Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Another Class Action Lawsuit for Yelp!

Enjoy the TechCrunch article… and always, always, always enjoy the commentary.  I find it interesting if not hilarious.  If it isn’t hilarious enough for you, check out the comment section of this blog post, where it basically proves Facebook users are clueless (or 4chan had a blast acting like a mischievous army, once again).

Yelp seems to be taking this situation seriously though; umm….enough to post a Craigslist ad for legal counsel.  I would imagine there are better ways to hire lawyers than CL, but hey, just says a lot about the management that got them into this mess.

But these cries of extortion… once again… are more about bad management than out and out unethical behaviour.  There is no way these suits will be able to prove the “WE WILL DELETE A REVIEW FOR YOU” concept, because I don’t think it has ever happened; if it has, I doubt anyone has gotten a record of it as fact.  Someone would have proof by now… a recorded call, etc.  Admittedly, these guys at Yelp are from Paypal, and they know not to be sending privy or damaging info across email, etc…. but I still doubt something like that is going on.  It’s more likely confusion on the level of businesses not getting what is happening with the algorithm, as well as the dubious (but not out and out unethical) “move the best review to the top” program, that seems to confuse a lot of people.  This is more about business owner’s lack of understanding about social media, and Yelp’s apparent incapacity to clarify just how their algorithm works.

Using the algorithm as an excuse is not a wise move – blaming the foundation of their business opens them up to scrutiny.  By blaming the process of your sorting model, there will be more curiosity as to how it works.  Until people can trust that algorithm without question, their entire model will be extremely unstable.  Regardless of proprietary, privileged information, it jeopardizes their ability to be viable and dealt with as ethical business people.  Of course, the bungled Google deal and whatever really happened there (it’s all speculation) might offer a small window into their world.  Theories abound that Yelp was lying to Google, leaking information, and fabricating higher offers from unnamed suitors.  Yelp walking on this deal doesn’t make as much sense as Google calling their bluff, but logic doesn’t always figure into business dealings.  All in all… Google knows how to negotiate, and they were “rattled” by Yelp’s lack of transparency…. seemingly a theme for Yelp.

All they need to do is be open about their algorithm, and it will bolster and gel their business model.  I am sure there would be growing pains with being that open, but it would pave the way to have a stronger, vetted business that actually has trust from other people.  Until then, their algorithm nonsense will be the blood in the water that keeps the sharks (lawyers & lawsuits) coming back…

As the solution to their issues seem obvious, it starts to beg the question whether Yelp really has something to hide.  Without being conspiratorial, it isn’t that much of a logical leap that they are concerned about *something* – whether there are significant flaws in the algorithm, or they have work arounds that allow you to disregard specific aspects of it.  Frankly I don’t like conspiracy theories; people are typically not intelligent enough to orchestrate massive lies involving endless people that agree to keep secrets without being morally challenged.  Our government can’t, big businesses can’t…. why should a web 2.0 startup be able to get this far?  If moralistic heart strings being tugged isn’t enough, money talks… and one of the employees would have blown the whistle for their future book deal and fame, at this point.

However, if they ever get caught jockeying reviews under the guise of their algorithmic mistakes, Yelp will be *decimated*…. but I can’t imagine that ever happening.  What might happen is that serious flaws in the algorithm get noted, and short term it will seriously hurt them.  Depending on how they handle this fictional problem, it won’t likely be a Yelp killer.  However, watching Toyota deal with public fallout, it never ceases to amaze me how business’ often choose to ignore history and good sense.  What’s more, Yelp is a leader in flipping the marketing model and giving consumers a voice, taking a business’ ability to control damage with PR and spin.  Yelp is acting exactly like the companies that they are helping expose… you can’t be secretive, you can’t market your mistakes away…. if any business should understand this, it’s Yelp.  If you aren’t ethical, or don’t operate with the best of intentions… the public has ways of exposing that.  It’s humorous, and possibly ironic, that Yelp is caught in a trap of their own making.

I love seeing unethical people getting brought down, but I just don’t see this as mitigated behavior so much as foolish bungling, something I touched on before in this article.

