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)

Most of you don’t have the time for this, but I know some of you are still somewhat alien to the idea of social networking and the more knowledge we have, the better we can utilize the tool.

Why Facebook Pages are important:

These “pages” leverage our brands in multiple ways. In regards to general optimizing of the website, the more our page and our links exist throughout the internet, the higher our page will bump (pardon for being simplistic). But the other side of it is that these pages target consumers MARKEDLY well… and we can get into an ad campaign later that is cheap, and incredibly specific down to keywords like “eco-hotel”, specific regions, and more. In that sense, instead of the ad appearing next to any random facebook account, it appears next to people that have relevant accounts, potentially increasing our conversion rate.

As for the pages….. since I published them, they have already been getting considerable hits without any effort *at all*. Meaning some of these pages have gotten up to 20+ page views simply for existing. In fact, Fiji has somehow picked up fans. It is remarkable really. I am going to do some very low level advertising experiments with this, and will follow up by the middle of next week.

Why Facebook is important?

Facebook is a place where users are constant “endorsers” of products in front of their friends as the targeted audience: a music video, a political figure, a local café, etc. A user “fan”’s the page, and their friends in their network see this, converting more users into your network. It can allow previous guests to touch base with staff or other guests they met, keep up to date on the resort, or post pictures and stories. It allows other people to simply wait for the right offer to visit, or fantasize from their cubicle.

What is truly incredible is that, for no fee, you can send out a “status update” to all your fans… specials, important events, etc… and it goes on their “feed”. This is important, as email is possibly in the beginning of its decline (this is another discussion entirely), and the ad will appear directly in front of their eyes, rather than hidden in an email they can ignore or throwaway.

It is also important to think of the size of some of these social networks, and the effect that one popular kingpin individual can have on the community at large. We begin looking at social networking members as individuals with high or low “equity”. The “high equity” group leaders are someone worth targeting in hopes they lead their network in the same direction.

The real impact of facebook is that it spins around the ad model where you force feed consumers endless advertising, and you target the people that want to be known as endorsers of your product. In fact, the way that hotels are going, and most businesses in general, print media is rapidly declining. I have a lot of reports with evidence that supports this. Like Here!

With this “individuality” model, endorsing specific products highlights a person’s style of individuality, bolstering their equity within their group, helping them become a more important figure for that network (including more profile hits and overall social interest, making that individual become highly desirable to interact with). In the end, you don’t have to approach them in the traditional sense with advertising…. The consumer is starting to come to us as it will benefit their standing to be part of *your* network of hotels, etc. When your brand is solid, and your social standing is good, facebook users become unaware that they are advertising for you in a personal effort to set themselves apart as an expressive and individualistic user. In essence, humans are now the vehicles for your brand, and will errantly act as walking billboards reaching more people than any traditional print media could.

————————————————

I have done a lot of work on facebook. Here are the links.

Facebook is a closed social network, but these business pages appear in everyday google/yahoo searches.

Look at them, and if you are part of facebook, please “fan” the page. If you have anyone you know that is on facebook, send these to them (cutting off the below explanation please). Upload videos and photos if you have them.

I wanted to keep this short, but a concise explanation of these and why they are important appears below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Passport-Resorts/31208562731

PASSPORT RESORTS

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Savusavu-Fiji/Fiji-Islands-Resort-Fiji-Vacations-Fiji-Luxury-Resort-Hotel-Eco-Resort/104677890056

JEAN-MICHEL

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Sur-CA/POST-RANCH-Big-Sur-hotel-Big-Sur-lodging-Ventana-Mountains-Eco-Inn-Spa/32703496590

POST RANCH

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sonoma-CA/Sea-Ranch-Lodge-Sonoma-Coast-Hotel-Dog-Friendly-Inn-Mendocino-eco-hotel/31281769323

SEA RANCH

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sausalito-CA/Sausalito-Hotel-National-Park-Lodge-San-Francisco-Hotel-Sausalito-Resort/32504522793

CAVALLO

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hana-HI/Hana-Resort-Maui-Hotel-Maui-Lodging-Maui-Resort-Hawaii-vacation-Maui/32495359821

HANA

They believe social reviewers a tight knit group of people that suffer groupthink (IE “Yelp Elite”).

In this, a lot of time reviewers of their own travel networks, say Trip Advisor or someone using LA Times Travel site, are easily and confidently swayed by reviewers within their own network.

In an ideal web 2.0, user generated content such as this is *absolutely* meant to be informative, evaluative, and impacting.  They are meant to create a community of honest and trustworthy sources:  balanced, honest, real, truthful, and experienced.

As it should be if all reviews on all sites if the reviewers were professional.  But… they are not.  They are often fickle, misguided or simply wrong.  Often spelling is of little concern, and a fair review (or pertinent) is further down the agenda.

