to have more links of my web site at other web sites , does it help a lot ?

It's good to have other websites link to your website, but you have to create a reason for other websites to link to your site. Hostel blogs are one example way to create content that people will link to.

Forums aren't really for direct advertising. Most forums will ban users if they post only for the sake of advertising a commercial business. The best way to use forums is to be a regular user and contribute to discussions by helping other users with the questions. Put a link to your hostel in your signature, but rarely mention your product in your post or users and the forum moderator might consider it advertising.

Social media, including forums, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, typically don't directly bring in a lot of bookings. Social media is the online version of word of mouth advertising. The point is to reach "influencers" who will then spread your message (your hostel's name).

A good book about the viral spread of information is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. He writes that there are three rules for epidemics (including the viral spread of ideas). One of the rules is, "the law of the few" which explains how a small number of people ("influencers") are responsible for the spread of information/ideas across a large number of people.

Social media is full of these kinds of "influencers"... (in this case, the people Gladwell calls "mavens" and "connectors")

I think a lot of hostels begin to use social media and are disappointed because their bookings aren't going up compared to the effort that they are putting into it. But the point isn't to drive bookings -- it's to reach the word of mouth influencers.

If I name a few cities there are probably some hostels that immediately come to mind:

• Amsterdam
• Tokyo
• Sydney
• Madrid
• Paris
• San Francisco
• Prague

The hostels have been able to get their name out there one way or another, and the name of the city immediately brings up the name of a hostel. Once that happens, it increases the chance travelers will mention your name when talking about your city, increases the number of times that bloggers link to your website, and increases the number of times that journalists mention the name of your hostel in their articles.

Social media isn't the only way to do it, but those are the results that I think should be expected from social media efforts: networking with "influencers" but not necessarily expecting an immediate increase in bookings. The end result is more knowledge of your hostel by people, more links to your website (increasing search engine rankings), and more media coverage...