People who don’t understand what Yelp is offering endlessly cry about the review site’s shifty ways… but Yelp’s program for advertising isn’t that nebulous.  The $300, $500, $1000 plans get you “impressions”…. those lightly highlighted/colored ads at the top of searches on yelp.  You also get a “slideshow” style picture gallery which is pretty meaningless, and you get to pick your favorite review to automatically appear at the top.  It says, “this is the company’s favorite review” and it’s fairly obvious when people are sponsors.  Most of the worthwhile aspects of managing the business owners accounts on yelp have nothing to do with their advertising options, by the way.  It is a valuable tool and can help you listen, learn and grow…. but you don’t need to pay yelp for any real reason.  For most businesses I doubt it makes sense at all; I don’t get it for a flower shop or bakery, etc…. there is no return on investment, so those constant calls they must be getting are annoying, to be sure.  But I still don’t think there is some devious plot going on…. I have spoken to at least 5 different account managers in different markets who try to get me to advertise, and none have pulled any unethical behavior beyond being ENDLESSLY annoying.

I still prefer google adwords, but if you are already doing those it might not be a bad idea, depending on your business.  Think about it from a hotel’s perspective – If I choose to pay $1000 a month from our marketing budget (which has moved online from print media), that means I get something like 4800 impressions (aka a banner ad that a consumer may or may not see due to “banner blindness”… I mean, I don’t see those ads at all, frankly).  If our average daily rate is $500, that means I literally have to pluck one person for two nights out of the 4800 impressions to cover the cost of advertising with yelp.  It actually is sort of a slam dunk, in that sense.

I just can’t convince old school marketers who are scared of losing the message, and not controlling the brand, due to sites like this.  What’s more, Yelp is only successful in SF Bay and a couple other markets.. barely.  Boston, LA, Chicago, NY seem to be okay… but even social media savvy Portland and Seattle aren’t that strong a market at all.

Look at open table reviews vs. yelp reviews in other markets…. opentable reviews which are verified and confirmed from a reservation are much more common than yelp reviews outside of the SF market.  One of our fine dining restaurants in the Portland area has 2 reviews on yelp, and over 200 on open table.  That speaks volumes.

But in the end…. it’s all bad press, and it douses their equity every time this happens.  I can’t help but wonder why they allow this to continue unabated?

Social media is supposed to be about transparency and Yelp is failing at that…. massively.  Everyone thinks Yelp is some immutable, immovable behemoth, but people moved from Myspace to Facebook in less than a couple months.  Youtube is less than 5 years old, and Facebook is less than 3 1/2 years old..  Yelp needs to recognize that their high horse isn’t that high.  The basic upshot is that this is all very young.  I think it’s interesting tho… all of it… which is why I am rambling here to all of you.  This will all be sorted out within a couple years, I am sure.

Do you guys think this is more about confusion from the companies themselves, or do you really think yelp is committing some expertly maintained conspiracy?  What are your thoughts on the future of online reviewing?

A professional acquaintance and I were communicating today about the odd nature of social media in regards to “friending”, and navigating the tightrope that is personal and professional.  Social Media and Online Communication are still very young, and it is still learning to become the “metaverse” Stephenson conjectured, or at least fantastical replication of the physical world.  As it starts to more accurately and efficiently replicate tangible existence, we will see a new vision of a social platform – something that is capable of being augmented, and adapatable enough for the most diverse of us. For now, we have the frustrating complexity of navigating our professional selves, and awkwardly surrendering our personal lives in lieu of building a professional network.

The question she asked was “How do you decide who to friend when someone finds your profile off of the page you administer?”

This is, truly, a billion dollar question.  The online world is slowly revealing itself to be a simulacrum of the real world…. whereas MySpace’s vague and anonymous profiles caused confusion and apprehension, FB verification process through jobs and schools creates a more acceptable legitimacy in regards to the “realness” of a person.  If the person tried to build a “fake” profile, it would sort of become irrelevant because there were no real world connections to make.  That poses a problem for the more diverse of us.  I note Twitter facilitates the need to compartmentalize interests, hobbies, characters, etc…. I have multiple twitter accounts – one for my music and DJ’ing, one for art and science, one for biz, and so on.  The nature of communication is that we compartmentalize these interests, so we aren’t talking about the new museum to a hotel person, or the renovation of a hotel to someone who like to listen to music.  It’s vital – it’s who we are, and how we do biz.  At the very least, there needs to be a separation of professional life and work life.

