Hraba Hospitality Consulting

The rest that is cut off (hey I am a hotel guy, not a HTML guy) says “($42/month), would you?”  You can take the survey yourself right here: TripAdvisor Survey for Owners.

I will let the pic speak for itself.  I know it’s just a survey, but I assume some people might have a concern in regards to this?  How about: mom and pops, small innkeepers, non branded or flagged properties that don’t have a mega-marketing budget to leverage every site, and I could go on.  I know it’s only $500, but it adds up…. and if they were to really go through with this I assume it would be irrevocably damaging to their long term credibility.  Even Yelp has tiptoed around ethics issues with business owners, review manipulation, etc – but haven’t done something this obvious.  Of course, the question is:  In their quest to monetize, will TripAdvisor risk their credibility to do so?

Any thoughts?  Is it that big a deal?  Would it create an unfair gap between “haves” and “have nots”, or is TripAdvisor supplying link and phone info moot, because guests will call the hotel directly anyway?

Once again, I got carried away with a response to a blog post, and decided to expound on it.  I am sure this counts as real business right?

Newsweek’s Budget Travel has a great article about TripAdvisor trying to deal with the long coming revelation that many of their users and reviews are not legitimate.  This is, frankly, a huge blow to the site, and should pose a happy problem in it’s early adolescence as they deal with all the changes that come along with growing into adulthood.  Frankly, I am thrilled that this may provoke User Generated Content sites to seek the same verification model other sites have.

At any rate, this is vital to all of us, and it recalls some of my previous post (which I seem to mention once or twice):

You know I am skeptical of social media, whether speaking of Facebook’s lack of meaningful interaction, or Flickr’s nebulous TOS.  In general, I have had major concerns since my yelp research project, and resulting thoughts on ethics in social media. I had even mentioned in January that Yelp should consider verification processes.

One scotch fueled evening my jocular side protruded a wee bit and I became a prankster. To be honest it wasn’t to learn the lesson I did, rather just good fun.  I speak of the Ryan Air Twitter spoof of mine, which got considerable attention in traditional media (namely because Ryan Air claimed @ryanaironline was their account).  It  helped me realize that there is a grave concern for brands and trademarks, and both the businesses & social media sites should have a vested interest in a verification process of brands.  There is a serious risk of hijacking and damaging people and businesses, with inauthentic people (or dim ones not realizing pranks and social media can go viral) damaging a brands reputation.

Social Media is young. FB beat out myspace because it is better at replicating and verifying the real world (although it can’t actually do anything more meaningful than provide a wonderful marketing data gathering opportunity for FB, coupled with a nice phonebook)… but it was verifying that the person was the *reality* based person, which quickly attracted people to it. If you aren’t relevant to any networks, or aren’t genuine… you quickly become invisible.

As user generated review sites follow a similar path, these things will stabilize. It is very young, and still in the myspace period of fake profiles and people… but as twitter adds verification services & FB starts considering verification due to trademark infringement issues with it’s new URL program: , it will be obvious for User Generated Content Sites to authenticate, across the board. I am not sure if open ID and attaching accounts to mobile phones is the simplest way, but if something doesn’t happen quick the sites will implode through sacrificing the only thing that makes their business model feasible.  I am sure Tripadvisor has seen the start of accounts closing due to the breach in ethics.

We will wait until services like Yelp and TripAdvisor grow into the awareness of what they have created.  People sardonically jest “the internet is serious business” when it comes to this sort of stuff.  But it is.  It isn’t just 2.0.  It’s a massively powerful tool that completely reorients the consumer model, putting control into the hands of the people, and out of marketing and PR companies, possibly for the first time in capitalism’s history. The message can no longer be managed, and PR doesn’t work the same way anymore. You are only as strong as the advocates and endorsers that believe in your brand. Ethics is paramount.

