Hraba Hospitality Consulting

I just found this.  1) Don’t know if it’s useful, but it’s interesting, 2) I am sure you guys can leverage this in some way, 3) I don’t know if this is supposed to be visible or not… so take advantage now.

This isn’t just about keywords by market which is endlessly fascinating, but it also says a lot about their markets…. the sheer volume of terms in SF compared to, say, Portland is pretty intriguing.

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches?page=01

that’s for SF.

You can also search other cities

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/nyc?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/la?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/chicago?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/sacramento?page=01

http://www.yelp.com/topsearches/portland?page=01

750+ pages of terms for SF, 521 for LA, 443 for Chicago, only 59 for Sacramento, 63 for Portland, etc.  Enter your city and see if it is at all worthwhile or interesting for you.

Cheers… just thought I would share.

Also….

I apologize for posting the below (I had published the keywords, but didn’t feel comfortable with them, now I just list the #), as it is the nefarious naughty words of net searches… but I doubt this will be up for long, due to searches like this tarnishing yelp’s equity with user base searches like #35, #47, and #60 among other less illegal or salacious terms on the SF search term board (like #99).  Ouch, yelp.  Ouch.  If these pages are removed, I will post the terms.  Frankly, they are sort of disturbing. =/  Can any SEO people suggest what these are?  I cannot believe they are organic searches?

Yet another ambly, rambly post from a caffeine fueled hospitality dork. This is more waxing than anything, and is a state of affairs and insight rather than some exciting insider news. Hopefully, if you actually finish it, it will just make you nod your head and think a bit. This is about how we spend out time…. and however it ebbs, however fast; it’s an issue nowadays.  “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”  Might be easy for Albert Einstein to say that…. but it sort of seems like everything *is* happening at once nowadays.

You know what we do. I know what we do. We goof off all day long online!  <ducking>

Ha ha… I kid I kid! But there are moments I feel a hairsbreadth from snapping, lost and boggled while in the stream… panicked with glazed over and angry eyes just trying to read the matrix. Then a client calls and wants me to explain what I am doing?  Yeah right… like I have to answer to them (tongue firmly in cheek).

So we social media people do a couple things. Of those things, I think we mainly get overwhelmed with the depressing fact that, of the 100% of things we see, only a small percentage of the data is relevant.  Beyond the natural conversation, CRM, and carrying a torch for your brand…. I think most of us start our mornings by filtering content, right?  And … OH!… so much content!

Sometimes during this process, I come close to forgetting to walk Pavlov, or eat lunch (like today), or take a break… or look up.  Sometimes when I do look up, it’s 9pm.  Frankly, I *have* started to get a unique balance of work/life between all these influences, something especially complex in that so many of these social media platforms cross back and forth from the personal world to the professional realm.  It isn’t easy to balance, but I think we are all getting there. This isn’t about work/life balance however, but if you have any good tricks let me hear them!

Honestly, some of my aforementioned dementia is rollicking good hyperbole, but I *KNOW* you are aware of what I am speaking about.  I am a hotelier at heart and in practice, but now I am part of this league of social media people with some very peculiar problems.  As for this chaotic side to our job that is less about conversation and more about keywords – what would we like to call it?  Content management?  Data filtering?  I know we have to have google alerts, rss’, twitter searches, flicker searches, and an endless amount of other minutia.  I am not sure how much of my day is spent *working* versus *filtering*.  What’s more, unless you are deft with boolean logic, the sheer volume of stuff that comes our way into readers, email reminders, and feeds is insurmountable.  More and more I find I am choosing my battles, and scarily deleting whole streams of keywords that just don’t feel relevant enough vs. the amount of time I would need to comprehend all of them.

The frustrating thing is that a monkey (or bright lemur) could perform a decent chunk of this.  There are great solutions for these time and data management issues, such as Radian6, but they provide a whole new level of work and have a price point some of us cannot justify. So, many of us our relegated to doing our own work… HEY NO FAIR!