This is where FB really lets me down.  Originally I had two profiles… my main normal one professionally (networking and managing pages), and a goofy one for all my closer friends, music/art/SF scene friends.  I soon realized it is literally impossible to juggle between the two accounts, let my alt-profile go dormant, and now I am simply an open book on my main profile.  I use it however I wish, post whatever I wish… all the while accepting professional peers as friends.  If they like my personal stream, that is fine – if not, they will unfriend.  But I note, for my own mental sanity, that I couldn’t possibly keep up to speed with trying to maintain two FB profiles, all the FB pages… and figuring out what interaction happened where.

So I ditched that alternate profile, and it has been incredibly freeing.  1) FB is not like twitter… it is a closed social network.  What is odd about that is that people don’t seem to want a closed social network in regards to their friends… because they will simply call and chat with them, see them at work or dinner, etc.  People want an open network like twitter, for sharing funny stuff, professional networking, etc.  So I note a lot of people on FB have just become friend junkies and will say yes to whoever might want to be their friend, simply to expand the network and ability for meaningful interaction.

I doubt you insulted anyone… most likely it is another Oregon local just trying to expand their network.

Whatever the case… this is a widely spoken about… you are not alone.  I think Twitter “gets it”, and Linked In sort of gets it.  There isn’t that much interaction there, but it is a valuable tool in conjunction with FB, at this point.

However, I think someone is going to soon create a tool/medium that allows you to truly compartmentalize these personna…. and create alternate profiles, conversations, etc within one network.  The person that figures out how I can post some inappropriately irreverent and sardonic nonsense on one part of my profile, and professional news and tidbits on another, while posting a video or new mix on my other “side” – that person is going to make a lot of money.

Google Wave could be a start to this.  I just realized something… Facebook would be able to adapt to this, but I am not innovative enough to figure out how Twitter to handle this sort of shift in friend management.  Whatever the case, pardon my afternoon verbosity.  The sun is hitting the office window and for some reason I just caught fire. =)

So…

This is a fairly funny, interesting article about the complexity of social ads, and how they can exploit any of your proprietary data for their own ends…. in that you agree it isn’t proprietary anymore by uploading it to the site.  IE:  Complain all you want, but if you are on a social media site, they own you.  Some try to be fairly deferential to the artist’s rights (Flickr, Tribe, etc), but others like Yelp and Facebook seem to have little concern for their single users, and are wholly concerned with users overall (read: business).

That being said, have you heard about any of these wildly incorrect or funny social ad gaffes?

Here are some from Cheryl Smith’s original article:

Husband sees his own wife in a picture for “hot singles”.

Karen said: “Despite having three degrees and no children, I keep getting ads urging ‘Moms’ to ‘go back to school and earn a degree.’”

Rachel said, “none of my friends have come up in dating ads but one of my guy friends – a 20 something with perfect skin, popped up in an ad for a wrinkle cream”

“I saw a Facebook ad that read “Pinecones. In glass. The want is real.” They were advertising just that — pinecones in glass jars. Very odd.”

[The following, I assume, was for a dating ad?] “My picture was posted in an ad for my sister, who then posted a comment in her status on FB, and everyone got to share a great laugh – after a collective: Ewwwww. Cheers!”

“Best one so far was a picture of our church’s pastor next to an ad asking my wife if she were hot enough to be in his sorority!”

These are hilarious… but somewhat frightening.  If you use FB, or most of these sites…. you should simply consider privacy over.  Don’t give up on it, but don’t act shocked.  At least, have a great sense of humour like Cheryl did on her original post.  The fact is – social media is young, and growing.  This will all get hammered out, and someday there will be parity and the new model will synch up.  Until then, please share the weird, wild, or funny things you see or hear about on social media ads!  Cheers!

