Hraba Hospitality Consulting

I had been finding it difficult to explain *exactly* what I am doing for hotels.  Lots of the baby boomers are confused about it, but they know the kids are getting them on facebook.  Even the tech savvy ones that understand social media’s impact still can’t wrap their heads around it.  So I wanted to write a concise definition that I could pass around to clients, friends, family, etc.  I think this is good.  Any feedback is appreciated.  Cheers!

Social Media and traditional marketing, In or Out?

This isn’t marketing or press in the traditional sense, and thinking of it like that is where a very large disconnect will start to occur.

Print media marketing is highly manipulated brand management, with an “opt out” style of force feeding clients your information.  Most people think of this as spam now.  Billboards, print ads, radio commercials… all mentally tuned out and becoming ineffective.  That media model will always exist, but now….even Tivo makes it so people don’t even *WATCH* commercials anymore, let alone listen to them.  Print will always be around, but the media has effectively stopped working as it did.

Social media, conversely, is where consumers choose to “opt in” to your brand.  What’s more, they control your brand with one social voice, therefore encouraging you to build and maintain a brand that has an ethic, ethos, and intent that the consumer can identify with.  Damage control and retroactive brand management doesn’t work as effectively.

So, social media is not about forcing people to like your brand, but courting those that already do.  100 people interested in your brand are worth much more than the 10,000 print media people that are not.  There are photo sites, mini blog sites, and more where people are talking about you!  Conversation is happening everywhere, and it is important to engage these people as an interested, interactive community member rather than someone just selling something. Consumers will only trust, identify with, and endorse your brand if you are transparent and earnest.

Interested consumers are talking about you all over the world and you need to engage them!!

I am just trying this, but I believe rooting yourself as someone concerned and earnestly aware of the community surrounding you is a smart move in trying to create legitimacy to your twitter account.  Not only that, having local and impacting stories about your community helps get more eyes on you.  First they will be looking at info about the surrounding area, then they will be noticing your brand and your offerings.  Does anyone have any experience with building a diverse twitter account to represent a hotel or brand?  Let’s hear your stories!

There is sudden, endless interest on how to instill the labour for a social media person on the property level of a hotel.  But if you look back in my posts, you will be reminded that hotels are not technological innovators, and are typically behind the curve.  Nothing to be ashamed of, as we aren’t in the technology business.  We are the hotel business.  Sometimes, however, it feels like we have been co-opted (Some of us still remember punch card days).

Until we end up back in the “guest ledger on a lazy Susan” days, much of this “social” or “new” media is being thrust toward the marketing and PR firms of hotels, and they are panicked looking for measurable impressions, calculable effect, and readying themselves to be in control of a massive and daunting visual display of graphs, charts, and quantified data.

But data is not readily available, and measurements are confounding at best (Just because we have become comfortable with a tool of measuring impact of dollars spent, doesn’t mean it’s flawless.  For this reason, I still suspect print measurement).

In the end I think “ROI” conversations will fall by the wayside as properties recognize that you simply need to be part of the conversation.  It will be like a “internet concierge”, and just part of your overall labour budget.

Back to the PR people.

It is damning for marketing groups however, because in a world of too much information these poor people just became responsible for so much more – keywords, tags, blogs, videos, user generated content, etc.  Frankly, keeping up with my google alerts is a job within itself.  So I have a empathic concern for marketing groups that will have to hire some Gen Y kid just to watch the stream of internet consciousness…. It is confusing, and overwhelming.  Learning to not waste your time with some, while being hyper-aware of other data… this is the ultimate experience of separating the wheat and chaff, as well as looking for a needle in a haystack the entire time.

New Media and old Marketing have about as much in common as <insert witty dichotomy>, but these companies are still tagged with the responsibility of following this new stream of information.  It is like when a F&B manager is fired, the floor manager fills in the F&B Manager spot… and then what do you have?  You have a floor manager (someone skilled at a specific job) acting as an F&B manager (a totally different job)… you haven’t increased the floor managers salary (limiting incentive to fill the role), but that person becomes taxed/stressed and is doing a job outside their experience level or role.  Such is the path of social media being slopped on top of traditional marketing firms responsibilities.