These sights are far from objective.  Look at Sf.Eater‘s ongoing efforts for ontological, anthropological discussion and documenation in their series called “Yelp Wanted“.  It is hilarious really…

… until you get to us.  The business owners and those involved with the business.  Then it becomes sort of frustrating.  Sort of depressing.  Possibly maddening.

You have business owners suing reviewers, or simply lashing out.  You have other ones trying to fight back and sue some of the sites.  Merchants angry, or better yet, small innkeepers organizing trying to “convince tripadvisor”.

It is pretty incredible.  It attests to the lobby like influence these user sites have.

So why are there no checks and balances?  Why oh why isn’t there even a spell check?

Joking aside, there is no way to seek veracity for reviews on most of these sites.  Expedia and Travelocity give the opportunity to review only *AFTER* the processed stay has occurred.  Of course this was easy for them to do, as proof of stay already existed, and you didn’t have to come up with some arbitrary verification process.

But it is interesting how often (to bring this back to the first line), seemingly, someone will read a review prior to using a business, and will have a self fulfilling expectation, either good or bad, of what to expect.

For example… an important reviewer negatively comments on something, only to start a string of similar comments.  There have been cases of yelp reviewers commenting on businesses they haven’t even used, simply because other reviewers had bad experiences.  Or a better example might be when a Yelp Elite Party is held at a specific restaurant or event center.  It is assured an endless string of glowing reviews will be lobbed towards the provider as a goodwill back scratch.  When someone does not write a glowing review, there is a backlash.

(Actually, it seems that Yelp has removed that post because one of their staff continually provides bad PR.  Here is another thread where he is duking it out with a non elite member.  It sounds drunken, and sophomoric.)

So what’s the moral?  Is there one or is this another silly ramble?

No… the moral of the story is that this is an ever involving dynamic between businesses and customers.

What I am starting to get disappointed in is that these sites that aim to be a boon to the consumer is simply making it more complex.

In a day and age where human contact is rare and far between, we are now finding ways to be unprofessional to one another in our business relationship without ever having seen each other.

So… take every review with a grain of salt, be as aware as possible, and do your best to be honest, transparent, excited, and real to reviewers.

However, the most proactive thing is to talk to your guests, and engage them on property while you have the chance.  Whereas before you had the one special reviewer from the paper with his picture in the kitchen, every single guest has the potential of being an “amplified consumer” that will be a boon, or bust, for your property.

If they must groupthink, we may find it wise for it to be thunk in your favour.

I know I shouldn’t end with a made up word, but it’s time to play poker.

Sorry… for asking so many questions!

1)      In regards to management profiles, how much should we fill out?  I note our profiles are identical to reviewers, which means:

a.       I can message other users?  IE, the function seems turned on for me to PM reviewers?

b.      Either I turn off most of the profile features and look closed off as a management respondent, or keep them open and appear quite transparent (which is good) as to what properties I am writing for… which causes a problem for two separate owners that I write for that don’t want to dilute or clash with another brand/hotel?  If that makes sense?

2)      It suggests we start reviewing, as a normal reviewer.  Is that correct?  Or is that simply the management profile being the same as a normal reviewer, and we are not supposed to use the profile in this manner?

3)      I know you condone hotels writing responses…. And I am sure you know they might not have the skill (like grammatical errors I need to fix), time, or labour to respond to reviews, or to become an active participant in this “conversation”.  Not to compare you to yelp (heaven forbid… I would never do so), but they are okay with consultants writing reviews on behalf of hotels.  It seems you are as well, with the way you word “hotel representative”, etc.  I want to make sure this is correct before I proceed.  As a consultant, I would love to amicably talk and wax about social media, and the user vs. owner, plus any future plans you have lined up that you can talk about.  Your site is fascinating, and would love if there was someone I could chat with?  It might go through this list much quicker, anyway.  Sorry about that.

4)      Is there a plan or conversation about verification processes or ideas to help verifying that reviewers actually stayed at the property (or that management is truly management?)

5)      Are you willing to talk about or give numbers on your reviewers?  Like, how many reviews does the average reviewer write, or what percentage of reviewers write a single review?  Just wondering.

Please have someone call me, I would love to talk shop, and get a better understanding of how you do things.  Cheers, and I hope this finds you well!

Sincerely,

(me)

Enough scary “make the first sentences interesting nonsense”.  Let’s talk shop.

I really think you can take steps to make *parts* of it measurable… but you will never fully measure it.  Just like print “impressions”.  I never trusted print media and how you measure impressions to begin with.  Forcing your product in front of a face via TV or print ads doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing a good job reaching consumers.  Social media is even more difficult measure.  Ad revenue modeled network sites are not monetizing even the strongest of networks (think youtube, facebook, yelp, linkedin: not one is profitable).

