Depending on how this one goes, I think this is my second to last or last post *ever* haranguing on, or thinking this deeply about, Facebook.  Blue in the Face makes one look crazy, especially if no one is listening… and beyond the simple fact that I may be wrong, and happily eat humble crow as I become more aware….. I do see some meaningful interaction on Facebook.  It takes some time, and for me it took *opening* my network.  This concept of a “closed” network seems bizarre to me, and it limited real, meaningful interaction, the likes of which I remember from IRC or topical boards.

You have seen me talk about this in regards to Hospitality Brand’s respective Facebook Pages, and the lack of real interaction… even when they are done well. When it comes down to it, there are some problems with the way Facebook Pages work.  This post is, to some degree, a slapdash missive of a rebuttal to this post about the Top Ten Facebook Brand Pages.  There are 100′s of those posts, but it’s a good post with some interesting thoughts… and they are the perfect pages to “pick apart”, so to speak.  I want to ask some questions (that I don’t have any answers to) that result from crunching interaction numbers, informally, as well as gauge what it means to have a “fan”.  Hopefully it sparks conversation?  I also want to delve into why there are real challenges for creating that meaningful interaction Facebook Pages.

Before we start looking at the nature of these brand page interactions, we need a little background on what Facebook is. First, Facebook’s narcissism problem is duly noted, and it means that Facebook users will wear a brand Page like a pair of Chanel glasses or Dolce purse.  In the Facebook universe, where interaction is “me” first, the network later, much (not all) of brand interaction is selfish, opportunistic, and all for show.  It isn’t at the brand’s convenience (nor should we expect consumers to act like that), so much as being an emblem for the consumer, and not something they expect to have a real relationship with.  In fact, I talk passionately about how bizarre “hiding streams” is within Facebook, and how that effects the way we post, the attention we lost, and the importance of curating it.  For example, the above “top brand pages”, while researching this article, had this post, right by the brand name:

I think it might suggest, based off the “Top Ten Brand Pages” article, that we need to look at how we interact with our communities.  It’s only one example, but at least they said something.  If stats are right, 70-90% of other people didn’t say a word and just hid their wall posts from view, forevermore. Another reason I won’t be posting much more about this Facebook nonsense: I sound like a broken record, stuck in a rare groove.  But as I have said before…. People are just understanding the crisis of perception in social media: it’s not about the “me”. It is about everyone else. In general, no one gives a hoot about your photos of dinner, your baby, your vacation (not to be dour; just grumpy hyperbole to pilot an idea into the harbor).  It makes people look arrogant and self absorbed – back to the narcissism study.  Of course, there are *many* *many* Facebook users that are *not* like that, and you are probably one of them.

Those who spend time on the meta level of social tech (IE not the ones who respond, when you are looking for a conversation, with “internetz iz serious bidness”) are definitely not the ones passively or flippantly interacting, nor the 70% who are simply “lurkers” or people that do not actually interact.  That data is from Forrester’s Groundswell, a book I suggest you pick up.  This recent article talks about 90% non participants who exist to consume information, and links to this article has data on the idea that 90% lurk. As I mentioned in a previous post, “lurkers – we know you are out there eating our posts” Social media works best when it is about EVERYONE else… real communication, real collaboration.  For example, you should be able to view this thread from my profile.  Instead of talking about me, I asked what they did. There wasn’t just *more* interaction, but it was personal, meaningful, and more robust than one off comments on viral videos like “lol” or “That’s great”.

The “Like” button is an activity and concept that I can wrap my head around, but it becomes incredibly frustrating when you realize Facebook’s attempt to hook itself into the framework of the internet leads to the single most passive social interaction that has ever existed, and that’s going to be an issue for brands and pages.  At least, it might make us take stock about what we really know about Page usage, and if it’s better to sit silently, curate attention, and post only when vital.  Allow people the pleasure of brand advocacy, and comment and follow up when necessary…. but it may be that our forced excitement and expectation in using these tools is putting off our consumers. If everyone focused on the network, instead of, naturally, being more self interested… think of the level of real interaction that would create between people, brands, and one another?

Herein lies an obvious problem, of whether it is my place to even suggest that people should change their underlying instincts or natural patterns in how they interact.  In fact, I could be trying to yoke a powerfully ingrained genetic compulsion.

One person is simply a node… and nothing else. If Oprah or Ashton dropped from Twitter, all that would happen is that the network map would fill itself. People do not matter… it’s the network that matters. It’s about the multiple nodes, weak ties, and flow of ideas and communication…. and one node could disappear without a blip. Cancel your facebook account and see how much it actually effects your network.  An important issue is that, if you start hiding streams in Facebook, in my opinion, it may make the network unstable, or at least, less meaningful.  Weak ties are less obvious to the network, and this PDF (following link autodownloads) of Granovetter’s “Strength of Weak Ties” article has some pretty amazing conjecture about them being markedly important in regards to Network Science. It’s a big problem even judging how many eyes on your page.

As soon as people realize this, we will start using social tools in a more intelligent and organized way.  To defer potential conceit on my part, I want to remind anyone reading this that you are likely ahead of the curve as well, and I am unabashed in suggesting that users need to mature somewhat before these tools can reach their potential.  The Read Write Web login debacle might be proffered forth, yet again, as evidence of Facebook, or Google, users’ relative dimness as to how to use the internet.  Of course, the point can be said is that it’s Google and/or Facebook’s fault because they need to be able to explain this stuff to users.

These social conversation tools are the single biggest shift in human communication in history, and people are taking photos of amuse bouche or retouching a vacation shot to make other people jealous…. the same other people who aren’t actually looking at another person’s page because they are quite busy acting like a star on their own page, hoping people notice *them*.  Facebook’s potential competitor from Google is tentatively named “ME” – well played Google. Is that deliberate, guys?

I wouldn’t spend my time on this, but I am somewhat irked that everyone has shrugged their shoulders and said, “I guess Facebook is as good as this will get,” and are, again, allowing FB to hook itself into the framework of the internet.  It’s a difficult proposition for me.  It’s quickly becoming bigger than a monopoly (a linked article that comments on the fact that the internet is *incredibly* well linked, interactive, and stable *outside* of Facebook).  If Facebook becomes the internet, some form of public utility that is not removable from the architecture of the internet, that is a big problem. It stifles creativity, and competition cannot exist in an uneven market like this.  Even with a smattering of bungled launches or app experiments that have gone viral (like Wave), Google needs to knock it out of the park with the competitor.  I am not so sure someone is in the position to really compete.

I have some ideas for Google Me… maybe it’s simply my own network I am talking about.  Could you imagine a social network based off of proximite geo-community, hyperlocality, and topical interests…. rather than some wholly arbitrary closed network that allows you to conntect to 20 year dead contacts that are as arbitrary as having a locker near them in grammar school?  If anyone wants to help build it, inquire within.  I sure as hell can imagine it. =) But the real point isn’t this complex new science of networking, nor is it the immediate issues with the existence of Facebook. It’s the existing interaction and community that is really happening around these brands.

Let’s look at Jones Sodas first, since we unfairly took a one in a million negative comment that I barely caught upon their profile.

So in this one snapshot (which is hardly enough to make this a proper study) – the first post has .0001003 / .01003%  likes, and .0000522 / .00522% comments.  What is a normal impression, or what is expected of 90% non contributors?  The second post has .0003772 / .03772% likes, and .0001164 / .01164% comments. I only include the percentages, because there is a HUGE difference between .037% interaction vs how people sometimes look at a number that small..contes. 3.72%.  It’s the former, and that’s tiny.

At the time of my post, Redbull has 7,957,179 fans. Pardon me for not having it in this picture.  That’s about the population of London or Chicago.  The two interactions showing have interaction rates (this is not even a standardized metric, by any means.. but it illustrates a strong point) as follows:  #1 = .0003777 / .03777% “likes” and .0000269 / .00269% commented.  #2 (sex sells) =  .0005072 ‘likes” and .0000387 / .00387% commented.

I was going to go through this for the entire list of 10, but you may understand my point (that I am, sloppily, beating into the ground).  I will do one more, as I already did Burt Bee’s interaction info on Twitter, as well.