Okay so I am really frustrated.  Well… that’s dramatic.  I am more confused, and too busy to gesticulate in the air and ask this question to the windows and fluttering leaves outside my office…. what in the hell is the point of Facebook for a hotel brand anyway??  I think a lot of people are using the Pareto Principle to organize their time in “doing” social media, as suggested earlier last week *here*.  I was going to try and find all the examples I have run into in the last year, but instead offer into evidence exhibit “B” – that time management is a very impacting conversation mentioned over and over because we are so dang busy and REALLY want to figure out what is important, and what isn’t.  So what’s important about Facebook?  Frankly, I am starting to lose my enthusiasm, especially since the stream change I reference right *HERE*.

Whether “Hotel Pages on Facebook” work isn’t a cut and dry question to say the least…. whether they are useful, or whether they are actually hotels to begin with is where we can start.  For example, if you search “Hotel” on Facebook, then filter so that only “pages” appear, the first 3 pages of over 500 results does have a hotel or two, but the majority of pages are for a band, or a page devoted to hating said band, or one of 15+ (I stopped count around 13) of Facebook Pages for the wonderful, if not somewhat antiquated, “HOTEL” board game.  Sure I enjoyed the game too, as you fair readers are just reminded of how much fun it was when you last played.

But this is no longer kid’s play.  This is business… and I want to make sure we are not wasting our time.

Two Important Questions, the latter being more impacting: “WHAT HOTELS ARE USING THEIR FACEBOOK PAGES THE BEST???”… and then the *really* important question….”THOSE HOTELS USING THEIR PAGES THE BEST… *what* *is* *the* *benefit*?”

Basically.. I would love to hear the positive, happy Facebook stories about hotels with groups or pages?  I am at a loss for any real examples of how it is “business”, or can be used effectively.  Like… none.  I know we have to be on FB… there has to be a presence.  But what am I missing guys?  I note this has come up recently, like *HERE*… but there hasn’t been much follow up.

I see people on hotel pages saying “I love your brand/hotel”.  I have also seen people upload a picture here or there.  But I *do not* see anything deeply meaningful or anything really happening (IE commerce, business, or jumps to booking engines, etc).  I know that the restaurants and especially lounges seem to like to use it as a place to update events, etc…. but most of the fans on a page would be previous guests, presumably not locals?  I have always thought hotels should ingratiate itself to the community, but there are only so many events and specials that you can target the community with, as they aren’t going to always be your strongest base or the people the pay the bills.  For brand image you need them happy, but they aren’t your guests.  What’s more, if you do constantly focus on locals… you are missing out on the bread and butter, which is rooms.  It is complex… is the page for a local clientele, for potential guests, for past guests that are part of your culture?  All 3? It’s almost like Hotels focus on the locals not because they *want* to.. but becuase, by default, they *have* to… as they don’t know how to reach others.

I for one haven’t the foggiest how you would get a potential guest to your facebook page, and what’s much, *MUCH* more important… is why?  Why would I want to get a guest to a page without much information, meaningful content, or a booking engine?  Isn’t the potential guest someone we want to end up on our hotel site?  Even the SEO premise is interesting, but if people aren’t searching or using FB to find brands, what’s the point of getting them to your page when they can’t do anything?  What’s more, if a FB page is basically a one sided twitter or RSS feed of brand info, wouldn’t you want your potential guest on your branded site instead of a dead-end of non-interactivity?

So what is the page for?  For now I have a couple things:  brand awareness (news, etc), SEO (your link on FB), contact info, (but FB’ers aren’t using pages as a yellow page, nor are they using it as a resource), events, specials.   Let’s look at some hotels and how they successfully use FB:

Hotel Costes – 25,000 fans, zero wall posts, obviously just a “front” or online billboard.  I think this may be the most effective use of a FB page out there.  Just build a nice page, and walk away.  I hate to be cynical, but it might be the simple best page I have seen, albeit a little tongue in cheek.  I will say that “Hotel Costes” is also famous in the younger scene for having downtempo lounge DJ’s playing, and have an associated line of CDs which may be part of its popularity.  Whatever the case, one of the hotel pages with the most fans, and they aren’t doing anything at all.