There are so many of these articles about social media and ROI, such as this, this, and this.  They are all fantastic articles to be sure, but I think even talking about ROI might be lofty at this stage.  As much of the massive print media campaign budget moves into the online realm, some of that money can be dedicated to a Social Media Optimizer (SMO or whatever you want to call it), and you utilize that person with the same mentality as a concierge or doorman.  It is someone that provides a face to the hotel, added value proposition, and brands the image in the mind of the guest.  But the person handling your social media needs to be adept and deft.  Hell, I thought I was getting good at this, and I still get overwhelmed with the complexity in how to most appropriately handle responses.

But, the issue isn’t traditional ROI anymore.  The issue is the return on ignoring social media, possibly the return on influence It is about learning what you can about social media.  There are endless fantastic articles out there.  Like this Frause article “It’s okay to be anti-social“, which provide simple, concise explanations for the old school marketers eager to catch up!

But it is obviously not about social media and ROI anymore.  At least, not to the same degree.  Now, it seems there has been an awakening to the necessity of joining in, engaging the consumer, and starting a conversation.

Some say, ENGAGE OR DIE!

I just say that this is a lovely opportunity to really listen to consumers (filtering out the annoying nonsense we all need to ignore)… to really connect, and help your brand identify with the consumers that you want.  It is a fantastic tool that is still in its infancy…. and we should all stay as informed and learning on the way.

So… you can’t ignore it.  And it will cost you more in the long run to not participate in this “happening” where carefully manipulated brand images will become vastly more intricate and complex in their control, while real power has begun to transfer to the consumer for the first time in the history of marketing and advertising.  Actually… it might be the first time the consumer or public has had such a tool to really take back power from an elite class manipulating their own image.

This might be a bit much, but I can say this…. learn, join in, and enjoy!  Let employees on all levels of the property join in as well.  Tell them to post appropriate youtubes videos involving work.  Let them join in and twitter.  Of course front line employees will need to do this back of house, but the more your brand is included in the social media conversation… casually, naturally… without forcing it or being manipulative… the better presence and awareness people will have of your brand.

As for the cost in having someone manage this?  It may be more than a line employee.  It needs to be someone savvy, with the interest of the brand primary in their mind.  From excitement about a guest having a good time, to intelligent damage control, it is likely they won’t be an hourly employee.

There are, of course, talented and incredibly capable hotel social media consultants that can help with this.  Like me!

If you cannot afford anyone in these times (an obvious possibility), you might have to do some late night self training, and start logging into these places and developing yourself as the brand image and take care of it.  If not, it might be possible to distribute the responsibility across management.  Have rooms handle tripadvisor, and the restaurant handle yelp.  Split tasks and quiz the employee population and see who is excited about social media.  The sales assistant or HR rep already logging into facebook during work hours might be that person!

If someone on your staff seems excited, you could possibly get them involved, helping to bolster their identity with the company… resulting in staff retention… which is ROI right there!

Ha I proved it!

Whatever the case… get past the ROI conversation, get involved, be yourself, and have fun!

Hotels should find other hotels, for industry awareness, networking, and for the more cynical lot, to “track the competition / opposition”.

=)   (can you use happy faces in blog posts??)

I *will* go on the record as saying I think it isn’t so much about “competition” anymore as a value proposition for the customer coupled with niche or specific amenities that set your property apart from others.

I don’t think this climate of brand marketing needs cutthroat business practices targeting competing brands and setting yourself apart from them.  There are too many choices to focus on one competitor, and… not to zen out too much… a brand or hotel property needs to look inward, and focus on themselves, their operations, and their ethos.

But as for new hotels on twitter, there are ways to impact their market, and the INCREDIBLE responses I received from some other industry folks were a real treat (thanks people!)…. and it seems almost everyone is inline:

Hotels should follow hotels.  It is good partnership, networking, and socializing.

Hotels should look in their local arena.  Geographic searching of important twitterers and people that might be interested in your product is imperative.  One of the fantastic things is that friending people isn’t considered spam at all.  In fact, Twitter is “OPT-IN”, which is a wonderful tool for people to regulate their endorsement of your brand, while still allowing you to search out network hubs and important influencers in your markets.

If you have any other thoughts as to how hotels can effectively establish their presence… please comment!

also… here is a great article for reasons that hotels, or more to the point “product placements”, don’t succeed.  Follow FAIL!

This is taking for granted that your hotel account is not some marketing gimmick and actually someone adding to the conversation.  Remember… your brand is not something to spam or push on others.  It is something to be endorsed, and this happens by people accepting your brand as something they can identify with.

Who should your hotel follow?  Should it follow other hotels?  Is that network useful?

I really don’t know the answer to this.

I do know that looking close to home is an intelligent solution to joining the mix is having a geographic base for a hotel.  You can use Twitter Grader to search out important network hubs (look back at some of the network science posts) in your area.  It is not so much spam with your brand when you follow these people as much as becoming part of the localized twittering community.  It is also a way to get people noticing you locally, talking about you, and generally realizing you exist.

I am interested if people have any opinion about whether hotels should befriend hotels.  Any thoughts?