Twitter tips for travellers to Thailand

I am definitely no social media expert, especially with twitter, proven by my huge 66 followers, but I am quickly beginning to understand the benefits it can have to anybody planning their travels, moving to a new place or currently travelling.

I’ve only recently started to use twitter properly, my last use was with my now defunct band, The Dirty Roger (@thedirtyroger), during that time I found twitter to be largely pointless as I was poor at maintaining any tantalising communication with others through my tweets and found the twitter.com single page interface difficult and annoying to navigate. Over the years I have read about the importance if using Twitter for online marketers, bands, brands and bloggers and decided that when I started this blog I would give it a real go. I signed up for a new account @faranginthai, although in this post I’m focusing on Thailand using these twitter tips for travelling would be applicable to any area.

There are a couple of simple things that have changed my approach and evaluation of Twitter, here is a basic 3 step approach to using twitter for travellers.

Tweetdeck

I heard about this application after reading an article in the Guardian about twitter buying tweetdeck, a UK start-up company for £25 Million.

Tweetdeck is a twitter platform that makes the act of tweeting so much more pleasurable experience, it’s a a downloadable application available on every platform (Mac, windows, iPod, iPad etc.) and it make following people and trends so much easier. It can simultaneously post to multiple twitter accounts, facebook, myspace etc. There are some other platforms that other people refer, I only recommend Tweetdeck as it’s what I use and I’m very happy with it.

If you find Tweetdeck a little confusing here is a help guide How to use Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck makes twitter easy to navigate and managable!

Trends (#hashtags)

It took me a long time to figure out trends, but when I understood how to use them and how to apply them to my needs, it really opened up twitter to boundless possibilites. The basic idea is you follow tweets that mention something you are interested in, this is made possible by the hash tag, #. When people tweet they can put the # infront of a keyword, you can then set twitter to follow all these trends.

Tweetdeck makes this really simple by allowing multiple windows open on your screen to follow each trend you are interested in. Following these trends enables you to follow specific topics, leading to web opportunities otherwise unavailable. Through trends I have made new contacts, found new interesting websites sites, stayed on top of current events etc.

There are also virtual meet-ups, tweet ups as people call them. One that I follow regularly is #ttot (Travel talk on Twitter) . Every Tuesday people the world over interested in travel trend this topic, people tweet links, images, blog posts, podcasts, mp3’s all related to travel this is useful in keeping ontop of travelling trends and connecting with new people. Also people tweet about parties in the local areas with hash tags, something I haven’t done yet but if I hear of one in Thailand when I’m there I’ll definitely be going.

These are some of the travel related trends that I follow:

#RTW (round the word) #TTOT (Twitter talk on Travel) #TRAVEL #BANGKOK #CHIANGMAI

Following locals

Epic tiger blood twitter master, Mr Sheen, not in Bangkok though!

When I first created the account I looked for people who lived in Thailand, I did this by using the hashtags #thailand #bangkok #chiangmai. Once I started to follow these trends I was able to recognise people who appeared to be from Thailand and then I started to follow them. I suppose this is Twitter stalking, but don’t feel bad it’s a quick easy way to meet people in any area.

I never knew how it was possible to create online friendships with twitter before, it always seemed a little alien to me and I suppose it still is, but just in the last month of tweeting I have started to connect with people in Thailand who have been helping me out with some questions.

Following local news agencies and journalists is one of the best ways to get to know the area, in Thailand there seems to be many people and agencies that tweet the news regularly it really helps you keep to date of political and social changes in the country.

A few people I recommend to follow include:

@bkk_post
@bangkok
@richardbarrow
@bangkokpundit
@bkkapologist
@georgebkk

There are loads more out there, just do a quick search in twitter for your local area and find people to follow

A basic 3 step approach to using twitter for travelling or moving to any place. There are many other websites with extensive professional information that are dedicated to social media and twitter advice, a few I use are mashable.com and twitip.com. Try them to read further about how twitter can help you enjoy your travels.

Feel free to follow me on twitter @faranginthai