Hilton – 21,107 fans, with 8 posts on the wall in the last 14 days.  Those posts are the typical “Hilton is the best,i love it”…  meaning relatively benign, fairly non engaged commentary.  They aren’t posting anything, not even RSS.  I have seen some hotels pull back from posting, as the change FB made has wall posts injecting into people’s conversational stream like spam.  Hoteliers are confused how to handle this, and even I have found brand updates annoying as all get out (and I am the type that is meant to be tolerant of them, being my profession and all).

Hotel Aladdin – I love this example, because they are actually interacting with their 10,000+ fans.  You may not speak Spanish, but you can tell they are updating the wall, and people are actually participating.  So what is this meaningful interaction from a hotel doing a good job with their page?  People thumbs up, IE “Like This”, by clicking on the feed post and that’s about it.  Comments are frequent, but I still don’t see business.  People liking you doesn’t necessarily translate into “time well spent”.  They did have a contest where they gave away 3 rooms, which is a great way to garner attentions and fans… but does it make a booking down the road?

St. Julien – Obviously using the page, as they moderated a question I asked about their page.  They had a Earth Day special that got some attention, and some fans.  However… they got fans on the pretense of planting trees.  People joined, they announced 70 trees in those new fans honor.  But what now?  That first post since the event is about 20% off in the spa.  They have 216 fans right now.  Any wagers on whether the amount of fans goes up or down in the immediate future?  I *assume* new fans will tire of spa ads in their stream and de-fan pretty quick.  Whatever the case, are they spending time that generates business or justifies time spent?  Exactly *who* fans pages right now?  Who fanned St. Julien for that promo – people that wanted a tree planted, or people that wanted to know about the hotel?

HotelChatter mentions some more hotels that have pages, and that are potentially doing interesting things:

Whist at Viceroy Santa Monica with 125 fans is basically sending a dinner offer once a week, and nothing more.

High Peaks Resort, frankly, seems to do everything right when it comes to social media.  As much as their stream looks solid, with 300+ fans, I still wonder what sort of commerce or interaction happens…

The Jane, with 52 fans, hasn’t really posted anything *since* the hotel chatter article.  This isn’t indicative of them doing anything wrong, I simply think it is indicative of no one really knowing how to create meaninful conversation on FB.

I could keep coming up with more pages, but these are simply a couple hotels whose pages have already been chatted about in the social media conversation.  I notice most people aren’t doing anything, when they do it is usually a contest to garner more fans (to what end I am not sure anyone knows) or a special on wine at dinner , etc.  All this just lends itself to a couple points:

1) Social Media is about conversation, which is something I see on very few pages.  On FB, it is basically a one way pushing of information.. deals, news articles etc.  If FB had reviews that could be fused into a page, or some “game” like Hyatt developing one of those “what’s your travel personality” quizzes, it might create better interaction… but very few have the time, money, or justification to do anything like that.

2) Social Media is open, which FB is not – meaning that most of the time, on Flickr or Twitter you can actually have a chance of interacting with potential clients, while FB only has those that already know of your property, IE locals looking for a good deal on wine at dinner.  How many people is that for?  What percentage of fans will be local, and will actually utilize that deal?  Who is your target on FB?  Why is that your target?  What are you attempting to achieve with FB?

In the end -I think that question sort of zinged even myself… “What are you attempting to achieve with FB?”

I for one don’t have a clue.  I just know, even worst case scenario, it’s great to have your link out there in a place with a high page rank.  So that is why I am there, even though why I started was totally different… it was to regale guests, interact with them, create stories and remember moments…. but now, I feel relegated to checking it once in awhile, staring blankly, and then moving on.