The problem with the amount of time consumed by this is that it keeps us from the real conversation and CRM duties we are being paid to accomplish. For proper yelp and tripadvisor responses, or the courting of potential clients on twitter, you need a fairly robust intellect bolstered by a grasp of how to inject professionalism, personality, and passion into your interactions, coupled with the tactful skill of being deferential *and* confident?  That stuff isn’t easy…. but then these same people are sitting and filtering keywords and conversations for relevancy…. A mind numbing task that a smart 6 year old could do for you. It isn’t a bad idea really… I think they work real cheap.

Whenever I get somewhat insecure or OCD-tweeked with the robotic like filtering of keywords, data, images, and the basic conversation… I just remind myself that someone has to do it.  It is sort of like a B-52 bomber right?  The guys up top had a job to do navigating and bombing, while us little brand watchers in the belly of the plane have to survey the landscape…. watch what’s going on… and shoot when necessary (The coffee this morn was so strong it beat up that weak analogy).

Basically what I am saying is that it is part of a larger picture, and is basically moot. For our purposes, it is just a daunting necessity…. And part of our world. In fact, I see that it is getting its hooks into me… a casual 2 minute weekend web search for dinner reservations or a movie showtime can turn into an exhausting foray into my new drug. While my fiancée readies for our evening excursion, I am sneaking about like some philanderer, furtively injecting my head with this addiction via rss feeds and alerts. As she emerges from our bedroom I scurry away from the computer for fear of getting caught dosing myself and basking in the dimly lit glow of my screen. “But someone might be mentioning the brand!” I think to myself. I realize that social media’s speed *DOES* mean that you need to be on top of it, and join in the conversation as soon as it happens - But there is a limit.

This *huge* aspect of our job is tantamount to trying to beat the internet. Just a friendly reminder that isn’t possible. So what’s the point here? Why the complaining if there is nothing to be done about it??

The issue is the client.

Not only do clients not always “get” social media (that is why they have hired you), but they also may have sneaking suspicions about how much work you are doing versus playing. All the boomers like to talk about “productivity in the workplace dropping”, but if the old days of business were anything like “Mad Men” I think a little playing online during the day is just fine, compared to being drunk on scotch at half past ten (sounds lovely, to be sure).

In the end, this all may be born of my insecurities. I admit I have some concerns with relating the work we do for clients, and resolving the best way to inform them of it. I have spoken about Social Media ROI and getting over it, but I saw a very sanguine and concise point in a blog comment recently: “I know it’s hard, but this is business and it just isn’t right that we can’t measure it”. It’s true. It’s business. It needs to be measured. I think we will get some level of measurement someday, but it’s still evolving. For now, I still think the ROI is the “return on ignoring” social media…. But it still doesn’t make it okay that we can’t get a grip on it.

My clients are happy whether or not they “get” social media, because the end result has been more bookings, better brand image, and people talking about them. Therefore, they are incredibly trusting and supportive, even in relation to the above issues. We social media people need a lot of room, and a long leash, so we can really dig in and gets are hands dirty. But many of my clients don’t understand some core aspects of what we do… namely the amount of time we spend just *getting* to the conversation. Sometimes the important conversations aren’t that apparent, or don’t just come to you via your facebook page. What’s more, I am concerned about measurement for *me*, and not just my clients. This, again, is about time management. At the end of the week, or month, I would love a way to hand over all my work in the form of a single document, spreadsheet, etc, as compared to the lengthy phone calls I need to have. When clients don’t understand social media, and you start showing it to them in the form of work accomplished (building a twitter account and participating, or commenting on a blog, etc)… it may just go over their head. I have seen a number of shrugged shoulders and a “well you have obviously done something….”. I know it is our job to get across what we are doing, but most of what I am doing now is showing them the actual conversation and chatting about it at length… let’s look at twitter, then flickr, then youtube, then…. Aaaaaaaaaaand my day is over and once again I haven’t gotten to any real work. Ha. There’s the rub. Forget sleeping or dreaming (for the Shakespear fans)

All of this is more consumption of time (yes… same as this post too), and it just adds to the dilemma of actually getting work done when you are simply filtering data on the front end, and trying to explain the work you did on the back end. Informing your clients about your work is vital, and if *ANYONE* has ingenious thoughts or methods of efficiently and succinctly relating your social media campaigns to your clients.. I would love to hear them.