The only way for these sites to continue their validity is by echoing the sentiment of their own taglines: Tripadvisor’s “get the truth… and go”, or Yelp’s “real reviews, real people”.  If they commit to intelligently policing their own site by being completely transparent, authentic, accountable, and earnest, they should be able to emerge better than before.. They might need to take a huge dip in registered users, as well as delete a lot of existing content. This open and honest method of dealing with this situation will undoubtedly sacrifice trust in the short term, but it is the only way for a social media site to maintain the trust that they leverage for business.

It will hurt… but this is an opportunity for them to re-organize into a leaner and more valid site than ever before. Most people saw this coming. Let’s hope it isn’t something they try to spin away or ignore… instead of doing what is right and being honest, while doing everything they can to curb the problem.

I admit concern about the idea of having to hire non-revenue generating staff to handle the massive clean up project, and the fact the money simply might not be there to handle it.  However, it is obvious they are quickly responding, like April Robb from Tripadvisor commenting to Christopher Elliott. I do like the warnings they put on some hotels, but it could be markedly arbitrary?

We’ll have to see.

Not sure what age social media is at right now, but it is certainly hitting a painful growth spurt.

The yelp post garnered 5 times as many views as anything I have ever posted, and stimulated a lot of interesting conversation on multiple outlets.  This is a follow up, clarifying a lot of stuff… might be too long, but I will let it stand.  Thanks for the dialogue, comments, emails, etc.  Be Well!

I have apologized for long posts before.. but this is ridiculous.  Actually.. if you need to blame anyone for length, chat with the thoughtful Jeff at http://www.IwantMoreFood.com.  He asked some great questions.. I was replying in an email and then it just went forever.

–

I want to go on record saying I am an ardent yelper, and *love* *love* *love* it. Beyond the frustration of losing reviews with little warning, it is a fantastic food blog for me. With my memory, I need all the help I can get. However we have seen so much in this web world fail in the blink of an eye, and it causes concern to many people with how Yelp has responded to the media, user and business owner accusations, etc.  However, it doesn’t detract from my passion for the site.  I generate content like a madman. My canned response is always – I am excited to share this with people for years to come. I can’t wait until my kids comprehend it, and I can share the first meal I ever had with their mother by sending them a link and reading it while we tell the story. It is sort of a magical place to have fun, interact with people, build *real* local community, etc.

But I am in for the long haul, and I have seen so many sites that had a foothold get blown away by newer sites that had fixed the problems that existed in the failed site. Then there was that damned bubble.  Remember webvan? Kosmo? There is another one coming, and it is waiting in the halls.  Even the Richter Scales know that with ver 1.1 (by the way I am sure you have seen it, but that is the funniest thing you will see today, sung to Billy Joel’s “We didn’t start the fire”)

When you ignore those inherent flaws, you become obsolete and people quickly move from you to the “next big thing”. In fact, I think what has happened to Myspace vs. Facebook is incredible.  MySpace lacked accountability, verifiability, and transparency…. Which is why Facebook took off. They improved on MySpace’s flaws, and people bailed on myspace immediately. I am not suggesting that will happen to yelp, but trust is what social media is all about… and if it wavers for too long people give up. I have seen this concern constantly on the yelp boards… frustrated, confused people not getting answers. I am also not saying Myspace is dead, but you can draw your own conclusions. I don’t know anyone that even talks about it anymore. What’s more, when Facebook started challenging users with subversive marketing ideas like Beacon, without full transparency it backfired big. In fact, with their latest update I personally see long term trouble for brands (see this post: http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/04/09/facebook-all-atwitter/) and their ability to create commerce within the site. But that is neither here nor there.