At the time of posting 9,084,488 people “liked” the Oreo fanpage.  In the above, .0005586 / .05586% liked (a little more than one twentieth of one percent or 1/20%) and .0003344 / .03344% commented, the second posting was .0001671 / .01671% liked and .0000216 / .00216% commented.

I think you get the point…. even the most successful brand pages are creating interaction and real community involvement that is such a small percentage of their supposed community, we have to ask how this actually works?

I understand it’s a distribution channel, and you need to be available to guests and consumers that wish to interact with you on their own terms in their own comfort zones…. but numbers this small are almost impossible to fathom.  The way people are prostelytized by brands, I, personally, would imagine interaction levels much higher… at least into whole percentage points.  Is this Facebook’s fault?  Is this something greater involving the crisis of perception in social media?

More questions: Is having a contest that garners fans on your page a good measure of a potential consumer?  Are you attracting consumers that like contests, or consumers focused on the quality of your brand?  Is gaining a fan more important than interaction and community?  When you discount on a Facebook page, are you giving back money to a branded consumer that was already prepared to pay full price? These numbers are similar across the board, and I see endless smaller brand or hotel pages that don’t have a powerhouse of a community to energize.  Should we spend our time on this?  Should we spend our time on this …. *yet*?

Henry Harteveldt’s sage wisdom was so simple and zen:  ”Give it time.”

The Twilight Fan Page on Facebook has over 12 million fans… that’s the population of Calcutta or Los Angeles.  But, interaction levels are about the same, as they are for all major brands.  Crunch the numbers yourself, it’s fairly easy.

I am not claiming this to be a bona fide metric, but it begs some very important conversation.  Is this simply a wiki page for your brand advocate’s to show off their incessant narcissism – more about how you make them look & feel, rather than wanting a connection to a community?  If that’s the case, how much energy and time (and labor dollars) does a hotel invest on this brand advocacy versus legitimate conversation?

My main question is this: (as I sit and panic, and quandry, and furrow my brow):

Are numbers this small to be expected?

In the world of hard to track impressions and marketing measurements that dp provided a modicum of data and guidance (however skeptical I always am) – some people have said, “so what, who cares, it’s to be expected”.  But numbers *THAT* small?  Is that part of the Pareto Efficiency, or does the principle come into play (if you believe in that)? I am not saying you shouldn’t be on Facebook with a page, but what are we trying to do? This isn’t meant to be about misery or confusion, but I would quite like to see a conversation struck up about this.

What do you think?  I would love to know!

Currently, the best way to do this is to team up with a leader in news, events, and analysis in our industry - EyeforTravel.  In preparation of their 12^th annual North American Travel Summit in October, I plan to interview a handful of their speakers.  It promises to gear up our understanding of what to expect from the conference, as well as engage the panelists on a deeper level. I am sure you will find these industry leaders to have profound ideas and impacting conversation on your professional life.

The one topic that is certainly on everyone’s mind right now is how to effectively run a social media campaign in the travel & hospitality segment. Figuring out the best person to interview, in this case, came naturally.  The obvious choice was to reach out to Shana Pereira, the Regional Director-Americas for Tourism Queensland.  Tourism Queensland and Shana are responsible for the “Best Job in the World” campaign.  For those that don’t know about it (specifically all 7 of you), the “Best Job in the World” was meant to find a caretaker to live on an island in the Great Barrier Reef, get paid $110,000 to do so, and the only stipulation was the need to write a weekly blog (which you can find here, a site I suggest you visit only if you are prepared to be depressed about being at your desk). The campaign was a smash hit, runaway success, and Shana has some insightful, amazing things to say about it: what they learned, how it changed them, and some ways you can apply these same principles to work for you.  If you want to learn more about what Tourism Queensland does in social media, you might appreciate the enthusiastic interaction on their Facebook or Twitter pages.  If you can’t jump off the article (and frankly why would you), I will include some photos here to give you an idea of where we are talking about.

An Interview with Queensland Tourism’s Shana Pereira

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today! If you don’t mind giving my readers a chance to know a little bit more about you and your background, I would appreciate it.

“Previous to my Tourism Queensland life, I worked with a wholesale travel company called Stella Travel Services.  Prior to that for the Northern Territory Tourism Commission here in the US, as well. So my experience comes from marketing icons, like Ayers Rock, but also with a commercial aspect – marketing with the specific goal of conversion.  My career here in the US started in 2003, and so social media, whilst it was in existence, wasn’t primarily used for a commercial company to spread it’s word.  So my background was really focused on marketing but with the purpose of driving sales, vs brand marketing or PR marketing.  I was very much focused on tactical conversion.”

And it sounds like you hit the ground running when you started with the “Best Job in the World”Campaign?

“I started with Tourism Queensland in 2007, and early 2008 was the planning for the ‘Best Job in the World’. My experience was not social media marketing or PR campaigns. I didn’t have any experience in that world at all; not in the sense of conversion.  I knew how to use it, but did we use it as a business?… not really.  So it was very interesting the adaptation that I personally had to go through to be able to be ready to launch something like the “Best Job in the World”, which was “ginormous” and had major parts where I didn’t have much experience. [laughs]  It was very overwhelming, and very, very humbling.”

“The biggest key to that campaign is that the consumers are king.  It reiterated that even more than we ever thought; a brand is not something that you launch, it’s your reputation. People already know your brand whether you are owning it or not [laughs]. It’s not something that you create… and social media heightens that whole experience. So for us, focusing on the Great Barrier Reef, and letting consumers know about islands throughout it was really important. There are so many questions about the Great Barrier Reef, and the campaign was engineered to answer those and help the consumer work through the process of being interested, but not knowing how to experience it.”

In this, Shana & Tourism Queensland could reach out to their niche audience that already existed, but couldn’t find the right access to the Reef.  Queensland Tourism understood that you aren’t trying to convince people that aren’t interested in the barrier reef so much as connecting with and reaching out to people that already are aware of, and identify with, it.

“That was our biggest lesson, I think.  That’s what we went into it with… there are billions of consumers out there that could be our target market globally, but only a couple of million that visit the Great Barrier Reef in any given year.  The operators that we have that support touring the Great Barrier Reef – many are eco friendly and conscious of environment.  So there is a very minimal impact on the reef itself.  So we had a model there that was in place to attract tourists, but protect the environment.  So having that infrastructure behind us, I think we were ready to enter this world of marketing with significant cut through, and it helped us spread the word as fast as possible. In social media, that is the key: You can’t shove a message down the throat of the masses who don’t want to know about it; it has to be something they are already interested in. The surprise at the end is your target community can be huge, but still very targeted to a specific interest that is a common thread amongst the consumers.”

“Finding commonality is vital… When you are able to find that, your community will organically grow itself around that message.  The key is in turning niche products into volume without losing the niche; if that is your specific target market, it will always be “niche”, however you have an opportunity to find more people by grabbing the advocates FIRST… who then propel the brand beyond our reach.”

“In regards to the Best Job in the World, the question was ‘Why is this the best job in the world?’.  It is because it is on the wonder of the world: 1,200 miles of Reef and 1000′s of fish, turtles, etc.  It became an incredibly successful campaign because it coupled people who were interested in Jobs, as well as travel in general; then layering that with this natural wonder of the world… it hit our community so positively.  It brought a new attention from job seekers and travelers.  Connecting with an existing niche community helped propel it into a successful campaign.“

What was the underlying strategy for the “Best Job in the World Campaign”?

“The process start to finish had three different angles or strategies. The concept was built underneath how we would distribute the message, target the traditional demographic for visitors, and how we would convert the people in amongst the PR buzz to actually book a trip.”

What ends up being the long term measurement of success of “Best Job in the World”?

“Our creative agency at the time developed the concept, but there were a myriad of elements we needed to talk through: how to launch in multiple countries, how do you control the messaging, the translation?  How do we stay focused in converting this into actual travel numbers, and people buying a trip.  Of course we wanted people to apply for the job, but our major focus and goal was to get more attention and have more people have this experience at the Great Barrier Reef. When we launched we knew it would be more of a PR effort vs. paid media campaign, but from first day we had no idea what was going to happen, to be honest. We can easily say, from day before launch to day after, we were completely different people overnight, personally and professionally.  We had to move quite quickly and nimbly… some goals set for 12 months out happened in 36 hours. [Editor gasps].  Yes!  Goals in regards to visits to website, applications accepted, etc.  Then we asked, ‘what do we do know?’ [laughs].  We went through a phase of 3,000 clicks a minute in first couple days of launch.”