Until hoteliers, operators, marketing teams, and ownership step back, recognize what social media is, and implement someone who is meant to grow into the role and focus on the online concierge aspects of web 2.0…. owners will be anxious, marketing groups will be taxed and confused, and hotel management will be nervous.

Social media is not Marketing & PR the same way college degrees or public relations have prepared people for.  Giving the job to someone that doesn’t understand it in the hopes of being successful with a campaign, while performing on the job training, is dangerous and we need to move past it.

At least, let’s let them focus on their skill set, while allowing already operating members of the social media conversation to fill in as “online concierge”.  Traditional marketing and PR is changing, but it will never go away.  It will be in flux for some time, and might put a new notch in the belt buckle, but it will always be necessary and vital.  It won’t be, however, the long term mitigator of social media.  This is a slapdash approach to new media, and in time it will move to a property level, corporate/property specific job.

What’s more is that this is an exciting moment in hospitality.  This is new job forming!  How often does that happen?  We have been skilled at getting rid of the labour pool for years (just think of the last time you saw an elevator operator or shoe shine booth).  This new position will be a customer relations specialist , and will be filled by erudite, excited, savvy people that have hospitality’s core beliefs at their forefront:  Be aware of the guests needs, and service them based on those needs.  Whether they are in front of you or not is irrelevant.  It isn’t about controlling your brand, damage control, or PR.  It is about earnest concern about a guest’s reactions, needs, or thoughts.  It is about being real in your conversation with a guest, precisely what much of marketing is not.  To be fair, at least we can lighten the load on these confused firms that overreact to one bad review, or panic because they still don’t “get” twitter.

I look at this as a great opportunity for hotels to transcend the limiting mentality that web 2.0 is all marketing and PR.  It is daunting to be sure, but it is also humbling, fulfilling, and vital to the ethos of your brand, and the core of your offerings.

It’s time to get hip, and it’s time to be real.

This is from the “CNET” article with the ethics professors being quoted:

“‘Somebody is lying, or there is just too much confusion. Either way, Yelp’s got a problem,’ said Thomas White, director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University. ‘Trust is too easy to compromise and lose.’

Kirk O. Hanson, an ethics professor and executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said Yelp needs to better understand and manage the ethics risk that its business model presents.”

I don’t necessarily think anyone is lying.  But I do think the power of the last words hadn’t even been thought of until recently.  I often take a swipe at yelp for focusing too much on drunken youth culture versus running an important business.  I will say that if they hadn’t really gripped some of these concerns before…. they are mired in them for now.

Good reading:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10168065-2.html

Cnet’s question of credibility? (with a reprint of yelp reviews… might be interesting especially if you are mark W or fawn P.  I doubt they asked you to use that eh?)  This is amazing, as the reporter covers internet security and privacy, and an ethics professor call yelp out directly about there being “a problem”.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=13222

Commentary about yelp focusing on reporter during rebuttal, not reporter; suggests Stoppelman isn’t doing much to resolve problem head on and really lays into his approach to business, etc.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/around_town/dining/Town-Hall-Mardi-Gras-Yelps-Twitter-Onslaught.html

Stoppelman going totally unhinged and loco on Twitter – he responded to me too.  Unhinged might be strong, but he obviously doesn’t know how to use twitter.  Maybe it is the right way  I think it is *hilarious*.  The site that helped deconstructing a brand’s ability to control the message, or do PR damage control is the one trying the most desperately to do so.  IRONY is rare… oh so rare.  What else it begs whether the leadership there is just surfing keywords on the internet or actually running a business.

http://consumerist.com/5157591/companies-accuse-yelp-of-review-extortion-yelp-says-no-way

The Consumerist weighs in, but the comments suggest the readers are experiencing ethical issues or confusion, at the least.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/159911/dont_trust_yelp_or_anyone_else_with_your_online_reputation.html

Pc World comes out with an article about not trusting yelp with your rep as a business

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/02/22/yelp-blames-review-filter-part-bad-press

(More Stories from businesses)

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/02/20/yelp-disputes-extortion-story/

Wall Street Journal

http://www.examiner.com/x-2727-Chicago-Cats-Examiner~y2009m2d21-Vets-in-Chicago

Can you trust reviews for important decisions like vet?  One blogger suggests you can no longer truly trust yelp.

http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/02/yelp-rejects-claims-of-extortion/

The financial Times, so one twitter user suggested that this will be picked up into Europe a bit… good point @shmooth

With all this bad press, I am starting to become really interested in the hospitality industry’s response to all this?

