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Steamboat Springs — Steamboat Springs businesses have been following, friending, tweeting and hash-tagging their way into the nonstop world of Web 2.0.

Businesses and groups are using social media to share information about sales and events in Steamboat. They're also talking to one another, repeating Twitter tweets, making Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com connections and spreading the word about what's shaking in Ski Town USA.

Barbara Robinson, general manager of the Holiday Inn in Steamboat, called Twitter "a springboard for instantaneous promotions and updates, something for which the travel industry is suited perfectly."

The hotel posts photos of scenic spots, activities and events, Robinson said. She handles the Holiday Inn account: Steamboat HI.

Twitter allows users to post updates and links containing 140 or fewer characters. The Holiday Inn posts information about events and deals, but Robinson also talks about what she's up to for the day - playing golf in the sunshine, for example.

Users can "follow" other accounts, which means that person's updates appear on their page at Twitter.com or as a cell phone text. Applications such as TweetDeck are available to help people and businesses manage accounts, and users can post updates on Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

Tools to begin

Teri and Gary L. Wall started the Home Builders Association of Steamboat Springs & Routt County this year. The group has a Facebook page, as well as a Twitter account, where it posts information about upcoming events.

On Thursday, the group is sponsoring a workshop led by Brad Hanks, who helps businesses use social media platforms. They met, coincidentally, through social media.

"We connected with Brad on Facebook, and we all got to talking and said, 'Yeah, let's have him here,'" Teri Wall said.

Businesses of all sizes can benefit from engaging in social media, Hanks said. Facebook has hundreds of millions of users globally - and it's free, he said. But the trick to social media is being social, Hanks said.

"It's no different than what we do face to face in our networking," he said. "It's just a different place to do it, but we can't go out there and lead with a sales pitch. We can't continually barrage our customers with a message."

Social media should be treated like a cocktail party, Hanks said. Businesses should engage in conversations about the weather, sports and other workday topics. When the time comes for business, you talk business, he said.

One of the tricks of social media is measuring the success, Hanks noted. Many of the services are free to use, but all require time. Businesses need to make sure they're getting a solid return on their investment.

"Every business is going to have to determine what it is they want to measure, whether it's units sold or relationships created, the number of fans on their fan page, number of followers on Twitter - it takes on a whole lot of components for different businesses," Hanks said.

Measuring success

The Holiday Inn looks at new business leads, comments and recognition by other tweeters, Robinson said in an e-mail.

"I hear from other people that they have seen my tweets," she said. "That means we have opened a new channel of communication with people we did not know before."

Some tweeters aim to pull customers in with tweeted deals. For example, Backcountry Provisions posts sandwich specials and offers a free bag of chips to customers who mention the tweet.

The Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association has four Twitter accounts that serve different purposes, spokeswoman Molly Killien said. The Chamber has tested the waters by asking a question about the All Arts Festival on Twitter and giving an art stroll pass to the first person who answered.

The Chamber put together its accounts carefully, Killien said, to make sure it had a coherent social media strategy. She described Twitter as fun and viral.

"It makes you feel like you're getting the inside scoop," Killien said.

Robinson and Killien learned from Old Town Pub owner Lizzie Larock, an active Steamboat tweeter. Larock said she enjoys tweeting about restaurant specials as well as her life. She suggested that people interested in getting into Twitter sit down with someone who has experience.

"I would say start with Facebook, that's for sure," Larock said. "It's a lot easier to figure out, and I always joked around that I felt like such a dork on (Twitter) because here are all these people talking to each other, and you don't know how to jump in, but what I've found is you just have to jump in."

She started by searching for people who were tweeting about Steamboat. If someone was planning a visit to town, Larock sent a message telling them about local events and inviting them to the pub.

"That's been my strategy is sort of like reaching out to the people that are tweeting about Steamboat and trying to give them helpful information, not being overly promotional about the pub," she said.

Larock said she's had at least three people come into the restaurant through Twitter. One man asked if he could get a deal if he stopped by. Larock offered him a couple of complimentary glasses of wine, and he tweeted her from the restaurant one evening.

Kyle Nelson, who works in sales and marketing at Steamboat-based Spiffy Dog, said his company tries to track its social media success. Spiffy Dog has a presence on Facebook and posts weekly sales on Twitter.

"At this point it's pretty informal," Nelson said. "It's just conversations or e-mails we get from customers who use spiffydog.com, but we're kind of working on a project to enhance our search engine optimization and trackability, and we do have a Web program that we can see were people are coming from."

Proceeding carefully

Hanks plans to focus his talk Thursday on social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Ecademy. The program is aimed at beginner rather than advanced social media users, he said.

Plenty of businesses could stand to learn the basics, Teri Wall said.

"I think I talked to about 15 people in the last week that didn't know you could put your business on Facebook," she said.

Although social media offers free outlets to spread the word about a business, it doesn't replace all other advertising, Hanks said.

"It's certainly not a silver bullet," he said. "People need to understand that. I've known so many companies that have said, 'Social media is great; I'm going to pull the plug on our traditional marketing. You can't do that."