“The long term return on investment was measured by visiting numbers to Queensland from international markets, and visitors spent. That is the best measurement year over year.  It obviously isn’t about giving away one job, but rather letting the eyes of the world focus on us, in middle of their winter, letting everyone know “YOU COULD LITERALLY BE HERE”. It wasn’t about being someone ‘special’ – it was literally that anyone could be there. The job could be had by anybody *and* you didn’t have to wait for the dream job, but could immediately book and have this experience on vacation.”

(In fact, The Best Job turned out to be a real job after all.  A wonderful, brilliant job… but in the 6 months, Ben Southall, the winner, did 200 interviews. Ouch & Wow. I personally rather go on holiday.)

How has the campaign altered and existed over time, and how has it effected your traditional marketing?

“The launch of the ‘best job’ was a PR message that went global, that ran alongside the normal tactical campaigns.  What we saw was that modern social media impacted traditional marketing in positive ways.  Organic interest grew in traditional print media, etc. Each of our tactical campaigns were heightened.  Because of social media, people had heard and seen Queensland in the first 6 month period, and interest organically grew, and we instantly saw results in parity with that marketing.  We also leveraged the “Best” tagline in markets around the world, because people had heard of it:  ‘Best honeymoon, best diving’, etc. Lastly… it grew our social media immensely.  When you Google ‘Best Job In The World’, you will see applicants and others still talk about it. Now we have another channel we can market to regularly.”

The fervor of traditional media “falling” seems premature.  Social Media isn’t going to replace traditional marketing, in fact, this campaign proves they work together incredibly well.

“The way we launched the “Best Job” campaign in the U.S. was through a Reuters news article.  We launched a social media campaign through traditional media, so it’s very, very integrated. You definitely have to be integrated into both of the worlds. How we use social media is basically a new distribution channel. We also work with traditional media who uses social media to research topical and relevant news… In every campaign we look at PR, trade engagements, such as travel agents, airline partners, wholesalers, and social media.  So, yes, it’s literally another distribution channel.”

“I wasn’t aware of activating PR or social media, and I was handed this new campaign, where they said ‘Have a think about it.’ [laughs].  So we are really proud of how it rolled out.  It grew organically after the launch, but was VERY strategic over time – there were 4 phases of media engagement.  In the end, the social media buzz gained enough momentum to have Oprah interview the ‘Best Job’ winner, Ben.  So again, it’s reciprocal and integrated tightly.  In fact, whenever the Oprah episode runs, we measure it to be about $500K in PR value each time – with new people engaged each time, as well.”

So why did the campaign work so well?

“It worked because it’s genuine… it’s real. It isn’t about creating need with a forced message, but connecting with people that have a need, and connection, for your brand.  ‘This is truly a place that is unlike anywhere else in the world’ – a specific message that everyone can relate to.  Everyone has a job, needs a job, and even if they are in a job they are open to learning about new ones.  You sell a dream, sell a connection, sell a relatable experience.  When you can find what’s relatable – ‘what is that void in people’s lives? What is the one thing this product fills in an emotional sense?’ – it takes off.  What’s more is that you are visible to the world – you are open, listening, anyone can contact you.  That is scary, and changes your professional culture. It’s not a process that people are ready to jump into. But I guarantee whatever industry, hotels and airlines to washing machines, if they represent a genuine emotional fulfillment to a person, they will stand out. It doesn’t need to be large companies, anyone can do it. Even though we are 2 years into the ‘Best Job in the World’, I still get goosebumps talking about it because it’s a true statement, and something I am incredibly emotionally connected to. It was really because of the reiteration from millions of consumers saying ‘I WANT THIS’, and ‘YOUR PRODUCT IS UNLIKE ANYTHING IN THE WORLD’. It can be achieved on all different levels, and you don’t need millions of dollars.  The overall cost of the 12-month campaign was 2.1 million Australian dollars, and we reached every corner of the world.  If you get people talking about your product on your behalf, it organically grows.  Success isn’t a numbers game, but real consumer interaction.  We are all on limited resources in this day and age, and you really want to service people that want to hear from you.”

“The timing of the campaign was also important; it was selling a dream. I was literally in an interview where Hillary Clinton was talking about jobs on the decline, and then I go on talking about not only a job, but a dream job.  The reason it got so much coverage is that it was a great opportunity that gave some hope; an affordable, do-able, life experience you shouldn’t have to put aside just because of this global crisis.  Our whole industry was at a standstill, and everyone quickly became aware of us because of these connections, and we were reaching out to these specific and targeted audiences, which happen to be large and vocal.”

Since you have social media figured out…. What’s next?

“So I am all for it now.  I am a renewed person, and love social media networks, but we do use them in a calculated manner.  You need to make sure not to misuse the social media databases…. if you start overly marketing to your consumers, or sending wrong messages, you will lose the interest of the group. You need to treat these databases as human beings that want legitimate connections. If I have opted in to hear about a Ford Focus, I don’t want Ford sending me information about SUV’s, etc.  You will immediately lose my attention in that case.  You need to treat these connections with respect, as humans.”

“For Tourism Queensland, we are now always working on campaigns like this. As with the ‘Best Job’ campaign, it takes a number of months to get a campaign going.  Ben has been touring and talking about his experience, to this day.  The Best Job campaign was never defined as a “campaign”, so much as a message that would run the normal course of its natural organic life. We have also created ambassadors in specific countries who love Queensland.  They are passionate consumers that are thrilled to be given the opportunity to represent and share about Queensland. People want to hear from real people, a peer, or fellow traveler; a genuine, unbiased opinion. I am not too sure the travelers want to hear from me [laughs].  In fact, by the time they get to your site, they have decided.  You can only be there to support the process and reach out to them.  So we will continue to support the organic growth of the message as long as it is ‘alive’.”

What is your goal for this conference?

“Whenever we do these sort of talks, my goal is to have 2 or 3 things that everyone in the room can walk away with; I like to leave the group with at least a couple implementation strategies that we can apply, that don’t cost too much, and that they can actually see some kind of result from.  Too often you sit through these talks and you get to the end and you go ‘That sounded great, but does it apply to me? How do I apply it to me?’.  We want people to understand some of the things we learned through our process, so they don’t have the same learning curve.  Something we learned, especially for hotel properties:  it’s about the experience of your hotel, and how you verbalize that experience.  For example, we have learned it’s VERY difficult to have a large fanbase for a particular brand, unless you have huge dollars.  But how do you relate the story of your hotel, so that people know the underlying experience?”

“You need to layer this message so that it connects with that audience.  Finding a way to relate that message to our everyday lives and instantly put us somewhere else is important; to relate to a customer’s day to day, and find out how it fills a need for that person. We travel & marketing professionals are all very busy, and want to make best use of each other’s time.  The more we can help others, it organically happens that we help ourselves.  This conference is part of that.”

Thank you for your time.  It’s exciting that Eye for Travel has been able to level the playing field by connecting so many intelligent, learned professionals that are sort of starry eyed saying “We don’t get it, it’s amazing, let’s converse and help one another learn from each other”.

“Yes, and it’s a moving learning.  I don’t think we will ever totally get it.  I think we just have to support the process, because it’s just so fluid.  I don’t think it’s something that we’re supposed to wrap our heads around as a marketing professional. It’s more about looking at it from a consumer point of view and what would you want to hear, and what would you click on.  It’s very, very interesting.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! =) There is so much more for you and your organization to learn about.  ”The Best Job in the World” has a “BEST EVER CASE STUDY” – a complete and all-encompassing documentation of the entire process, start to finish.  It includes a Video Case Study as well.  The amount of data, results, and solid ROI info you can garner from that site is, to say the least, impressive, and I encourage you to spend time learning from their experiences.

