Top Hotelier Twitter'ers: Learning By Example. By Andy Hayes ~ Exclusive for 4Hoteliers.com Wednesday, 24th February 2010

Twitter is one of those beasts: you’ll either love it or hate it, it might feel natural to you when you sit down to interact with your “followers” or you might not have a clue as to what you should be doing. 

If you read my previous piece, you’ll know of some great things you can share with others on Twitter. 

But maybe you can learn more by example? 

If so, then start following these ten great hotel accounts, big and small. Then follow their lead, because they’re doing it well.

• Fairmont Hotels:  Hosted by tweeter Mike Taylor, Fairmont’s account feels like a busy café, with insights as to what’s going on behind the scenes at the hotel chain, as well as timely destination information.  Never a dull moment.
• 2Edinburgh:  Small hotelier Susan McNaughton is one to look at if you don’t know how to squeeze a few more tweets into a busy day; she keeps her Twitter account fresh with useful knowledge and updates about Edinburgh and Scotland wherever she happens to be.
• Hotel Max:  Hotel Max in Seattle is proof that you can still drive sales with Twitter rates and specials while still being cool and conversational.
• The Happy Hotelier:  Guido’s a very small hotelier, but his personal brand has a huge following and he’s a very influential blogger in the travel sphere.  If you want to blog with a following, check out Guido’s personable and open style.
• Mustapha’s Place:  Rachel might be cheating as she is also a freelance journalist, but it’s hard not to share what’s going on at a hotel described as “laidback and funky.”  The perfect balance of personal and professional, check out how Rachel does business.
• Tiara Hotels:  Tiara Hotels in Lisbon has managed to create a lovely neighbourhood atmosphere – notice how they mostly tweet in English with the occasional Portuguese tweet, which is a nice way to handle it, particularly if you target audience speaks a different language than where you are based.
• New York Helmsley hotel:  The NY Helmsley is proof that you don’t need a lot of followers to have a great conversation with consumers.
• The Peabody Memphis:  If you want to Tweet with character and personality, then the Peabody is your competition.  Sometimes quirky and other times downright hilarious, their twitter stream is a must-read.
• Calabash Hotel: The Calabash might be stranded on the island of Grenada, but they manage to keep in touch with folk all around the world with ease with enthusiasm and passion. 
• Amic Hotels:  I’ve had the fortunate pleasure of meeting the faces behind the Amic brand, and it was clear they get very excited about giving people great experiences, and you can see that from their Tweets.  Follow Amic only if you want to get passionate, because theirs is infectious.