The point is… I think yelp will be fine. They sure as hell don’t need some random hospitality blogger’s opinion about it…. But I am sure they have a foothold enough to carry them on. The question about whether it makes money, integrity or not, is a important. It’s still not profitable, and they have to figure out how to make it so. I know of hotels jumping off the advertising bandwagon on yelp, as well as business owners and users frustrated with a lack of explanation, clouded in this secret algorithm. Integrity is key, but for now the shoulder-shrugging reality may be that making money is more important. However, the money won’t be there in the future if no one trusts them. Integrity does *not* make money, but sacrificing or compromising integrity will lose money fairly quickly. If the company doesn’t focus on the following specific issue, it will be in long term trouble:

****It isn’t whether their business practices are unethical or shifty – it’s that they appear that way to so many people****

They aren’t shifty. They are just some young people trying to build a useful site. That’s the facts. No conspiracies, no conscious removing of reviews, no favouring of sponsors……

But the *PERCEPTION* is that there is something wrong, and until they come out and are fully accountable for this *PERCEPTION*, whether true or not, they will be digging themselves a deeper whole. They need to own these issues, and start to come to terms with them.

As users and businesses, instead or rolling over and allowing them to damage their brand by ignoring this stuff, we need to hold them to task. I got worried posting that last post simple because yelp doesn’t like dissention. They have an interesting philosophy, and it does seem they prefer a head in the sand mentality of celebrating their cult-like followers, rather than ever really engaging the people that have concerns or questions. In fact, even prior to my post I had been somewhat unwelcome in that I am constantly critical of these business issues. The members of yelp often like to make fun of it, not realizing that sometimes…. Yes…. “the internet *is* serious business”, mostly because I forget the difference between being inside the community, and having an industry bird’s eye view.  That is a balance I need to work on for the benefit of people that tire of my biz, or vacuous, commentary. They want people to mindlessly endorse them, as if they were followers of a religion. I never was too good at that, and yes my teachers got upset with all my questions too.

The point is…. Some bloggers and so-called “experts” target yelp because they *really* dislike it. I ask questions and bring up points because *I love it*, enough to forsake that “love it or leave it mentality” and try to help identify problems so we can work on solutions. I got worried about posting that stuff…. but it is all real, it is all pretty damning of that algorithm, and it doesn’t seem like something they want to deal with.

However… they are the *best* out there by far. It isn’t even a question. That is why so many people are trying to take them down, target them, etc. It also isn’t their fault that business owners with absolutely no idea what “social media” is, lash out, and make baseless accusations about their business practices. The idea that a social media review site would have some secretive, unethical behavior is asinine, conspiratorial, and not very helpful. However, it is a very tenuous and precarious position backing and protecting an algorithm that is obviously, in many eyes, flawed. In fact, it’s dangerous. Anyone that uses the site knows the search algorithm is, for all intensive purposes, worthless. Identifying the problem is a first step… and I really dislike naysayers and dour types that bring up problems with no solutions, but I have little that I could help with, really.

Crowdsourcing? Getting a large group of users to commit to auditing reviews from newer users, etc? They used to have moderation, maybe it’s time to bring it back in some form. Maybe an independent expert or consulting group to vet the algorithm’s stability or functionality? This is where I sort of lose it… I am not nearly as qualified as some of the incredibly smart people at yelp to offer advice. Most social media sites like twitter or facebook have multiple blogs. I am not so interested in the cult of elite on the CEO blog as much as I am with technological advancements, internal ethical dialogue, etc. When there is a glitch on twitter, twhirl, facebook api, etc….. you know about it. There is constant communication that is open, honest, accountable and humble. I would love to see this with yelp… letting the programmers inform us of problems, advancements, etc. Of course, I want to help, but don’t know where to begin.

As for yelp… I don’t even know if this is something they are working on, or if they are too focused on marketing and stabilizing a business model that, for all intensive purposes, might not work. Ad-model is failing for a lot of social media, but yelp has a grounded network based in the real world… which totally alters that model. If that is their main focus right now, they seem to be working day to day instead of having a business model that is long term and thought out.  It’s possible I don’t have a clue, but lately it does seem they fly by the seat of their pants.

As for Stoppelman, the company just hired PR to deal with damaging press, but would still go onto blogs. It looked very bad and defensive. I do think they have recently had a dialogue about how they interact with people, especially critics, online as well as how they respond. In the past, when someone outside the “yelp” community remarked, yelp (read “he”) snapped back, often at the messenger, and not the message. I made a joke about them not keeping up on their Sophocles.