Shana Pereira from Queensland Tourism will be speaking at the Eye For Travel North American Travel Distribution Summit in Chicago, the 13^th & 14^th of October, 2010.  You can look at the agenda here, and a list of all the speakers here.  It includes 4 separate focuses within one conference:  Online Sales & Distribution, Revenue Management, Mobile Travel & Tech, and Social Media Strategies. Register here, or contact rosie@eyefortravel.com for more information.

I don’t always have stuff hit me, but it hit me today.

So I hadn’t figured out why Tripadvisor’s Restaurant Reviews had recently, so vigorously, taken off.  For those of us in hospitality who are aware of our brands online, it was hard to miss.  It is vital to stay on top of all conversation, reviews, and mentions, and whether through Google Alerts, or a random internet search… you noticed restaurants began to get reviews on Tripadvisor. It’s not really a surprise, and it is a completely natural direction for a travel site like TA.  But, where there wasn’t even an option to review or add restaurants until a couple months ago, the frequency of seeing reviews pop up is gaining momentum. MASSIVE momentum… and it seemed like it had to be larger than the Tripadvisor user base. I really noticed when some of our restaurants were ending up with as many, if not more, reviews than Yelp. I hadn’t been able to figure it out, but when I just added one of our newly opened restaurants to the Tripadvisor database, it used *FACEBOOK CONNECT* to populate the information about the restaurant, meaning the database lives both in Tripadvisor, where people can review it natively from that site, as well as inside Facebook as an application called “Tripadvisor Local Picks”.

Uh oh Yelp.

Yelpers can be attention seekers, but the platform of Facebook is the mecca of ME ME ME. If there is one thing a Facebooker is going to enjoy doing, it’s share their opinion – *ESPECIALLY* to their real live network of people who may be affected (or forewarned) by a review. It is obviously a natural part of networking, community, and connecting.  Oh.. it also vests itself in ego, and the desire to establish equity in social status. Go figure… but it never hurt, that while recommending a nice romantic restaurant to a friend, an ex fling sees your exciting life.  I am certainly not claiming this to be me, but the fact that studies have been done on detecting narcissism through facebook profiles, it’s certainly something that exists.  Here is another article that goes a bit deeper into social media and ego.

This means that, alongside the Tripadvisor user base populating restaurant reviews, we now have unwitting Facebook users contributing content to that database. You have a 400 million person population casually being redirected to Tripadvisor to help add content.  But this content generation is happening *from within Facebook*. This app makes it so that FB users are not leaving the site.  This reinforces the travel industry understanding that we can no longer create community when competing with communities like Facebook.  If Tripadvisor is learning this, and allowing off-site content generation, what do you think of your small community?  You need to congregate where people already exist, and reach out to them where they are online, not where you wish them to be (cue $100,000 website laden with bulky flash and slow load times).

In the meantime, you may have noticed Facebook searches being populated with hotel listings, and other brand names in wider internet searches. If a 400 million user population gets used to searching brand names and businesses for reviews, and information… that is the beginning of some powerful commerce. What’s more, Yelp could quickly become irrelevant under the crushing weight of Facebook’s population eager to add content for Tripadvisor, whether they know what they are doing or not.  It has been suggested that Facebook users don’t always know what they are doing (warning: hilarity ensues. Yes I know I have posted that a couple times.  It is too funny).

The way these two are dancing, I could see a marriage in the future. I think they want to date for a bit, but they might become a bit more popular than some of the other options out there. I am not saying Facebook could acquire Tripadvisor, but I am wondering what Google is going to do now that Yelp is off the table, or if that is something that might be revisited? Facebook and Tripadvisor paired could become a brutal force against Google’s plans, not to mention OTA’s like Expedia.  As for Yelp… they might not even see it coming.  Opentable reviews have already legitimized the review process in a way that Yelp has not been capable of.  Reviewing for friends, family, and network in a Facebook model creates more legitimacy still.

As always, I might be missing something. I know FB Connect works with Yelp in some ways, but I don’t think you can generate content from within a Facebook app?  There is so much to consider, I might be off.  But it’s always fun to watch this stuff develop. As always I promise to keep you posted. =)

http://millvalley.patch.com/

It is a REALLY interesting new content distribution model for community / municipal news… sort of like the old neighborhood rag (of which many still exist in paper form, like the Sunset Beacon in the Inner Sunset of San Francisco, etc).  It will obviously include some incredibly relevant local advertising, specials & deals, etc with topical, specific content about that city (and it’s surroundings) in Marin.

It’s a great idea, and I am surprised it has been more popular yet… but AOL is doing this ALL over, and I bet it’s one news model that actually works. It will be like a small town bulletin board of relevant info.  Instead of the dying model of distributing massive amounts of national content into a boiler plate layout that is then branded for smaller cities (IE national news written on a non community level that is then branded into specific markets), this will be producing content that is markedly relevant and vital to the community the site publishes too.  It will finally create a relevant content distribution model that will quench the locals needs, while still allowing them to consumer national and international news from their existing pillars, which are still fighting confusedly about why they are crumbling.

Just like the telegraph didn’t kill the newspaper, and just like the radio didn’t kill the TV, or social media won’t kill traditional marketing….. this model finally understands that two models can co-exist side by side.  In this case, the models that are still struggling won’t impact this new approach in any way, and it is likely that we will see more of these grass roots approaches to impacting, relevant news to a geographic area.

Well done AOL. Can you believe you are ahead of the curve? Cheers and good luck.

And if the upshot of all this means I can find the police blotter quicker, easier, and more consistently for a quick chuckle every couple days… solid.

I like hypercommunal news a lot. Hyper-locality, hyper-relevancy, well I am just hyper.

There is a big discussion going on about the equity of attention in social media, and that curating attention is more important than posting information.  Curation is a fine line, and studies have shown that curation works better through less posting of more pertinent info, than more posting of one-off links, stories, etc.  Social Media is becoming quite good at capturing attention (think contests, PR stunts, promos, or other gimmicks), but maintenance of these relationships is becoming more important, difficult, and confounding.  If you look at Groupon, Homerun, and other coupon services (like San Francisco’s SF Gate deals that just started) – it isn’t hard to build a network so much as keeping that network interacting, which is the real challenge.  These coupon services are ideal examples: People will sign up for a specific offer (relevant to their interests), then react like the rest of the email offers (which they opted-in to) are part of their “daily spam regimen” (delete, delete, delete).

It is important to step out of your world as the business using social media to reach guests, and think how users of social media would like to be reached.

So… Facebook Pages, over-posting, and hiding streams.

We need to address this issue about how people use Facebook, versus how businesses wish people would use Facebook.  There is a fast growing problem that fledgling social media enthusiasts & page administrators are not aware of; although, they are encountering it daily in their happy-go-lucky power posting of relevant information for their hotels.

There are less eyes on your Facebook page than you realize, and you are losing more all the time.

It is a universal gripe…. even though no one truly enjoys Facebook, we need to be there as a business simply because that’s where potential guests are located, and that’s where we can perk up our ears to listen for mentions about our brand, and grow when we encounter advice or commentary.  Firm ROI is secondary to our experimental presences on Facebook profiles and pages.  Some are, in fact, successful in driving incremental revenue to outlets, some achieve positive brand building, some act as help-all concierges, some operate as ombudsmen, and still others have zero idea what they are doing or why they are there.  But businesses know they need to be available to their potential clients, even without a mitigated plan.  I think this is where a slight disconnect occurs for the business (and I have a whole post about this coming up):  People think it is about the business using social media (YAY! We’re HERE!), but it’s more about the availability of the business for the consumer.  More precisely, it’s about being available, but not being intrusive.  The way some people post on their Facebook Hotel Page, it’s tantamount to pounding on your guest’s door all hours of the day with little bits of information.  It’s overwhelming, and it is off-putting.

There is one simple fact, and it’s that the way you want consumers to use Facebook is *not* the way that Facebook users are using it. Yet.