I think a lot of hotels set up a page, have absolutely *ZERO* idea how to meaningfully interact with potential guests, and resort to offering locals dinner deals in their restaurant, because there isn’t really a way to reach a prospective client on FB (and don’t get me started on their advertising program… because we know that doesn’t work.  No conversion tracking, Lack of results, users not seeking advertising, and the Social Media Ad Model is broken anyway).  You can only reach people that know about you, and that can act on offers, deals, and last minute specials.  These aren’t clients that provide a powerful revenue stream to your hotel, and often, as we have seen with dropping rates to garner occupancy… the people looking for a deal aren’t really the clients you want anyway.

Are we wasting our time?

I did find some other great pages on FB about hotels….Hotel Rwanda, Hotel for Dogs.. and I am reminded people are passive.  They want to watch a trailer, or be told about a brand or product… but consumers on FB don’t necessarily want to interact with the brand yet… nor are many looking to become a vocal endorser and push your hotel page to their friends and network.  Basically, it is just something to click… and a page is something to ignore until it annoys you and you de-fan.  What’s more, you can’t tell consumers about your product if you aren’t able to reach them within the closed network.  It reminds me of Mashable’s comments that “Facebook needs to convince users to SEEK advertising.

Very complex stuff.

Cure my cynicism.  Tell me why I am missing the point, the bus, and target?  How has a FB Page saved your hotel brand, and made things better for you?  I want to hear stories now because I am quickly feeling like a page is nothing more than the 80% not actually causing any real impact.  Time to cull, and focus on the effective 20%…..

Is FB part of that 20% that gives you 80% of results?  Let me know!  Otherwise… I might be encouraging clients to build the page, and simply move on.

Share your experiences and thoughts!

Brands on Facebook are nothing more than dissonance now.  Whereas before they were meaningless, and the pages were little more than non-functional, limiting, and fairly non-interactive static places….

….now they are annoying, interruptive, and totally dysfunctional.  The new layout for facebook has turned personal conversations into nothing more than reality TV with advertisements at random intervals. Brands and Pages used to be benign, and it was obvious there weren’t *doing* much of anything.  But now people look at these pages as malicious marketing that is getting in the way of their social network.  The furor I have seen is remarkable, but I hadn’t experienced it until today.

I have three facebook accounts… two for work, one for personal.  Because I sorta “work” I don’t get “personal” too much… but I was on there this morning jibber jabbering, catching up, being a voyuer… and all of a sudden one of my *FAVOURITE BRANDS EVER* pops up with a blurb about an art showing.

I won’t say what it is; but it is sassy, salacious, lurid, and compelling.  So a little blurb pops up into my stream.  Remember…. I love this brand and what they do.. sort of punk chic stuff.  Maybe I do get personal, and will let you know I don’t mind salaciousness.  But, we are talking about something that should be compelling to my core.. a brand I have followed for years, enjoyed, interacted with, and whole heartedly endorsed.

I found it annoying… but brushed it off like a harmless spider on the table.. ignoring it but knowing it may come back.  Then another popped up… and another.  So what did I do with my favourite brand’s page?  I immediately unfanned it.  Immediately.  I don’t want that information in my personal, closed network of friends.  If I want information on the brand, I will search it out… go to the site… peruse the conversation.  But I don’t want it in my feed.  It was just total dissonance, and totally irrelevant.

Facebook…. you just made a terrible mistake.

I know I know… all these bloggers like to shoot from the hip and say, “critical fault”, “nail in the coffin” nonsense…. but just like most emotive reporting (if you want to call it that), it really is just a storm of hot air brewing in an empty tea kettle. Okay I know it doesn’t totally make sense, but you get the idea.

Video didn’t kill the radio star, and the earlier, initial report of radio being crushed by TV was premature. They found a symbiotic relationship, and their niche.  FB is an a/v laden TV, while Twitter is more like visual radio.  The analogy is flawed, but they are two things similar that are fundamentally very different…

Facebook made an error thinking they were like twitter.  And albeit all of *us* (the eyes that hit this are undoubtedly thoughtful – industry eyes well versed in social media) know that twitter and FB are different…. FB didn’t realize that.  I am not sure why, but in wanting an open stream for brands to interact with users, they neglected to see the difference between a closed and open network.  All this immediately before their CFO leaves?  Maybe they finally realized that the ad model won’t help them reach profitability?  Maybe because the ad model is failing, as Mr. Khan from JP Morgan suggested?