It doesn’t maintain high regard or put yelp in favour of the travel/hospitality, food, or social media ethics sphere.  I don’t even know if it is important…. I think what yelp should continue to do is precisely what they did with my previous post – ignore it. If the issue that is brought up is so compelling, simply respond on the yelp blog. This seemed the course set by the PR people for the East Bay Express article (or at least a great decision by Mr. Stoppelman) and it worked fairly well (other than attacking the reporter, instead of the accusations).

In the end, it will be fine… but it will take the community to police their lack of openness and forthrightness in regards to their business practices. People who really love the site should be able to recognize it’s merits, ponder it’s flaws… have an open discussion about it…. And work together in improving it. As of now, that isn’t happening and that is frustrating to a lot of people.

Pardon this huge ramble.  I have had so many private email messages.. this has sparked controversary, discussion, interest…. and hopefully attempted to create an open dialogue about what is going on.  In fact, this has attritubted to some of the rudest email I have ever gotten, because people are passionate about this.  All I wanted was proper discussion.  I am big on data, so before making some random claim, I knew I needed to back it up.  Now that the dialogue has started, I am incredibly interested in hearing more of what ALL of you say.  I will end with this……

It’s funny that Unilever’s CEO was recently chiding businesses for not realizing that their brand is not their own, and includes Ad Ages new rules of marketing.  It is for all brands, not specifically online…. but I think it is wise for anybody in this new media world.  I think it says a lot.

1. Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, “We may be ahead of our competitors, but we’re most definitely behind consumers.” The consumer is not a moron, she’s the person defining your brand.
2. You can’t hide the corporation behind the brand anymore — or even fully separate the two. Even this editor’s creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.
3. PR is a primary concern for every CMO and brand manager. If “marketing” and “PR” are not the same department, tear down the wall. Spend time deciding whether PR is underleveraged in your organization.
4. Cause marketing isn’t about philanthropy, it’s about “enlightened self-interest,” as Mr. Clift puts it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. Don’t be ashamed of your profit motive, because great branding and doing good are increasingly one and the same.
5. Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you’ll need to deploy it as a tactic. But remember that the social graph just makes it even more important that you have a good product. Put another way: The volume and quality of your earned media will be directly proportional to the impact and quality of your product and ideas.

–NB: recent removed reviews seem to have been flagged by the community, a bunch were taken down at once, and they explained it was somewhat of a “chain” review of a 7-11.  I was shown the text, but not how many reviews.  I am totally fine with them taking them down.

NB: As soon as Yelp sees this, they will be working on fixing these specific errors, which is fine.  The point is that these exist… endlessly… throughout the site, and these were just the obvious ones I catalogued in a few hours.

–

I was so pleased to see a 2 star review disappear from one of my client’s pages today… one that sponsors yelp.  I doubt that means anything, because the below problem looks as if it follows zero rhyme or reason.  This looks like that algorithm really does have a secret aspect about it…. that it is irrevocably flawed.

So… this isn’t about yelp being unethical.  This isn’t about deliberate unethical behaviour.  All Jeremy Stoppleman seems to do is look for blogs, waiting to defensively react against criticism… usually ending with the incredibly vapid “it’s the algorithm and it’s secret” argument.  But really, that’s harmless.

However, that argument might not hold water anymore guys.  Below is an afternoon of research, and it is hardly complete.  This could go on forever.  Hopefully… you will recognize that this is enough proof that the integrity of yelp, and it’s functionality, is endlessly flawed.  This is about a faulty algorithm, no more no less.  The below links are all too self explanatory…. pointing out profiles with reviews that are suppressed from business pages.  Whether or not it is about “maintaining the integrity of yelp” as they so often suggest is moot….

