At this point in time, I think that travellers need to create their own events to Tweet. A la the Twitchiker (http://twitter.com/twitchhiker)

If you’re useful, interesting, succinct and compelling then you’ll draw more followers and be in a better position to … well, do some more tweeting. Or writing, or podcasting, vodcasting or whatever it is that comes next. IMO, the technology (i.e. Twitter) is the channel, not the end-game. There is no point becoming the Greatest Travel Tweeter for hire… no doubt, the next Big Thing will sweep you under the social media rug.

We’ve built our audience, but — more importantly — it gives us a chance to meet all sorts of great people who have been travelling longer than us. We’ve picked up great opportunities too: the chance to go bungy jumping in NZ, get various products for review and collaborate with other writers and travel bloggers.

While we haven’t been given any “live-tweeting” gigs, people know that a Twitter-stream is part of what we publish and that’s important.

I’ll be collecting a few more insights and then it will be to the writing room

Peter

Do you mean, how to get a job live-tweeting events? I would say that it’s similar to writing a regular article – contact the editor of the publication/head of the event, and propose your live coverage of the event. Tell them why you’re the best candidate to do it, how it would benefit them, and why you’d have more reach/impact than another person.

Number of Twitter followers shouldn’t be the only metric, either. Some people may have tons of followers but neither they, nor their followers, are into golf, for example, so they’d be the wrong ones to live-tweet a golfing event.

The pay scale would probably be pretty low (your entrance to the event might be the only “pay”) but many organizations might see it as a way to get the attention of people who might otherwise not even know the event was happening.

Some sort of disclosure that you’re tweeting on behalf of the host would seem appropriate. Having gone through that minefield myself recently, I can attest that more disclosure is better than less.

I live-tweeted the Reader’s Choice Awards event for “Condé Nast Traveler” in fall 2008 – my travel expenses were paid but I didn’t get a salary. The magazine and I both saw it as a unique opportunity to highlight what they do each year with an extensive reader input survey.

Another issue is annoying your Twitter stream. I kinda spew a lot anyway, but if I’m live-tweeting I “never shut up.” I’m sure I’ve lost tweeps that way, tho I try to warn them & suggest they temporarily unfollow.

Hope it helps : )