Until then, don’t try to beat the internet. Not only is that impossible, but if you literally do it your laptop will be busted into smithereens, and your router will be in shambles. =) Time for lunch at 2pm!

The below text is from Flickr to a user.

Hello,

Flickr account “framesdirect” was deleted by Flickr staff for violating our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

www.flickr.com/guidelines.gne

# Don’t use Flickr for commercial purposes.

Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account.

-Terrence

My question… how are these hotels and brands getting away with using flickr for business purposes, or better question:

How long before Flickr further cracks down on businesses and starts deleting accounts?

Anyone that understands this complexity with flickr, please let me know.  I don’t get how this is being utilized as it violates the TOS?  Is it ok, or does Flickr just not care until they choose too?  I think there is a transparency and consistency issue here for Flickr?  Thoughts?

My blog posts run aggressively long at times.  So… I gave the instructions and “how-to” in the last post, but all you skeptics might want a “WHY” section to refer to…. and we shall call this the “meat” of the discussion.  As I have made it late to lunch due to this post, it will not only entice me to end it, but will provide the bulk of the point of this discussion.

The reason this is important for business:

The more places we are active online, and the more places we exist online, helps us significantly. The more places we are talked about or our media is represented, the more relevant our brand and hotel is online, and the higher we will be ranked in search engines.

Search engines are changing and will be looking for content (media, graphics, organic conversation) and normal “keyword indexing” will be at the back of the bus. So as these changes start happening, we need to increase our online footprint as much as possible to grab as much “land” online before our competitors do. It is like the Oklahoma Sooners…those first to arrive ended up with the most land. Land in this case is content… personal photos on personal accounts (FB, flickr, shutterfly, etc) that casually mention work, or personal twitter accounts that engage people in conversation about your brand, or professional accounts for work. If guests, meeting planners, restaurant clients all post photos on their personal Flickr accounts, or youtube videos of their stays, or review (good or bad) on sites…. it benefits us greatly. The more content we have online, the more relevant we become. I know it seems like a lot of content, often empty or meaningless, but the more content the wider our footprint will be.

So get to it! =) Don’t hesitate to shout or scream or bemusedly confusedly ask questions. I am happy to talk about it, and today something clicked in on how important it is for EVERYONE to be talking about the brand or hotel, not just the social media guy. One smart person is good to get the ball rolling, but it takes the help of a whole network to get it up that hill.

Go.. learn… experiment.. have fun.  The online world has forever impacted our business, and it promises to get even weirder.  When these search engines start engaging content and media more than before…. successfull SEO will be a minour part of the overall picture.  So go create an account or two!

Some relevant articles to this discussion?

Brands in searching saving the internet from being the “cesspool” it is:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/10/08/this-cesspool-we-call-the-internet

This is a link to my blog, but it has some great “future of SEO” articles:
http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/01/23/keywords-will-step-to-the-back-of-the-search-engine-line-or-how-consumers-will-find-hotels-in-the-future/

Seriously…. panic!  Panic now!

Okay calm down and chill out.  It really doesn’t help.  Actually my mantra is quite lazily swiped from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:  “DON’T PANIC”.  I can’t tell you how often that phrase helped during bomb threats, broken water mains, or total service meltdowns in opening periods…..

*But* I have your attention.  It’s devious to be sure, but you’re here and you might like this.

As you are calming down, I will help raise your eyebrow a bit, and possibly the bar.  This isn’t the limbo… so we will hopefully bring it up so that everyone can pass through! No, it is not the kind of bar you wished it to be.  You will need to find that later in the day.