These are real people, and real reviews.  In the below documentation, I have often countered the suppressed review of a certain business by highlighting a reviewer that has a nearly similar profile that actually *has* a review posted.  What that means is that many of the profiles that have suppressed reviews are no different from reviews that are posted on the site (sometimes no avatar/pic, sometimes very few reviews, sometimes long periods between reviews)

Many of the arguments against the below research will be:

1) that they don’t have a picture…. but many of the posted reviews do not have a pic as well.  You have to start out with a fresh profile at some point.  If they aren’t giving a voice to people, why would anyone finish updating a profile anyway.

2) Yelp is protecting against “one hit wonders”…. but that won’t stand up, in that many of those people have completed profiles with many reviews that are totally legitimate.  What’s more, some businesses pages have multiple one hit wonders, just to have one of those suppressed?

I also find it interesting that, after a person voices concern on a talk thread…. the reviews magically appear.  I am not suggesting that yelp is reviewing talk threads and acting accordingly when people bring this issue up, but look for yourself…. seems a lot of the voiced reviewers’ concerns have been placated since the beginning of those threads.  I guess it is tantamount to yelp having the mistake brought to it’s attention, and fixing that error.  Admitting that the algorithm is flawed is one thing… but having to constantly correct and second guess, or act as oversite, sort of lessens any integrity or trust I had in the site.  If I have to sit and think about whether it is honest, or whether it can be trusted… well isn’t that a problem?  Many yelpers I have spoken with don’t think so.  You decide.

I have also supplied links to other talk threads where people are simply confused about flagged reviews, or why their review was taken down or isn’t showing.  I added some confused businesses to boot.

If this is your algorithm yelp, you have built your business on one of the most flawed I have seen.  Just my two cents.  If real reviews by real people is what this is all about, yelp has some serious explaining to do about the incredible flaw in their model.  I don’t think this is fixable, and I don’t think they can defend it.

Frankly, I love yelp.  I hope they can.  I think they may want to start.  I knew this wasn’t out and out unethical behaviour… it was just a deeply flawed model.

If you have any odd situations like this…. a review on your profile not existing on a business page, or confusion of the lack of transparency or communication on yelp’s part… let it be heard.

I may be way, way off on this.  But the below is interesting to me.  I hope it is for you as well.  While we wait for transparency, communication, openness, earnestness, and any ounce of interest in clearing up the confusion… Jeremy will pop into any conversation acting defensive and contradictory.  Instead of being defensive and having to always manage bad press… why not just fix it?

Funny that yelp helped destroy the original marketing model so you can no longer damage control or control any “message”…. which is precisely what yelp is retroactively doing when things like this come up.

I have said it before… you need to be an ethical business that consumers identify with, and have an ethos that draws people to “opt-in” to your offering… and not trick people into thinking you are something you are not.  If you aren’t ethical, or you aren’t run well… people will find out.

It’s possible that yelp is both.

Below was sent to “elite” (read “drunken”) members of yelp. This is INCREDIBLY exciting. This will legitimize yelp, and I have to say this is the most important development in the last couple months in social media. This is huge, exciting, and I am very happy to explore this with my hotels. What a PHENOMENAL tool.

———–from yelp————

As a member of the Elite Squad, I wanted you to be among the first to know about a new feature that is rolling out in about a week or so. It’s called Business Owner Comments, and as the name suggests, it will allow a business owner to write a public Comment after any given review. Comments will be the latest addition to the free Business Owner’s Account that any business owner can sign up for, and that lets them add Photos, post Special Offers and create an ‘About This Business’ section (for more info, read up *here*). As a reviewer, you’ll be emailed each time you receive a new Comment, just like when you get a Compliment.

The goal is for all Comments to be pleasant and useful. For example, if you wrote a glowing 5-star review some months ago about your favorite pub, in which you mention drinking Harp because they didn’t carry Guinness… both you and other readers would probably be happy to see a new Comment saying, “Just got our Guinness tap last week. Hope to see you soon!” Here are a couple other example Comments.