They want a page’s wall to post to user profiles, effectively allowing marketing and more “business” to happen on facebook…. they want a brand’s wall posts sitting in the middle of a private stream of communication within a closed network?  I hadn’t really thought about it during the initial changes, but it just seemed odd.

Twitter is an open stream of networking and collaboration. People ask strangers questions about how-to, products, and more.  FB has a closed network of friends interacting about personal things. This difference is obvious, but let’s talk about FB’s myopia in attempting to capture all of social networking, the “there can be only one!” mentality.  This has caused FB to move into territory that is unfamiliar, and it is seemingly eroding the base of trust and interactivity that made FB so popular to begin with.

Why did Myspace (maybe this is premature) fail?  The answer is that there was no accountability, no verifiability, and no real trust… which is where FB swooped in and confirmed status based off real world markers. Is this person real? Where do they work? Where did they go to school? When?  What’s their birthdate?  Facebook found a way to solve that accountability problem, which gained them quite a bit of trust with users. This trust has been challenged multiple times with things like Beacon, etc. The public outcry is because FB was famous for having built a trustworthy social network and then started eroding that trust by attempting to inject business and marketing. Apparently, people didn’t want that on FB.

What’s funny is that the Beacon outcry was a huge disaster, but I am thinking it was a gain for FB because they were able to immediately rectify a big problem noting canceled accounts and the media buzz.  In light of this new issue, I think the erosion of the users trust will be just as severe, if not more so… but in a long term, sustained migration away to new networks (that are inevitably on the horizon).

The new problem might take far longer to discover… instead of a large group of people complaining, closing accounts, causing a stir immediately…. you are going to have one or two people at a time slowly get frustrated with “advertisements” and walk away, or unfan pages making any business commerce obsolete.  I still would love to know what that commerce is supposed to be anyway, but I guess that is a different post.

Now, I am using one of my largest, most popular brands to run an experiment for our fans:

“Cheers to all our fans! I would love to know your honest opinion. Facebook changed without asking all of you what *YOU* want. Do you find it an imposition or annoying to see pages interacting with your closed network of friends? I won’t post on the wall if it is dissonance. Please let me know!”

I will update you as I find out more information, but the test will be successful. Either I find out what they think, or they don’t say a word and I further note that no *real* or *meaningful* interaction happens on Facebook in regards to business or brands.

It *might* be fine for posting events, but I really didn’t think anything more than long term brand building.

Now I am thinking it is not only *not* that… I think their new layout might actually kill any ability to market or further a brand.  Enough wall postings and people will be unfanning pages immediately.  “Why did I fan Tabasco hot sauce anyway?”, “He’s a great musician but I don’t need to know everything he is thinking!”, or “I love that hotel, but who cares about events I can never go to?”, ad naseoum.

Whatever the case, these are my ramblings.  I am one of the most patient, accepting, and brand aware people out there… and I was annoyed to the extent that I immediately acted, an unfanned a page.  If you have a guy like me doing that, no telling what people less tolerant of marketing will do, and how quickly they will react.

I don’t think this is anything Facebook can fix… I just think it is something we will have to ride out and watch.  Any comments on this would be appreciated!  I am not going to shoot from the hip and suggest this is doom for Facebook, but I will suggest that this will rapidly become a problem.  Pages were totally benign before; now they are, frankly, annoying.  I know I am not the only one that thinks so… what about you?

I haven’t been able to really wrap my head around this until today, and would like ANY industry advice or thoughts.

I am a hotelier that is attempting to simplify our lives as SMO, CRM, etc.

With all these accounts and things to keep up with, I want the simplest method of updating and keeping my fans up to date with our news, events, offerings, and great pics, etc.  I was boggled as to how to best manage this, considering we are constantly posting one article to multiple pages and sites.

So… for now… this is the best practice for syndicating and streamlining your SMO work.