Yelp definitely effects us… but how?  Are any of you innkeepers, B&B owners, operators, managers, managing groups using yelp, or a paying advertiser on the site??  I would love to hear all your stories… good and bad.

I will start with mine:

You know I am highly skeptical of social media, and I am markedly perturbed at the style of leadership and business management from the people in charge.  But what you don’t know is this:

I am a 1100+ reviewer on yelp.  I had been using it since it’s earlier startup days, and it just sort of became a food blog for me.  There was a momentary ethical crisis when I started working for businesses that exist on yelp, so I pulled back all hotel related reviews or any reviews that may have had a conflict of interest.  I comport myself of the highest ethics on the site.  I am also one of their biggest critics, and have not endeared myself to the site as a content generator.  But I love it, and think it is a fun way for me to relive experiences, and help me remember where I have been.

As for business side of things I can’t say much.  I think it is an invaluable tool to get real time feedback and ideas for improvements on service and the like.  It really has helped the properties I am involved with grow, and I think the bad reviews are better than the good ones.  It is just a new level of comment cards.  Nothing as quantified and rigorous as Market Metrix, but a very good pulse as to the state of the business, and what direction it is heading.

That being said, I think it is odd that I have had pleasant experiences both as a user, as well as a business person (my experiences with the sales agents are PHENOMENAL.  Period.  I like the people and they are solid.  Never one problem)….

But I still don’t trust the concept.  And that is the rub…. why wouldn’t we?  Is that we know too many of the bad reviews?  Is it the way they handle themselves in the public eye?  Do I have some bitter attitude towards them and bone to pick?  I honestly don’t know… as for the latter I highly doubt it.

I think it is that I love the site so much for personal reasons, and it is useful on so many levels for professional reasons, that I get panicked by the management practices (or lack there of).  I just want to see it succeed, and I don’t see any reason to believe it will.

I would love Yelp to look forward and stop focusing on damage control and PR.  They made it so you can’t manage your brand or control the message the same way you used to…. And it is important they become a transparent, openly ethical social media company.  Like the ethicist said, “Whether someone is lying or it is just confusion, yelp has a problem”.

So I want to hear your stories… problems, great stories, etc?  Let us have it!

Here are some of the links I previously spoke about in regards to social media sites not being profitable.  I note, when people find that these sites are not profitable, I am often met with surprise in lieu of all the buzz and media about them.  Buzz does not profit make.

YOU READER!  You yourself may not have thought of it – but facebook, youtube, yelp, tripadvisor, linkedin, twitter…. none of these powerful sites have proven the social media ad-model, nor been able to turn a profit.  I am not sure if I published these links already, but they are good for thought.  It is sort of ripped out of a previous yelp conversation, found (yes unfortunately on yelp) HERE.  It is a good thread about yelp.  I am not going to elucidate, but we might all agree that Fishbits X is one of the most thougthful, prolific yelpers out there (tongue firmly in cheek).  The below tracks some of the conversation about monetization and creating web 2.0 to actually be profitable, which it is not.

Cheers!

Kelleher from Wired.. his thoughts earlier last year:
http://www.wired.com/t…

A CNN / Fortune article about Facebook’s Number 2 being “the one” who can make it profitable:
http://money.cnn.com/2…

while facebook has money problems:
http://www.techcrunch….
“facebook headed for financial ruin?
http://www.marketingpi…

a good dollars and sense vs pageviews cut up of the issue:
http://okdork.com/2008…

And I think the AOL Yahoo thing brought out some interesting comments… especially from Randy Falco
http://gigaom.com/2008…

“But despite drawing large, engaged audiences, other social networks have not been able to make the experiences relevant to users and marketers alike.”