We all know that Facebook is buggy, and for some businesses and neophytes, figuring out all of the settings and controls must be like wading through syrup.  For business’ savvy enough to realize you need to reach your audience where that audience chooses to congregate (chat rooms, groups, Twitter, etc), it isn’t made any easier by Facebook, and their lack of interactivity or ability to create real commerce with people.  Connections happen, and they are wonderful to see develop, but people are still reticent to have any real interaction with “business-as-commerce” versus “business-as-brand”, which is obvious in Facebook’s positioning with the ease of “liking”.   The throwaway simplicity of “liking” a brand at this point is meant to identify user profiles for targeted ad marketing, and not to promote any real deep interaction with the brand page itself.  Meaning, people are quite ready to “wear” a Facebook page brand as they would Gucci sunglasses or Prada bag, but they are not ready to transact with the brands themselves.  A lot of feedback from Facebook users is that business page posts still have the “feel” of being “spammy”.  With that in mind, we are already fighting an uphill battle in seeking out ways to connect with Facebook users that are fans of our specific brands.  This becomes precarious, however, because many businesses over-post pics and info in an eager and noble attempt to share their services/products.  This can actually drive people away.

Of course, the logical way a social network would remedy this is to have the brand advocate user “unfriend” or “defan” a page.  That way, a business page could use data exhaust and user actions to help learn in real time about what they do well, or what they might be doing wrong.  This works quite well on Twitter, and their are even Apps built on the API that allow users to find out precisely what they did that lost, or gained, followers.

But leave it to Facebook, a company obviously more concerned with user-experience less than the monetary value of those previous “likes”, to create the ability to “hide streams”.  It isn’t Facebook’s concern that a page isn’t curating attention, so much that the user enjoys a brand.  To Facebook, liking the brand is more important than telling the brand they are interacting poorly.  Once a Facebook user has chosen to “LIKE” a page, they will do almost anything to maintain that superficial connection for ad-model demographic targeting reasons.

Leave it to Facebook’s closed, corrupted environment to allow disingenuous networks; instead of Facebook creating meaningful networks of truly interactive partners, they have allowed users to hide streams, so you can be part of a network without really interacting with it. For those that are completely unaware, the option exists within Facebook to “hide” a stream, be it a page, an app, or person.  This is wonderful if you are sick of Foursquare check ins or Mafia Wars updates from friends, but it violates a vital aspect of social media’s earnest and transparent attempt at communication, and interactivity.  When a “stream” becomes overactive (constant updates, possibly via RSS or blog feed), or hyperactive (admin posting multiple links rapid fire, attempting to batch process relevant content for the hotel)…. users are hiding your stream.

This is a problem – not just for businesses, but for Facebook, as well.  Facebook is creating vast, HUGE false networks, or at least connections without interaction.  I don’t mean to be glib – but doesn’t it strike you as worrisome that a vast community of people isn’t really that much of a community at all?  I know it’s a vague concept, but how much trust will you stake in a network based off of false pretenses? The network that is supposed to connect everyone in the world is doing more to create a completely “tromp l’oeil” experience in regards to social media – it looks more like a network than it really is.  In the simplest terms, this is going to come back to bite Facebook big time, and they will have to make some decisions about hidden streams in the future.

The entire aspect of being able to be friends with people, or like a page, with the ability to “hide” their stream is disastrous on the effect of real networking, communication, and building potential commerce from within Facebook.  When your stream is hidden, you have no idea that it has happened.  When a Facebook user hides your posts, they still  “like” your brand, and are associated with it….. *WITHOUT EVER SEEING YOUR CONTENT*.  You disappear from their eyes, and you now have “phantom fans” who don’t interact with you.  Of course, Facebook made “liking” something inordinately easy to do, a couple months ago.  But in accomplishing their social graph concept, it further dismantles meaningful communication and interaction in lieu of passive, meaningless brand identity meant for ad-marketing, with zero regard to relevant idea exchange.

So, when users “hide” the stream, they still look like fans, but they don’t receive your posts anymore. Facebook, or the fan, doesn’t alert you, nor are you informed in any way.  The business, as a result,  has no idea they have been “hidden”, while the Page’s fan count will remain constant.  It’s been happening for a lot of business pages, and it’s becoming a problem for people that don’t understand the interaction people expect from a business, versus the interaction a business wants (wishes) to have with their clients.  If a business can’t learn from their mistakes, how will this experience improve for the people involved? If a user can haphazardly “like” at the same time as “hiding” those people or pages, is that really a relevant connection?

Your hotel may have 1000 fans, but what if 100 have hidden you? There has been so little conversation en masse about this “hiding” phenomenon, that I can’t accurately gauge what percentage of “like”-fans end up hiding pages, but in every day conversation about Facebook, in an extensive group of acquaintances, it seems to be a very common, and very popular, activity.  That’s scary.  If it’s a commonly known function in Facebook, you could have 30-70% of your audience not listening anymore.  That’s really scary.

Frankly I find it markedly cynical, and disingenuous.  If I had any clout, I would ask Facebook to stop it right now, and not because I don’t like being able to hide things in my own stream.  I love not seeing any of those apps populating wall, but it does make my decisions to “follow” and “like” pages less meaningful, and less legitimate.  If I couldn’t hide a feed, would I really fan a page, if I knew I were meant to legitimately interact and communicate with that brand?  Would the brands be intelligent enough to know how to court users, or captivate them enough so as not to drive them away?

I have had some success with how I manage interaction on Facebook… I post a link occasionally, but save most of the meat for a blog post which includes events, commentary, relevant google alert posts, comments, info – and then let that blog post feed into Facebook.  It is a whole bunch of posts / links in one single post.  That way people can access and interact with it if they want, at their leisure.  Instead of the links coming across their wall as one post at a time, they all sit in one place for the guest’s convenience.  One post with 20 links seems to be received much more favorably than 20 links posted once at a time.  Remember, this isn’t about you or your business force marketing or pushing your brand onto Facebook users; this is a place for you to be available to potential guests. Don’t get carried away.

If you overpost, you risk becoming irrelevant without having any knowledge or metric from Facebook to see how you are doing, or what you can do to curate the attention necessary to strike a balance.  Attention, in this new “economy”, is equity.  And curating the attention is now your sole job.  That’s interesting – because in our rush to curate attention, a lot of us forgot to ask how, precisely, to do that.  In an eager rush to share exciting news about your hotel, you may be losing eyes without having any say in the matter.  The only real option is to patiently fence sit, and be a skeptic.

My thought is to be patient, and ride out this precarious situation.  For the time being, Facebook users are hesitant to interact with businesses; when it becomes more acceptable, *then* get more interactive with your fans regarding products, selling, etc.  For now, we want to curate, and maintain, this attention.  The best way to do it is by being calculating, and to some extent… quiet.  At least make sure your formula = less posts + better content.

I, unfortunately, don’t have any answers.  It’s simply something that has been on my mind, and it’s not a conversation people are having on the implementation level of social media.  There are the tech bloggers yammering about equity, curation, & attention, but businesses have a way to go before they understand this aspect of Facebook.

This may change…. FB may cement itself and people will eventually get used to it as a vast & interactive portal, or it could fall apart under poor management and lack of acumen in development of the business pages side of the site.  Most Facebook users are still stuck in the concept of a private dialogue between close friends, where Twitter has evolved into a more interactive real world community.  It is sorely obvious that Pages…. are…. yet…. another…. slapped together…. on top of old architecture…. idea…. which Facebook threw together because they were worried about losing brands to Twitter’s opt-in propensity for real commerce.  Pages weren’t thought out in any real detail, and as these problems begin to mount, FB will need to make some serious choices about how to fix their site.

Until then….

This specific issue is why I organize most of our relevant links into a blog that lists all the information, pics, stories, etc.  Other than that, I reply to people’s comments and responses on the page. I post natively whenever possible, for reasons which I will address in a subsequent blog post.

In the end, this is less about Facebook, and more about you and your business page.  We are a captive audience to Facebook’s shortcomings, and it is a necessary evil for the time being.  In thinking about how you use Facebook Pages for business, you may want to consider the above; especially if you are one of the Pages that continues with a rapid-fire, staccato-like posting of brand mentions, deals, articles, press releases, etc….

It’s time to rethink your eagerness versus effectiveness on Facebook Pages.  Of course, as I write this… all I can do is wonder about Facebook’s effectiveness, overall.