We hotel social media people are all over it!  The internet that is.  We are in a lot of places online.  Frankly we are everywhere and it wears us out.  Following yellow page sites like citysearch and yellobot, following customer generated reviews on multiple hotel outlet pages with sites like TripAdvisor, Zagat, or Yelp.  We have multiple Twitter accounts, facebook pages, blogs, myspace, and more.  We have RSS feeds creating feedback loops of brand info!

Simply…. we are doing our job for the company, as rapidly as that is being defined.

But more and more I notice something.  Most corporate offices are totally clueless.  They are years away from this.  Many are catching on, starting to get it, almost there.  Even the corporate offices with visionary ownership – far ahead of the game – fall a bit short in that they understand that social media is important, vital, and very much the “here and now” of grassroots word of mouth, but aren’t completely utilizing the tools yet.  At times it feel as if there is a self satisfaction in having that “one online guy” managing things, so they can tell their other industry pals, “We’re on it.  We are relevant, fresh, and in the know!”

Sipping of Arnold Palmer’s then reverbrates in the lounge air with a smug sense of management being hip (Actually, that is usually me with the Arnold Palmer). I am fairly lucky this isn’t my case and it is hyperbole to be sure, but you catch my drift.  The point is that it’s so new a “tool” (for lack of a better term) there is a strong likelihood there will be communication problems at the beginning, the learning curve will be great, and making people aware of it will be very difficult.

If you believe in the brand you work for, it is your cross to bear.

The difficulty is bridging that gap, and helping people grasp it’s importance.  What is happening with social media, search indexing, and brand positioning is going to alter *everything* in the next couple years for the internet.  Quick article *here* However it so new I am not sure people are fully grasping this “thing”, beyond the hip and organized ones that are currently shuffling their social media guy into a room and praying that that person does a good job (so they no longer have to worry about the “annoying reviewers”)….

It isn’t the “be all and end all”, it isn’t a religion… but it is vitally important, much bigger than one person, and hopefully this ramble will help you will see why.

Ownership, management, and most employees are lost on it, understandably so.  Social Media is an overwhelming place of daunting content and endless snide reviews….  but we “SMO” were put here to build a base for the brand’s social media presence, and that is much more than just hiring someone to do the job and ignoring them.  It is allowing the SMO to interact with employees and help reinforce what social media is and does.  This is a position that will not only be a property level position at some point, but it will be a respected manager training and helping other staff to get on board and help the hotel.  Ehhh… possibly (Feynman said fence sitting is an art)

Most hotels with social media campaigns do not alert guests to it, often forgetting to mention it if it comes up. Often it is because employees don’t know about it, or sometimes because it just aggravates them.  You have all heard of it, probably been inundated by it and confused by it, which is often times why people just ignore it. But it is vital we talk about the lack of connection between the campaign and employees on property level, and why there needs to be more interaction than “yeah we have a guy doing it”.

How do you start this interaction?  My advice is to find any and every employee property level that “gets” social media, is into it, and might have fun with it.  In fact, many of your SMO’s already see some employees online while performing their job tasks… you know those employees online a bit more often than they might need to be?  That is where you start…. it’s that simple!

People are concerned about their employees talking about them online, but that concern should be obsolete!  You shouldn’t worry about it… THEY ALREADY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU!  You couldn’t stop them if you wanted to, so it is wise to reinforce that your brand is online, they are representing it… and anything they can do to help will be appreciated!

Then start talking to those who might be interested in increasing sales leads, contacts, and bookings.. no doubt there is a savvy sales agent already hammering away on facebook all day.  Why not extend that into a professional sales page that they link a twitter account to?  Then you have networking for the sales agent, and brand presence for the hotel!  The more of these sort of interactions, the better!

Your tech guy might already be there, but if I know hotel A/V and IT people… they are way too busy to actually *do* social media.  But remind them they could use it to keep informed about current trends and products they can geek out to, as well as ask questions to quickly resolve conundrums.  Maintenance could use it in the same way as well.  When all your people have accounts up and running, think how convenient it would be for a guest to twitter engineering about a burnt out lightbulb, or a Wireless point that is down?

Starting to wrap up this ramble!

