Hraba Hospitality Consulting

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!

If I may wax for a second….

Hotel related Social Media Optimizer / Social Media Optimization.

A new job, with new tasks.  Incredibly interesting in regards to Web 2.0, and massively complex.

But long term stability…. I just don’t know.

*Pardon the simple business lesson below*

Business doesn’t get too far away from money.  People in business spend money.  People spending money want justification for what they spend their money on. This is part of business.

Sooooooooooo….. it is *this* thing that is my primary concern with the complexity of our jobs right now:

1) Traditional print media has started (continues) to break down, and the “impression” model of reaching an existing customer base is something online sales reps are trying to grasp onto because it is a familiar model for offline marketers, but it simply doesn’t work.

2) The public is massively wary about traditional marketing methods, and much of traditional advertising in the real world or online world is considered spam now.

3) There is zero ROI associated with much of the online world’s Social Media optimizers, and people need a turn around on their investment quicker than “long term brand building” and “internet brand custodian”.

4) The social media ad model, in my opinion, is failing…. Completely.  So now the social media boom is going to lose a lot of the venture capitalism when it starts becoming obvious that the power of the network effect won’t convert social media consumers into measurable income.  Not only this, but not one of the sites (facebook, youtube, etc) has become profitable.  Not one.  This doesn’t mean they will fail… networking effects are strong.  But it is cause for concern.

5) Instead of falling in line with traditional ad models (advertising to consumers), new ones are on the rise (consumers as endorsers, wearing brands for identity purposes)

my biggest concern:

6) The amount of time spent vs. rate of pay vs. output.  One hotel I work with has 6 Yelp pages or so (mercantile, spa, cooking school, bar, restaurant, and main page)…. The management company that owns that property and 4 others has something like 13.  The amount of time it takes a SMO/SEO to work for one property/management company is ample, while the justifiable consulting fees don’t cover amount of time invested.  The worst issue here is that actual work output (other than a spreadsheet of links) is minimal.  THE ROI is not demonstable in many significant “OH WOW MOMENT” sort of ways.

It is all very complex, and if you guys ever have any insight or thoughts into this I would *really* appreciate hearing from your experiences, and having a discussion about this stuff.  And my bullet points are sort of all over, so sorry.  I should be working, but again… I start thinking.  Make it stop.

But in the end…. with all these pertinent yet unstable aspects of SMO’ing…. how do you justify your existence in any meaninful way that can pay the bills?