Have you ever used Twitter to plan your trip to Costa Rica? If you haven’t, you may be missing out on special offers, travel giveaways and crucial information that could make your sojourn more enjoyable. Thanks to digital marketing initiatives managed by the government’s Board of Tourism (Spanish initials: ICT), our country has a very solid presence on Twitter. For example, a quick Twitter search for mentions of Costa Rica in mid-September returns travel sweepstakes from The Verge as well as volunteer opportunities at the Animal Rescue and Conservation project. In addition to these two travel updates, we also found very useful travel tips such as on-the-ground weather reports, rainy season hotel discounts, acid rain warnings near volcanoes, and more.

 

As we previously reported a couple of years ago, ICT’s top-level marketing strategies to promote our country on a global stage have paid off considerably, and Twitter has been one of their strongest platforms in this regard. Here at The Costa Rica Star we have been going through restructuring in the last few weeks, and that includes taking a critical look at our social media strategy, which is currently on hold. Twitter was a strong social media channel for us at one point, and we are carefully reconsidering how we will approach it this time. To this effect, we have been getting advice from Philip Mack, author of the Success Guide to Twitter Marketing, who provided us with a free copy of his ebook.

 

Some of our readers will remember that we featured an interview with Mr. Mack a couple of weeks ago; he gave us his input on the status of Pinterest marketing in Costa Rica. We are still undecided about Pinterest, but Twitter is a social network we are willing to return to, which is something that Mr. Mack says we must absolutely do. He also shared his opinion on how Twitter marketing is evolving in Costa Rica via Skype chat:

 

The Costa Rica Star (TCS): So you know that we are looking into revamping our social media presence. We still have not come to a decision on Pinterest, but we know we will return to Twitter.

 

Mr. Philip Mack (PM): As you should. Twitter is the string ties all your social media efforts together. If something is happening anywhere, you can bet on it being discussed on Twitter. I may sound like a cliché by saying this, but Twitter has really become the CNN of the 21^st century.

 

TCS: In your guide you mention how Twitter is the new Real Simple Syndication (RSS).

 

PM: That is how I use it these days. Remember those start pages of yore? Or Google Reader? Twitter has replaced them. I stay updated by glancing at my feed or going directly to my favorite profiles. For example, I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, but I actually pick the WSJ content I want to read from Twitter.

 

TCS: We would like that. We want our Twitter followers to come directly to our profile, look at our updates and choose what they want to read first.

 

PM: But for that you need to get back to tweeting, which you have not done in a while. You are losing your share of the social media market by not doing so.

 

TCS: We are working on returning to Twitter and social media in general, but we want to do it right. You start off your guide by mentioning that Twitter has largely replaced the world depicted in Mad Men, and then provide some amazing statistics about a single tweet posted by Ellen DeGeneres.

 

PM: There is a lot to learn from that selfie. It taught many lessons and signaled to the entire world that Twitter is truly at the center of digital marketing. Twitter is for more than just content marketing and brand promotion, it is a smart Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, which is why you and everyone else should be taking advantage of it.

 

TCS: In your guide you mentioned the possibility of using Twitter as the sole Internet presence for a small business.

 

PM: I specifically give the example of a street hot dog cart vendor running his business from a GPS-enabled smartphone and a Twitter account. That’s it: No website or landing pages, no email and no other social networks. Just Twitter. And you know what? It works. This vendor tweets menus, price lists, coupons, photos, his cart’s location, and even interacts with customers via Twitter for the world to see. It is highly transparent.

 

TCS: Amazing. Have you seen this in Costa Rica?

 

PM: I have seen a few brick-and-mortar businesses that include their Facebook Timeline on their storefront sign. We are talking about pizza joints and smartphone repair shops. Then I investigate further and see that it’s their sole Internet presence, which is smart. They cut down on website hosting and development, they have a free CRM tool and are using a platform that I have noticed is very popular in Costa Rica.

 

TCS: Extremely popular. We have more than 50,000 Facebook followers, but less than 10,000 on Twitter.

 

PM: Hold on there. I reviewed your 2011 article about social media in Costa Rica and compared it to today’s Twitter statistics, and the growth since then has been significant, particularly when you consider that your country has no SMS gateway for this network. Why is that?

 

TCS: That’s a story I once researched with ICE, which is our former communications monopoly. I asked and fell into this incredible maze of obfuscation and red tape and never got an answer. We could certainly use the ability to access Twitter via SMS in Costa Rica.

 

PM: Still; you have about 7,000 Twitter followers who are not engaged. And they are followers whom your competitors would really like to have. They are influencers -Twitter users who have a strong following and command respect. You know who I see on your list? Public officials, journalists, academics, athletes, entertainers, writers, and others who are newsmakers themselves. Many of them have retweeted your updates and marked them as favorites, and then there are these conversations that develop around your content.

 

TCS: We had no idea until we saw the reports you sent us. We also saw many police officers and attorneys on the list, and it made us nervous.

 

PM: Well, you do publish crime reports, so it’s natural to see law enforcement following you on Twitter.

 

TCS: We hope you are right. And then you showed us this TweetReach report; that was neat.

 

PM: It is one of many tools you should be using. It is used to measure the immediate impact of your tweets and how many accounts your content reaches. The other reports I sent you are from Sprout Social, which is one of many social media analytics tools you could be using to produce better content for your readers. This should all be part of your marketing plan, which is something I cover and stress on the guide. Even if you are a micro business such as a hot dog vendor, you need to draft a marketing plan and stick to execution.

 

TCS: Thank you very much. The guide is certainly elucidating, and we will be applying some of its advice, specially with regard to honest engagement.

 

PM: Yes, you have to avoid the “silent tweep” syndrome. That’s when all you do is post updates and don’t care about what your followers are saying. This tends to happen when you use one of those automated methods for posting your articles on Twitter.

 

TCS: You mean like a WordPress plugin that tweets for you? Guilty as charged.

 

PM: Exactly. I recommend, when possible, going into your Twitter profile, posting the update yourself, and staying logged in so that you can see the notifications pop up about who is retweeting, responding and otherwise reacting to your update, because you have to take action on those items. You may have to answer, give thanks, welcome new followers, ask questions, etc. Once you get the hang of it, you can move up to using HootSuite or a similar management tool that consolidates your social media accounts.