How Yelp works… a totally delusional, mindless, idiotic ramble that I choose to pull from the threads *there* to this site *here* for multiple reasons.  If you need to know the reasons, just make up your own… they will suffice.  =)

—–

Chicago does not click on sponsored biz results… at least… active yelpers that talk.
(http://www.yelp.com/topic/chicago-do-you-click-onto-yelp-s-sponsored-ads)

and albeit not directly about yelp, it has the same model… which ABSOLUTELY no one understands how to convert the traffic into money.

Kelleher from Wired.. his thoughts earlier this year:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_socialnetworks

A CNN / Fortune article about Facebook’s Number 2 being “the one” who can make it profitable:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/11/technology/facebook_sandberg.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008041213

while facebook has money problems:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/31/facebooks-growing-problem/

“facebook headed for financial ruin?
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/10/facebook-headed-for-financial-ruin.html

a good dollars and sense vs pageviews cut up of the issue:

http://okdork.com/2008/04/02/the-money-problem-with-facebook-myspace-hi5-apps/

And I think the AOL Yahoo thing brought out some interesting comments… especially from Randy Falco
http://gigaom.com/2008/04/10/aols-falco-gets-something-right/

“But despite drawing large, engaged audiences, other social networks have not been able to make the experiences relevant to users and marketers alike.”

And that last link says it very succinctly….

“That right there is the reason I’m hostile to most social networking and social networking-related startups that plan to rely on advertising: They’re depending on marketers to foot the bill while at the same tailoring their content to users that are generally hostile to or uninterested in marketing.”

The Economist this week bolstered the internet ad model revenue stream as growing and potentially immune to downturn in this economy, in lieu of a failing print and standardized ad media. (you may need an account with the economist) “Internet Advertising will be relatively unscathed during this downturn”.

In this article (http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4030635.search?query=online+marketing+tools+for+hotels) it states that in 2007, of surveyed hotels, nearly 70% shifted marketing from offline to online … which is a stunning amount. Because of print media wasting away, and the economic downturn on top of it, it is only going to grow.

However, I do not think the Social Media side is the “be all end all” of the internet. I am highly distrustful of it, in that a networking effect doesn’t equate to dollars, and ROI is quite difficult to quantify. Albeit the 2.0 sales people suggest that you can highly target consumers, I still haven’t seen evidence indicating it as a clear cut success.

In fact, the big guys are concerned too. CEO Falco from AOL suggested that no one has any idea how to monetize Social Media (http://gigaom.com/2008/04/10/aols-falco-gets-something-right/). The ad model is in question for these 2.0 web outlets: Facebook, Youtube, Yelp, and others. They are not profitable yet, and they have a long way to go. (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_socialnetworks, http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/11/technology/facebook_sandberg.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008041213, http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/31/facebooks-growing-problem/)

They have not been able to monetize the massive networking effect that has happened, and the generally accepted problem is this: Marketers are forced to pay the money for the social ads, while the social users are generally uninterested or distrustful of marketing and advertising. A large majority of users ignore or simply “don’t see” the ads.. actually mentally blocking them out. Some of gone so far as to intentionally ignore all of the ads, considering them spam.

So, I do not endorse striking out with mitigated advertising schedules on social media channels. The ad model isn’t solid, and there is very little quantifiable evidence that it works at all. I must admit, the problem of the original survey (half of CMO’s uninterested) is that it *seems* only to appeal to online ad spending, and not brand building. The survey *does* suggest that the word of mouth aspect of social media has a value that far outweighs other methods of communication, so that shows some potential statistical inaccuracy within the study.

Here are some personal thoughts on Facebook. I link it again below, but if you have time you might appreciate it (even longer than this): http://www.squidoo.com/hrabahospitalityconsulting

I think where we spend our online marketing dollars is in aggressive website SEO, comprehensive linking programs, and google keyword accounts, while making sure we also optimize the site for mobile browsing: http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/hotel-mobile-marketing-thoughts/.