SO – the social media guy can handle a property level account for twitter, a facebook page, a blog, and more… constantly cross posting and getting the word out, but it takes more than that to increase your online footprint.  You want sales people talking sales, and tech people talking tech… you want all the employees connecting with other hotels and hospitality employees, as well as to other guests and clients. You want people commenting on blogs about the hotel where applicable, and talking about it on their own.  You want people posting their pics and videos.  You want your brand to be bolstered by thousands… not just one social media guru locked in a windowless room in a cage.

BUT WHY?  WHY ON EARTH IS THIS ACTUALLY A USEFUL BUSINESS TOOL?

Well … this post was so bloody long we will save the meat for the next post.  It will make sense.  I promise!

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

An aside about the hotel industry if I may:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a quick and brilliant lesson on the future of search engines, and how hotels (and others) will be able to utilize their “back to the future” functionality.  Keywords are not the be all end all.

SEO PEOPLE! MARKETERS!  WEB DESIGN!  and hotel people to boot….. some really interesting thoughts

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_future_of_search_5_ways_to_prepare/

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_future_of_search_5_ways_to_prepare/

While I have endless philosophical questions for Trip Advisor hanging and waiting and looking to be answered by their tireless hotel relations team, I note something that is perturbing.

I am writing a slough of management responses for hotels, and note that my consistent, patterned behaviour of responding, and including my email, has just been bounced at the door.

After writing something along the lines of 20-30 replies, the submission team has rejected my responses for having an email.

These sort of jagged inconcistensies are going to be problematic long run.

However, they are REALLY F*?!*#$ annoying when you are simply trying to do your job.

This is a *ahem* fictional *ahem* response to a business owner responding to a reviewer on yelp.

————————————-

I adore you.  I simply adore you.  Thank you for taking the time to write.  I will try you again, albeit I will respectfully have my own opinion regardless of the outcome.  What is refreshing is you are yet another example of why I don’t know about yelp, in general.

1)  I am taking down my second review, and I am altering my first…. check it out.  It should be for the best.

2)  please keep interacting with yelpers like this… as well as other online reviewers (you can check your brand on twitter (it may be too young to be there), as well as see if chowhound, mouthfuls, eater sf, or any other outlet like Zagat has found you and written you up.  Tripadvisor and Zagat both have review areas and chat boards for restaurants (obviously).

3)  I am a long time yelper, albeit it may not look like it.  Over time I have become very, very skeptical of the business model and usefulness of reviews.  I think, at some point, a critical mass of reviews (coupling 1 stars with 5 stars, and then the mid range ones) will average almost everything out to 3 stars.

The networking effect is powerful here, but the ad model is weak and the site isn’t making any revenue.  What’s more, the management seems to be busy orchestrating a hipster social scene while ignoring the hypocrisy of searching for money from merchants, while doggedly ignoring their pleas to verify reviewers in lieu of their caddy, inane, rude, unprofessional, or just moronic remarks.  the more I watch yelp…. the more I think it is totally idiotic.  the problem is that people are latching onto it without understanding it, and it gets more credit than it deserves.  As a business owner you understand that much of it is stupid, while the tool it presents business from a marketing and client relations perspective is incredible.

But you get uniformed people who don’t get F&B, free standing establishments, or this market.  Or exactly what *you* and other incredible chefs are trying to do.  And these people are writing reviews that effect your business.  I have a problem with that because the uninformed public actually latches on to reviews and believes them.

There is enough difficulty in this economy in general, and in this market for food&bev….  you don’t need yet another yelper being rude and dismissive, judgmental or flip about all the hard work you put into building your brand and base.

what really bugs me about those that yelp:

instead of wanting to resolve the situation or actually help the restaurant, business, or what have you….. they wait to get home and bitch.

Instead of professionally dealing with a negative or unpleasant situation as it happens, and grabbing management…. yelpers simply wish to ramble inanely.

If this was a better tool to resolve problems, I would be convinced.  For now, it seems like really loud and sadly impacting locker room talk (Thanks Mr. Anderson).

Thank you again for responding.