This is the most important thing you have read this year:

“How Network Science can speed up your success by 10 to 20 times

***READ IT – IT’S VITAL*** (If you don’t go past this line here, read the above link. It’s of massive importance.vi)

This Rand Fishkin interview is a few years old, but still relevant and a REALLY great read (especially for new to the arena old school marketers) – social media marketing & viral marketing

Also… let’s delve into some of the more modern dilemmas in regards to these rapidly growing technologies and methods of communication.  Namely… data, and privacy.  It seems that Google and Facebook are beleagured by issues about how they protect users private data, and how they handle it. This is of significant importance… because if these major players don’t figure this out, it will end up driving people away from commerce – and potential business.  If people react against how their data is used and shared, it will limit the effectiveness of businesses performing well online.

But Google does have some plans….

WOW – QR codes and photo shoots? “What Google Places can do for your hotel“.  Google is really amazing.  If you don’t think so.. get with it.  If you are still not sure about Google places, and their other tools… it might be important to pay attention to some of the trends…. like this one: mobile searches are up 3000% in 3 years – I guess mobile hotel searches are becoming even more relevant, huh?  If you aren’t able to track this… you should be using analytics to find out more.  If that is a scary proposition… go here: Google Analytics made easy.

(And more from the same “what can places do your you” blog about the future of twitter and your new “business center”).

More hotel related stuff….

They cost a couple bucks, but well worth the read:  Rosewood chats about branding driving revenue for lifetime of guest & Looking at Four Seasons love hate relationship with tech.

This is reall important… keep your hotel relevant, meaningful to the community, and engaging for your guests… “local content providing meaningful differentiation between competition”.

This brouhaha in regards to “marketing gimmicks” and travel agents and consumers getting tired of manipulative and dishonest tricks…  You might not want to spend too much time there, because the basic upshot is basically about one thing – the future is transparency. Period.  It will be harder to raise Revpar, sure, but it will be a hell of a lot easier too.  Eventually an algorithm will set the selling rate, and you can kick your rev manager out.  No no no.. I kid.  We love those guys.  I am just saying…. there is going to be a lot less manipulation in the future… it won’t be a normal practice, and people won’t stand for it.

I usually don’t have the patience for their videos, but VMF Leonardo talks about behavioural targeting, and the more intimate marketing experience based off user preference.

Morgans Hotel goes local, goes prop level for social media.  This is the future guys, pay attention

4 Inbound Marketing ideas for your hotel… I only include this because they talk about some of the stuff I am doing and too lazy to write about

Youtube links and tricks - how to create a awesome branded channel, and how to use it for small business.  I recently posted a pic that evaluates the social media landscape (which you can find here), and one should not only take notice of how important Youtube can be for a brand or business, but you might want to consider that it is rapidly becoming even more important.  Other services like VIPE understand this quite well.  It captures the attention of prospective consumers incredibly well, in a branded way that doesn’t present non relevant “shrapnel” that can happen like inappopriate videos ending up associated with your content.  It’s simple, cheap, and kind of a big deal (after jump is simply an “Anchorman” clip.. for fun).

A lot of people got Tripadvisor business listings.  Why didn’t you?

Also… hotels are starting to understand the nature of reviews, and how to leverage both good and bad.  For example, hotels connect the dots with online reviews. Great article about Tripadvisor and anonymity.

More about real hotel operations, to boot!

Discounting did little to help in downturn, says Cornell.  Guess what else…. the climb back up is depressing. Don’t do it!  Any extra $$ is traded to labor and inventory.  It isn’t worth it!

Neil salerno’s “Hotel packaging is a lost art“.

Don’t let Social Media take advantage of, and work against, your and your restaurant.

Customer loyalty and social networking, a good read….

Finally….

This is a big deal as well… Android surpasses Iphone in web traffic in US.  What’s more, the sheer weight of the steely eyed battle of Droid vs. Iphone…..’s marketing departments seems to be producing quite the rivalry.  Droid sales surpassed Iphone in the first overall 74 days of sales…. which can be a specious and iffy statistic in that the market was primed, and people were ready to dump treos and blackberrys for a non apple phone.  I am not sure many hold outs where anti-apple, but I am sure there is a market that is anti- paying way too much for a glowing apple logo.  I sure am.

Mobile apps will obviously become more important… and you can be assured you will see more of Runtriz’s Hotel Evolution app.  Check it out if you haven’t… it’s amazing.

1) It’s the wild west of social media.

2) This isn’t rocket science – it’s about old school customer service.

3) Knee jerk reactionary business owners will always blow things out of proportion, dodge accountability, and blind themselves to what’s really happening to their brand through the eyes of clients. You don’t need social media for that…. it’s been that way for centuries. Of course reviewers shouldn’t be marked as “problem guests” for writing a critical review – that’s poor real-world management of information, and not about the nature of the information itself.  This is a major component of the flawed logic for anonymity seekers.

Now the question we are trying to answer:

Should there be a reasonable expectation of privacy in regards to User Generated Content? More specifically, is it ok for a hotel to connect the dots between user generated hotel reviews and the actual guest transaction, folio, etc. In this article about hotels deducing who wrote Tripadvisor reviews, the author muses on the tension between a hotel wanting to know who wrote the review, and the reviewer wanting some level of anonymity.  He leaves it with advice for how users may better secure anonymity.

I am going to sort of put it out there at the beginning of this that *anyone* who *ever* writes a review and wants anonymity is a fraud and coward.  But that’s my opinion.  Let’s delve a bit deeper.

In the end, what is the point of a “review”? Is it to help the external guest network accumulate reliable information, or a place to help a proprietor with advice, or a place to bitch, etc. Defining what we think it should be, coupled with what we think it is, is vital.

I don’t think the long term maturity of socmed will favor or highlight those whom wish to complain anonymously, or flippantly. It won’t help business models flourish, it won’t really help potential guests, and it certainly doesn’t help the hotels.  As social media takes hold, verifiability and tangible accountability will be de riguer, because there needs to be reliability in regards to what exists online, or all of it will fall apart, partly because the less reliable the reviews, the less likely the site will get the network effect desired to make it relevant (however, I think anonymous internet culture is massively important in it’s own right, but doesn’t exist in the same manner as user generated content that interacts with brick and mortar business). Transparency issues have plagued most review sites, and they are constantly reconfiguring the sites to be more trustworthy, and reliable.  It’s not the nature of the groundswell to be random, or isolated; so these types of anonymous reviews will become irrelevant and less frequent, especially with technologies connecting secondary sites with main social hubs like Twitter or Facebook. Legitimacy is key to social media’s power and survival, and people will eventually recognize that it is molding the day to day operations of our physical business world, and it serves to allow business to grow and listen. Either act like the historically terrible businessman and dodge responsibility, or in all humility, sideline hubris for content laden dialogue that helps to bolster your bottom line, fix problems, understand demographic needs, etc.

So if you have a business “doing” social media “right” (quotes added in regards to obvious subjectivity), they are looking for information, and trying to extend themselves to their guests so as to understand their point of view, concerns, etc.

In that, social media reviews, whatever the individual content creator’s reasoning, are for hotels to understand their obligations to their guests. It is tantamount to filling out a comment card or talking with management (of course this is something we would like to see more often, and often guests hide behind the *supposed* veil of anonymity, in the lapsed understanding of their earnest role in meaningful exchange).

There is absolutely zero argument against a hotel seeking out all possible avenues to help their business grow, learn, recover, and exist into the future. In essence, the guest opted-in to the hotel by staying there, and to a much greater extent opted-in to interaction by generating public content.

If a guest doesn’t like a hotel responding to their review, then they should simply speak to management to begin with.  The majority of hotel reviewers are doing 2 things: helping the hotel, and helping future guests.  If they are particularly excited you can add “brand aware advocate” or “brand endorser”, but we are obviously speaking about constructive to critical reviews.  A smaller and nearly irrelevant (true – hotels over-react to bad reviews, but potential guests and review readers quickly filter seething reviews as if they were blocking an internet ad banner…. it’s unconscious and natural to pass over obviously unhinged or shill reviews.  Most people, even *YOU* gentle reader, don’t even realize they are honing in on and favoring specific reviews over those that are obviously blatant, nonconstructive anger).