*HOWEVER*

There are a number of things about these social media sites that are important to understand:

1) You do not have to spend traditional marketing dollars. You can have free pages, free linking, free SEO just by participating in these sites, boards, and social linking. Every single time you link on one of these sites that is a hugely popular social media venture, their pagerank will make your hotel much more optimized in organic search indexing for google.

2) This is endless brand building. It is free… and it fits into the concept of social media members as “endorsers” (that is a hyperlink to a lot of personal thoughts on brand building within facebook)

3) It is a one to one relationship with guests… and you can reach out and build brand and communicate DIRECTLY with them. Whether the guest was thrilled, or the guest was angry… you can engage them, listen to them, learn from them… and have a real time read and pulse of the consumer and their needs.

4) You have access to honest, immediate, and helpful operating advice that can also be a PR tool. Many people are reviewing hotels within moments of their first experience. Think of being able to reach an unhappy guest *while* the stay is happening, you have created an opportunity for immediate resolution. If you show that sort of awareness – being “dialed in” – you can take the worst experience and change the guest into a long term branded client. Beyond operational help, it becomes a PR tool.

5) Being an active participant in these online channels helps with overall damage control. When social internet reviewers know you are an active and participating property with online review responses, they are less likely to muckrake or slander the property when upset. Typically, non-online, inactive hotels in the social realm have negative reviews because there is no need for accountability in the reviewer. It is like graffiti.. no one really knows who wrote it, and the people it comments on never see it. But, it can be very damaging if not dealt with, depending on who sees it. Conversely, if a reviewer is aware that you are an active member of any given community… they typically are more earnest and grounded in their complaints or suggestions. They give you more credence, and it becomes a two way professional conversation instead of one person alone, shouting negativity at anyone who will listen.

Just because you decide not to focus on web 2.0 doesn’t mean they aren’t talking about you. Twitter, events boards, local boards, review sites, blogs, and an endless stream of travel and hospitality chat sites exist that you need to watch over, maintain, respond to, etc. But this, again, isn’t in terms of impressions or traditional marketing dollars. It is a Social Media Optimization expert, or on staff representative than can find the labour hours to deal with this phenomenon.

I have an internet marketing plan we could go over at some point more convenient. Pardon the long email, but this stuff is wildly interesting, as well as infinitely complex and hard to follow. Just thought I would share what I am on top of.

I have already experienced with a few hotels a blase attitude towards peer reviews because it is “simply a place for people to bitch”, or “whiner central”.  Many hotels have a wait and see attitude about social media, and many are as cantankerous and defensive as…. well… the industry has typically been when regarding technological or social advancement.  We were one of the last industry’s to go wireless, and we were also one of the last to enforce a “no beard” policy.

An aside about the hotel industry if I may:

Industry wide, we are not adapters… nor are we pioneers.  One of the most respected men I know in the industry told me an old industry joke:  “Pioneers were shot in the back.”

ROI is hard to justify when it comes to pioneering new technology that is buggy and will probably fail.  Anyone ever had to rip out faulty construction three days before opening will attest trying the “newer” tech isn’t always the “safest” tech.  And don’t get talking to me about radiant flooring used in commercial hotel projects.  Ugh.

So, it has been hotels standard operating procedure to do the following:

Wait for some other “idiot” (said endearingly) to pioneer the tech.  Let *that* person waste all their money trying it, figuring it out, and then fixing it when it breaks.

After 6 months, you take what they did, *AND WHAT THEY LEARNED*, and do it right, better, and cheaper.

This is a fail safe business plan to be sure, but it does backfire.

So back to the current state of things, IE Hotels Backfiring.  If you are a hotel and don’t get social media peruse the below.

Hotels seem to have a somewhat guarded and defensive approach to social media.  Even the wise properties that are innovative, internet aware, and with strong marketing teams… they are at times LOST.  Scared that their old marketing trends are dying, and now their rolodex and contacts and college degree are quickly becoming a vestige, or worse… irrelevant (that is marketing degrees are now sort of moot if you were in school over 5 years ago.  Yeah it hurts, I am getting old as well). I am not so quick to think it isn’t of merit… but it will take some fixing to get old marketers communicating with new marketers.  It is like the dorky book scientist that needs to explain his innovation to the public but cannot find a simple way to describe what a “Differential Microwave Radiometer”* does.