1st – use yahoo pipes to grab any aggregate content you need… meaning flickr photos, etc.  There are a lot of things to build and use here, and I am still learning, but it is simple to – at least – create automatic feeds for photo uploads and other information.

2nd – take all possible feeds and mayhem you have created with yahoo pipes and parse those feeds into twitterfeed, so that all content you are interested in (external corporate blog, tags of flickr pics, etc) is fed into your twitter account.

3rd – Siphon the single twitter RSS feed into your FB page by importing it through the “Notes” settings.  Notes posted through the RSS are, SEEMINGLY, posted to the wall so that all our fans and followers are able to see them.

therefore… any tagged photos, blog posts, newsfeeds, press releases, etc can be fed from pipes into twitter, therefore creating one RSS feed that will distribute *all* aggregate data through the RSS for your twitter page.  Taking that and embedding/importing it into your Facebook Page means that you only need to post on twitter, publish your blog articles, and make sure all these connection are up and working.

NOW.. correct me.  Is this the simplest and most elegant way to manage content, push content, and create less work through simplicity?  Let me know!

I couldn’t post a comment for some odd javascript reason… from this article here:
http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/facebook-for-hotel-marketing/

I think it is a great thought, and well done for saying so. 

Personally, I think you *need* to be there… set up a page, add some nice content, and let people chit chat about how they wistfully remember their time, or look forward to their next stay.  I don’t see much activity, but it is there.  What’s more your link is out there a bit more on a high pageranked site, so it helps a bit with SEO.  Equally if not more important, you end up having a way for guests or fans or general public to reach you…. at least there’s that. 

But I ran some low level ad experiments with some fairly reputable boutique hotels I work with, and the results of FB “highly targeted” marketing with their ad model was… I mean… laughable.  People just don’t click on internet ads anymore.  There is actually something called “banner blindness” to the ad guys.  Whatever it is… people visually blocking ads out or just not caring… people aren’t clicking.  (In my experience at least)

Only when I stopped trying to promote the pages and let them sit, and organically get discovered, is the point I started seeing 100’s of fans and conversations.  Of course, this might only be for specific brands that have a specific offering.  It might be hard to get a budget roadside in the middle of nowhere to get a following, but a lot of brands spark loyalty, interest and even curiosity.  Many of the pages I work on have 100’s of fans.

But still…. they don’t actually *DO* anything.  They don’t interact in meaningful ways. They certainly don’t book rooms off the FB page.  They might book elsewhere, then chat about their upcmoing stay on FB…. but there isn’t any meaningful traffic through to the booking engine, to say the least.

I wouldn’t spend a dime, but I think you need to at least have a page there.  Just let it reinforce the brand, be another place with your link, and another point of accessibility for guests. 

Great article. Thanks for the thoughts.  This had been back in my mind for a bit I think.  A few months ago I was thinking they might play a big role, but boy that fell apart fast. =)

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

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

Cheers!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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

Yelpers don’t want complexity.  They just want lovely free parties where they can be happy.  Nothing wrong with that, frankly.  Sounds good.  Actually.. really, really good.

But happiness does not sustain itself all the time… those parties may be no more if something doesn’t happen… and fairly fast.  I did just notice a new feature called “Things I Love” on the yelp profile main page.  This is worked in so as to create highly targeted advertising for the members.  If they like dogs, they can market dog food.  If they like their fiance, they can market wedding vendors.  It is a brilliant idea, but I already chatted about how Facebook’s model doesn’t work.  Even running a couple tests produced some negligible and even odd results.

So, when JP Morgan suggests that 2009 will be the year that the ad model fails…. my ears perk up and I wonder a couple things.  Namely, will there be unexpected opportunities if they are not able to get ROI or make these things profitable?

This is fascinating, and social media is so big right now… ballooning, saturating, and a media darling which has gotten an almost cult of personality like focus in the news.

I cannot imagine that they will make it profitable, nor can I imagine it going away.

What do you think is going to happen?  I think that a lot of these sites don’t have strong business leadership, and there is a lot of panicking going on right now.  As long as they focus on the business more than the parties….

I think we will live to review another day.