeters in my network. Within two months I was in the thousands.

Play Nice

One of the most important things I have learned from wiser tweeters is to play nice with others. Stated in many ways by different people that is how I boil it down. My philosophy or “Twilosophy” is to first and foremost use good ethics or “Twethics” at all times. From the beginning I have thanked those who retweet or #followfriday me. I try to return those favors as well. If a tweet amuses, interests, informs, or enlightens me I retweet it no matter who the tweeter is. If it’s cool to me someone who follows me might just like it as well. @tomtravel2 replies are acknowledged and responded to as soon as I can get to them.

Another part of playing nice in my opinion is adding something of value in my tweets. I am a hungry reader of travel news so I post a link most days to the articles I found most of interest. I try to give #followfriday props to tweople who seem to reflect the play nice twilosophy as well. I also try to help new tweeters with a tip or two from time to time. Lastly, I try to add a bit of spice to the Twuniverse by adding a dash of humor in my tweets.

It Works for Me

Since I am not out to gather a huge quantity of followers or make a quick buck with my Twitter activity, what I have done so far works for me. In a few months I have grown a following that has quality and meets my narrow goals. I have met some great people often in random ways. My community is focused on my primary interests with a few exceptions. Twitter has given me an easy and fun way to network with a variety of interesting people in travel and the internet.

I welcome you comments!

The Twitter Trick

If you’ve been tweeting for a while, you have seen DMs, profiles and posts kindly offering to share “The Twitter Trick” or some such nonsense. After following one such link to a dead-end page with a video and a form for my email etc, I lost all interest in a few seconds. I am not a big fan of anything “auto” on Twitter. If I DM you, @ you, or tweet anything  you can be assured that I am doing it manually.

Everything I have done on Twitter is personal. I have sought out people with common interests and common geography to follow. I have chosen not to follow people who are out for a quick buck or a quick bazzillion followers. I have responded to people who @ me, retweet me, and #followfriday me. I have tried to put my personal touch on my tweets even when I am posting the travel news.

Slowly at first, but with growing momentum of late, I have built a good size following. The most important part to me is that I am now connecting with people I want to connect with. Many share a common field of work in the travel business. Many are people who love to travel and looking  for news and insight. Some are in website design, SEO and SEM which are my means to the end of connecting with travelers. Some are Twitter experts who I learn from daily. Some live like I do in the AZ particularly the Valley of the Sun or Phoenix metropolitan area.

“My Twitter Trick”

All in all, “My Twitter Trick” has worked for me. Since I am not out to get as many followers as I can, but rather out to build a quality community I want to interact with, I call it a success! I will lay out the particulars of what I think the Real Twitter Trick is:

Interact, respond, entertain, inform, inspire, and play nice.

Interact

If you are not on Twitter to interact, go home. Twitter is not a broadcast medium, I repeat, Twitter is not a broadcast medium. If you treat it as such you are doing more harm than good to your image, your brand, and your reputation.

Respond

If you are asked a question, answer it. If you receive a comment, reply. Join in the conversation. Better yet, spark up a conversation of your own. Find people with common interest and shoot them a question or comment. Then be ready to respond again. Search your @ replies daily and let people know you see their tweets. Thank those who #followfriday you. Give out #followfriday shout outs of your own, and include people with whom you have interacted.

Entertain

Throw me a bone! Make me smile, make me laugh, make me groan, or make me spray coffee out my nose and I will follow you to the ends of the tweet stream. If something strikes you as amusing I might like it too. Tweet it out there! Many of my most retweeted tweets have had a good dose of humor in them.

Inform

Tell me something I don’t know. I learn something new every day. Now that I am on Twitter, I learn dozens of new things every day. I look for articles or blogs that have something unique in them to link. The “same old, same old”, is not going to get as good a response as the “no kidding” or the “I didn’t know that.”

Play Nice

If someone does something nice for me such as retweeting or giving my tweet a thumbs up, I try to find a way to do something nice for them. I also try to generate random acts of niceness whenever I am tweeting. If I see something I think is of value chances are someone else will gain value if I retweet it. I will do this for any tweet even if I don’t know the tweeter. If I see some one playing nice I will thank them for it.

If you have the urge to play badly restrain yourself. Twitter is a dangerous place to engage in a flame war. Insulting people will get you nowhere fast as many have learned to their dismay.

I hope you like “My Twitter Trick.” Take for a spin and see how it drives for you. I’ll be tweeting you!

Tomtravel2.com

Welcome to Tomtravel2.com! I am as excited about this new venture as I am about travel! On this blog you will find a unique perspective on travel. As a Virtuoso luxury travel agent I will strive to bring insights, observations, news and opinions that will add value to travelers and travel professionals alike. Virtuoso is the first name in luxury travel, and it has been a wonderful experience being a Virtuoso travel agent. This blog has been in the dreaming and planning phase for some time, but an opportunity to “live blog” from the beautiful Riviera Maya south of Cancun has come my way. Because of my upcoming trip I decided to take the plunge and start blogging sooner rather than later.

Travel News

I love to follow the latest news that pertains to all things travel. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I also love to share that news with you. Look for links to articles and blogs on luxury travel, foreign travel, soft adventure travel,travel vendors, trends in travel, and the business of travel. I will also share the quirky, unusual, and odd as I find it.

Twitter and Travel

Many of you will find this blog by way of my “tweets” on Twitter where I am @Tomtravel2. I encourage all lovers of travel, and travel pros to follow me there. Shoot me a DM or reply, and I will be happy to respond. I will over time devote a good deal of my time blogging about Twitter and other social media. I plan to provide some of the resources that I found helpful as I climbed the Twitter learning curve. This exciting new medium is a wonderful way to connect to people with common interests. Future blogs will cover my “Twilosophy” and “Twethics.”

Luxury Travel

I plan to introduce my readers to the best experiences and vendors in luxury travel. This coming week I have the opportunity to visit a number of luxury all inclusive resorts on the Riviera Maya in Mexico (Zoetry, Secrets, and Dreams). Look for detailed reviews with a luxury travel agent’s perspective. I will taking pictures and linking to them from this site. Over time I will include details from all my future travels and some from the recent past.

Travel Business

As a former stock and bond market trader and analyst I have an innate curiosity about how the travel business works. Look for my observations on the business of booking travel, and what it means for the consumer and the industry. I always have an eye on the horizon so I will blog about where I think travel is headed.

Comments Welcome

I look forward to your comments and feedback, and I thank you for visiting my blog.