So… we have hotels looking at social media as a compartmentalized outlet for people to bitch about something with other bitchers (pardon the colloquialistic expression… just imagine you are at one of those managers meetings during a lunch hour with those “types”… you know?).

But it isn’t that.  Well it is.  Actually.  Just look at my previous post.  Sure I attack the consumer, but I must take a swing at the stodgy old hotelier once inawhile too.

Social media is a vital tool for a couple reasons.  One is that you can retroactively “hear” consumers and respond, both directly to them and about the situation.  How you respond is up to you…. like employees fishing comment cards out of the box and ripping up the ones with their name (saw it happen, never did it), or getting these comments to the department heads: GM for serious issues, Rooms for cleanliness issues, Maintenance for broken hooks, etc.  It can actually help you run your business, sure!

But what is more important is where it is taking your brand, and what being aware of social media can do for your brand in the coming 100 years.  Reidentifying, repurposing, and shifting your old brand (that was pushed through old media efforts) into this new world of anti-marketing and all advertising becoming spam.

The upshot is that you can reorganize your business into something with purpose, meaning, ethos, and intent.  Instead of pushing a terrible product (no offense, anyways I mean the other guy reading this) on people with glam marketing tactics like direct mail pieces and flashy billboards (that was tongue in cheek), you reorganize your structure to understand and yield to consumer demand and interest.

Finally, that one human to one human connection exists between social reviewer and business.  When you start seeing how the new market works, and how the new consumer handles businesses (in this case a hotel) you will be able to go from pushing your product, to listening, learning and then packaging your product into something not so much “sellable”, as something highly “DESIRABLE”.

Force fed consumers are a thing of the past, and now consumers create individuality with their demand for quality products to endorse.  People are empty vessels to fill with your brand if they so identify or appreciate the intent behind it.

Realize this.  It isn’t about selling a product anymore.  It is about creating a product people want.

When your brand / hotel / business stops pushing itself on a million people that don’t care about you, and really listening to the 1000’s that do… and modeling yourself to the market…. is when you will start being successful in this post-advert world.

(* a microwave instrument that would map variations / anisotropies in the CMB)

I have been thinking about the odd hypocrisy with some of these review sites…

They want your money for advertising, but won’t do much to help you moderate untruthful reviews.  What’s more, I note once you are “in” with the sales team, your point of contact makes the wheels turn ever so fast.

Which is fine, but then it limits the low revenue mom and pop’s ability to moderate and creates a gap between the have’s and have nots.  Isn’t there always one somewhere?

We all know the silly owners that lash out with libel suits:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/810335-hotels-contacting-posters-tripadvisor-com-about-negative-reviews.html

But my concern is when owners don’t feel they have an outlet or anywhere to complain about lack of responsiveness to ownership.  I have noted this with yelp too.. that they constantly err on the side of the consumer, while attempting to get ownership’s marketing dollars to bolster their ad model revenues?  This seems like an inherent flaw doesn’t it?

http://www.travelblog.org/Forum/Threads/12462-1.html

people airing grievances about the fact TA’s “get the truth and go” is sort of BS….

http://ideasandthoughts.org/2007/04/25/tripadvisor-as-a-model-of-social-networking-and-critical-thinking/

the positive idealism of the post gets mired in a business owner cruising the internet just looking for help and to vent…

http://blogs.bookassist.com/blogs/industry/2008/05/responding-to-tripadvisor-reviews-of.html

the comments go south pretty quick….

Owners are being ignored, and they are thirsty for help and action… to be able to earnestly and efficaciously resolve complaints, issues, and problems.  Many want to act on social media, but haven’t the foggiest as to how.  What’s more, if sites like Trip Advisor ignore this base for too long, they might lose out on a potential community opportunity.  I am not sure if they could leverage the businesses a bit more like Yelp has done, or strengthen their brand by having people identify with the site from both the content generating side, and the business side.

But whatever the case, this is just a couple of unhappy business owners.  I just saw it all the time, and thought I would bring it up.  Anyone else have stories from ownership end?  Let em fly!