In the end, why would one even write a review?  Anything generated on the internet should be considered public, and I am finally ready to start laughing heartily at the privacy conversations in regards to Facebook, and social media.  It’s ludicrous to have an expectation of privacy…. especially when you are GENERATING CONTENT that is being READ AND INDEXED.  Doesn’t that seem a bit disingenuous and incredibly naive to think you would remain anonymous while adding such specific information?

So I ask reviewers maintaining their need for anonymity – why?  Of course the reaction of a negative ownership or bad business manager is one reason, but you don’t need social media for that.  They will be awful both offline and on.  What’s more, why should anyone find any legitimacy or trust in a reviewer that is cloaked in the shadows of anonymity?  A faceless reviewer with few review, and no reference points vs. a reviewer with an avatar & history of constructive reviewing…  which would an average reader trust?  So – what’s the point of anonymity?  The idea of hotels exploiting guest information is also a red herring, because that has nothing to do with social media, but everything to do with unethical management.  Bad business does what it wants, and that may include exploiting guest data and information.  But most hoteliers don’t have time, capacity, or desire to casually amble through bits of minutia.  There is only one single reason hotels collect and use data: to enhance the guest experience.  Period.  The slippery slope is talking about “bad hotels” vs. “ethical hotels”, of course.  But as I mentioned – unethical business is unethical both online and off.

Social Media, especially user generated content, has had a fleeting but powerful impact on the nature of how businesses interact with clients.  It is redefining our relationship with our guests, and we are at an irrevocable point in how we exist in relationship to it.  It’s absurd to think this should be a one sided interaction with no response, especially when the best business owners are also proud and passionate about the product they provide.  I know small business owners that live and die by their 5 star reviews, and every single bad review is something to be taken seriously – these review sites have built up businesses through strong referral networks, and we have also seen businesses brought down by that same powerful method of communication.  Sometimes, it almost feels like a chef’s reaction to losing a Michelin Star… it’s that serious.

I apologize to the reviewers that think review sites are a void to hurl epithets and grumpy experiences of bad travel days…. you are out of touch, and you need to reconsider exactly *why* you are reviewing.

This is a dynamic conversation that is maturing and growing into having severe impact on a hotel’s livelihood. If a hotel is smart enough to be on the ball with social media, and understand the nature of this constructive communication – it is hardly their fault that a guest reviewer doesn’t understand that.

All this, however, will sort it out within 5 years and a whole new set of complex problems will exist.  Can’t wait to think about those, as well.

If you actually got to this point… take a break from working. I am sure you need it. =)

Google PLACES (or where did my Local Business Center shove off to?)

One of my favorite developments in the last few weeks, aside from Google’s experimentation with populating rates of hotels into it’s maps, is Google “Places”.  The blogosphere is abuzz with gentle, quiet speculation on what in the heck is going on here.  It’s obvious repositioning to compete with the likes of Yelp and Foursquare.  But Google is rolling some of the features attached to the new name a bit slow, and we will see how it reshapes our mobile experience.  I, for one, really trust Google’s methodical approach to entering this space… and when they unroll their entire suite, I think it will challenge Yelp to Expedia and other OTA’s.  If you can advert with Places in your market… let me know how it goes!

As Google positions, Tripadvisor works to get ads going in the first place

Tripadvisor toils in it’s monetization attempts… First hotels, now tourist boards.  You know how I feel about paying for your hotel to be listed with information on TA… DO IT!  Think about what percentage of your traffic comes from OTA’s, then start figuring out depending on your market and rank on TA how much of that traffic jumps to Expedia or others straight from Tripadvisor.  That 25% markup those OTA’s are stealing from you will come back, and likely quickly pay for the Tripadvisor listing fee.  It’s a smart move, and a cheap experiment.

Something else that might be a costly experiment in regards to Tripadvisor is losing you reservations to Expedia, and hurting your SEO.  Tripadvisor badges or widgets that aren’t actively blocking search engines are likely bad for business.  I posted (the below) article about how it hurts your hotel site’s SEO, but bolsters Tripadvisor’s.  What I didn’t realize was this – if people link from your website and booking engine to Tripadvisor via that widget – and like what they see on Tripadvisor – they are usually sent to EXPEDIA to book their room.  You just linked your guest to a page that will make you pay a 25% commission.  I don’t have all the answers, but in the comments section of *THIS ARTICLE*, the gent describes a fancy way to blind the widget.  I have also seen hotel sites that simply copy and paste the review from Tripadvisor or Yelp into different parts of their website – thus stuffing a page full of relevant keywords that can also help the guest decide to book… while continually mingling with your booking engine the whole time, never chancing lost control of your inventory.

MORE SOCIAL TOOLS, INFO, & Tech Talk

Unique and fairly intelligent ways to leverage twitter… a non hotel article to get you thinking about what twitter is, and how you can leverage it to benefit your property.

A brief link, but a good question – who do you use for hotel videos? Hired actors? Regular line staff? It’s important to consider how you want to represent your hotel, and how people will receive the information.  Honestly, I think the manipulated, high gloss marketing message is in shambles, and when it looks too slick, people will immediately not trust it or find it disingenuous.   Whatever the case, this is all about having a plan and understanding as you tackle new media…. if you don’t these things come out of left field and surprise you.

Design Hotels launches a Facebook Booking Engine…. (call it an F.B.E. for short!).  This will, once and for all, solve the problem of wondering whether people are on Facebook to proselytize and chatter about brands as a showy display of feathers (I LIKE THIS BRAND! It means I am AWESOME!), or is it a place to commune, share, and ultimately – BOOK?  Just checking it out, it seems fairly confusing.  I enter my dates, and then I mysteriously land on an unassociated page without it transmitting the choices I made.  Seems like FB booking has a way to go.

I for one am a) sick of hearing about the IPAD, b) sick about the marketing reinventing history as if Apple invented the tablet, and c) sick of hearing about all the giddy fanboys trying to adopt slick but inherently flawed tech as nothing more than a marketing gimmick.  HOWEVER…. this article, IPAD: Hotel Hype, or Help?,  says it is making Intercontinental’s concierge more personable & functional (not to mention cool like they are from Star Trek), and it isn’t just hype.  I know the tablet will be the future or consumers and content ingestors…. but I just think we are a bit of a way off from it being functional for content generators.  This is simply a machine to advertise to consumers, no more, no less.  Playing a game or reading the paper is incidental.

HOTEL TALK!

RevPar laws basically state – Trading Rate for Occupancy isn’t that smart of a move (Labor, among other operating costs, rise significantly, and the added dollars don’t always even out on the bottom line).  So why is the “Name your own price” phenomena rearing it’s ugly head?  Phocuswright tries to explain here.

Not to mention… most of us still think it is perceived value that has a big part in selling hotels… and not handing back money to someone who would have paid the higher rate you just tanked, anyway.

Do you think modern marketing for hospitality is at a crossroads?  I do.  But then again, maybe I think the doormen are more about the hallmark of our industry – hospitable, friendly customer service – than marketing.  When marketers start calling normal operations “marketing”, you know they are scrambling to make sense of the confusing new world of social media.

TIG shares their wealth of knowledge with hoteliers, and more!

TIG releases more reports, further exemplifying why people want to work with Thayer.  Wow.  The reports are on Microsites, Mobile, & Apps, as well as a 2 part on Social Media & the DMO Marketer. Double Wow equals video leveraging of insider’s tips…. Quick, simple, instructional videos from TIG on internet marketing, hotel SEO, and more!  If you ever have the budget to work with these guys, there is only one answer about whether you should…. YES. You should.

MOBILE IS A POINT OF SALE, but remember it isn’t all or nothing!

This one is a slam dunk, because Mobile Marketing is Good News for Hotels! Beyond that article, what you really want are actual tips – not just on energizing your comprehension of mobile marketing – but getting into it and doing it right.  Some have deemed it the “new point of sale” – and Mashable helps you figure out how to work with it.  Mashable is sometimes a bit vacuous with mindless social media fandom…. but these *9 tips about location based marketing* are winners.  If you need some help finding the business page in Foursquare.. well.. it’s right here.  If you are trying to figure out more, and it’s over your head… you might want to consider EYE FOR TRAVEL’s conference on Mobile in Travel & Hospitality in London, early June. I linked the agenda back there, and if it doesn’t get you excited about the potential of mobile (or kinetic energy at this point), nothing will.  Social Mobile is the ROI everyone has been salivating for.  Pay attention to it.

But remember… as mobile burgeons, traditional channels still provide results.  Not only do those channels hold tight, so does email marketing (something Hotel Marketing Strategies has been a big supporter of)… as you can see with some surprising information he put together on a recent post.

COFFEE TALK, or *PHEW* I am sort of getting overwhelmed because I am a hotelier, not a tech guru or social geek!

I think it’s important to take all these rapid changes with gentle aplomb, some furrowed brows, but a lot of thoughtful shoulder shrugging too.  It’s important to be a fence sitter sometimes… accumulate as much data as possible before making any decision.  I am not saying delaying action, but I am suggesting to be thoughtful.  Don’t automatically become a convert to this new world, because no one really understands it yet.  *NO ONE*.  I think Dick Feynman (a hero of mine) could have said it best:

“in any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion… fence sitting is an art, and it’s difficult, and it’s important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It’s just better to have action, isn’t it than to sit on the fence? Not if you’re not sure which way to go, it isn’t.”

Everyone expected the telegraph to kill newspapers (you need to be a paid Economist subscriber to read that fantastic article), the TV to kill the radio, social media to kill traditional methods of marketing… but we all know that “sky is falling” nonsense is just about capturing attention to headlines, and the future will be a mish mash of everything.  Don’t panic…. just try to comprehend.  And if you still need a basic review of how to engage in social media, here is a fairly competent and quick article about how to do it well.

BUT THAT’S JUST CONSERVATIVE HESITATION, because the future is now….

That warning being said, here’s something that I call jaw dropping, and possibly a slight peak at the future of a semantic web (as they keep saying.  It’s the new “mobile is here! 2006, Mobile is here 2007, mobile is here.. maybe 2008, mobile is coming… 2009, MOBILE IS TOTALLY FREAKING HERE 2010!) -

SPEED MATTERS…. This is where the start of today’s post gets somewhat scary.  Did you just finish a website re-design, or pump endless cash for years into internet marketing branding and design?  Well… those flash laden pages that are pretty when they finally do load are a drain on your Google ranking… and your SEO suffers the more bulky or content laden your sites are.  GOOGLE ANNOUNCES SPEED IS NOW TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN REGARDS TO INDEXING. In fact, Hotelmarketing.com has a good suggestion… if you use flash, you might want to take a peak at your own speed…. and see where you stand.

Which leads us to Adtech SF, and some interesting tweets that I am commenting on in regards to the concept of the dying brand website.

Apparently the brand website is dead (or committed to an iron lung), and you don’t need it anymore.

At a fairly important conference about the advertising & the internet, they basically said that a brand’s website is dead.  They are dealing with some fairly complex issues of sustainability for business in online competition, coupled with the need to have accessibility to how your brand exists online.  I am extrapolating off the conversation I heard, but it’s basically the following:

Basically, a website should be for a booking engine, and directions, but anything else might not work, especially as google is starting to improve rankings based off of load time and speed of website.  The idea is that the way the internet is headed into a more communal area where it is about niches of relevant interests, and it will be nearly impossible to leverage a small brand website versus all the community based chatter in regards to certain topics.  In addition to this, it isn’t in the best interest of ANY of these communities to lose the potential power of consumer dollars spent through their portal, so why should they happily direct people to you in the first place?  In this, your website is moot because everyone is forming their opinions in conversations with user generated pictures, stories, etc.  The way search is changing, even booking engines will exist within social platforms (IE Facebook), and people will slowly stop visiting your site, and ultimately, no one will be going to them all together.  Also… the SEO era is moving into a “semantic” era where search engines will be reading user generated photos and videos, whether they are tagged or not -

Meaning there is *your* contribution.. a couple expensive photos, an expensive site – but the internet community members with keywords and chatter alone will overwhelm any input you have.  You won’t be able to compete with the niche communities that are actively owning *your* brand, vs making your site relevant or even noticeable in return.  Therefore, your site will be less relevant, be pushed down overall, and even the anciengt codger who won’t give up the old fashioned way of booking through the hotel’s site – well – it’s going to be even harder to find.

Scary stuff.  And not that far off.  It’s fairly interesting too, but…..

Time for me to retire. haha.

No – seriously.  Anyone have an island they could lend?

If those well researched and thoughtful representations of how things will be changing isn’t far enough in the future, let’s move a decade down the road… to 2012 (haha).  These sanguine and cogent predictions aren’t the typical crazy, wide eyed guru’s ramblings.  These are smart… and likely.  Marketing Times has 11 Predictions for social media in 2012… and they might interest you.

It sure as hell interests me.

Is the cost such that we can’t even keep the online version?

Just getting the news out there…. in my opinion they were the best in the industry, and this is a HUGE hole to fill.  What’s more… the March issue was, quite literally, a thing of beauty.  I read most of that mag when it comes in the mail… even if some of the info had already come and gone due to the pace of social media….  but I read every single article in that issue.  It was a fantastic edition…. something that shone so brightly just to go south.  So sad.

Be well guys, and thanks for all your work!  Not sure what I can do, but reach out to me and our little corner of the social world and we will do all we can!

[ED UPDATE: R&I aka Rimmag aka Restaurants and Institutions Magazine has also, obviously, suffered the same fate.]

————————————-

Dear Michael Hraba,

Our parent company, Reed Elsevier, announced in July of 2009 its
intentions to substantially exit its Reed Business Information U.S.
publishing business, while retaining other businesses.  Over the
past several months, multiple publishing brands have been divested.
On April 16, 2010, we announced the closure of the remaining
publishing brands and their associated products and services.
Consequently, the April 2010 issue was the final issue of
Hotels Magazine and our web sites will cease operating as of April
30, 2010.

We are proud of the role we have played in informing our industry
over the years and it has been our pleasure to serve you.

Regards,

The Staff of Hotels Magazine

YELP IS INCREASING TRANSPARENCY

They are discontinuing the sponsored business listing “favorite review” feature which confuses the most complex of knuckleheads….. but they are also releasing their incredibly fault algorithm’s hold on hidden reviews. Instead of trying to *HELP* the user by engaging them with relevant, meaningful reviews, they are suspending the algorithm’s effort in hiding meaningless reviews. AKA – a whole bunch of shill positive or ridiculous negative reviews are going to pop up and appear on profiles; the funniest part is that business owners asked for it. Now people are going to be swamped and blindsided by a slur campaign or their old, mistaken reviews coming out of nowhere.

I think it’s interesting, in a lot of ways. It raises a lot of questions. One being:

Does this invalidate the contractual business agreement that yelp has with businesses?

I think what Yelp did was a smart move…. and if it didn’t save them from future semantic web issues, it will help usher in a simpler era where the USER has to be intelligent enough to engineer their own filtering process. I will actively pray that people aren’t so stupid that they can’t tell the difference between a helpful, earnest review vs. a rant or missive that has more to do with a blind date than the establishment.

But in the end, the real shake up isn’t for end users…. it’s for businesses. If you are a business that is a Yelp sponsor, you might want to ask what happens to your agreement, or sponsorship, once the changes take effect. I am not saying it was world altering, but having random reviews pop up before your chosen favorite might be a big deal for businesses that are honest.

If you are a Yelp business, I would love to hear if this is a concern for you?

If you are just a hospitality person, I would love to hear your thoughts. Basically, this is beyond the right move for yelp (like they might be reading my blog). But this will cause some short term road bumps to sponsorship that could help to implode the young 2.0 company not prepared for the openness of the 3.0 semantic web that everyone keeps referencing.

This is a huge decision for Yelp, and certainly a long term one.

Whatever their internal reasoning, the short term effects will be very important to pay attention to. If you don’t hear of this in the next couple days, Yelp very well might be getting to big to fail. If their management is able to make responsible and far sighted decisions like this, there’s no reason it should.