Comments will NOT be a forum for a business owner to disparage a reviewer. As you’ve probably seen with Private Messages, most business owners are actually appreciative of honest and constructive opinions, and realize that being rude to customers is — both on and off Yelp — bad for business. But for those few ill-mannered folks out there, we have come up with some fairly strict Comment Guidelines — and our customer service team will remove violating posts.

The answer is simple. It is, unfortunately, all of them.

You need to respond to every single review that goes up in regards to your property.

You can’t reply to just one, because you will look defensive.

You can’t reply to negative ones only, because you will look more defensive and possibly just imbue a dower, negative image.

So the only real answer is that you reply to all of them. Don’t think of them as some task, or problem.  The Trip Advisor ones are a fantastic opportunity to speak to *potential* guests. We are of course mitigating the experience with our less than pleased guests, but it is truly about creating a personality and existence online. For one, by existing online you create empathy for your business as an obvious human is reading and responding to the reviews, instead of it being a faceless brick and mortar business to hurl anger at. It also helps you to learn, grow, and change management or service. It is vital as a real time temperature gauge of your services and offerings, and if you look closely you can spot trends and react to them before they become bigger issues.

But you are also speaking to the voyeurs reading the reviews, and searching for hotels in your specific area. Every word you say, and how you react, is to be scrutinized by future (potential) guests. It is an amazing way to speak about your property, to reinforce your brand, and to really get your hooks into guests.

The happy guest reviews are easiest, because you simply celebrate what they loved about the property… a pastry chef, the sommelier, the spa director, the property dog… it is a great way to take people’s offhanded comment and help market what you offer, and help prospective guests get a better idea about all the value that they might be missing.  The negative guest reviews are great because you simply say “sorry” and then use it as a springboard to talk to potential guests about making sure they are clear about requests, needs, etc.  If the room was noisy, remind potential bookers that the cheapest rooms are near a road that trucks come by in the morning.  I have been able to sound professional, engaging, and breezy in responding to an unhappy guest, all the while really focusing writing the review for a prospective booker.

There are other tricks you can use that I daren’t get into.  I can’t give you all my secrets.  =)

Remember being a young buck in the industry?  Remember when they didn’t have solitaire, or even windows based PMS?  Standing at the desk in an empty lobby gazing into nowhere, or on the overnight sneaking away from the desk to create a makeshift sandwich from the walk in?  Remember thinking you always did more work than managers?  I consider myself a pretty nice guy; amicable, easy, and good at communicating with almost everyone.  But there was a manager or two… I would find myself muttering things under my breath.  Bad things.

But as a manager, my ears became bionic.  I think they would *actually* curve towards the direction of the whispers or furtive eyes having a private conversation.  You know those moments…. when you walk in and *KNOW* line employees were talking about you.

It makes you think, what the hell are they saying when I am not in the room?

I knew I was an awesome manager, and even if they were speaking kindly (**”oh he’s cute”**, no doubt) I would be suspicious as all get out.  I am an insecure type, so it would eat me up.  I think it was good in the end, because I became an even more hands on manager, and really worked in the trenches with my staff.

So part of my philosophy was always being available, present and accessible.  Being visible, and letting others know I was there for them prevented a lot of unfortunate situations.  I was able to resolve situations immediately upon noticing them, reinforce the quality of the brand, improve morale, root us in the community (long chats with locals about this and that), and probably prevented some bad talk about me, and more…. just by being an active, present manager.

What’s more, if you leave the room and don’t come back, people start speaking pretty freely when they know no one can hear them.  This, of course, is not good.  This is that guest or employee unleashing tirades with impunity.  You need to be there for them.

Well think of a twitter account like that.  Think of all your social media accounts like that.  It’s your online concierge department, and you are the manager.  A good manager is present, and available.  When you are, people know they can go to you, interact with you, utilize and trust you.  If you aren’t available (hiding in the back office reading the paper), you are missing opportunities and not doing your job… employees and guests alike are feeling ignored. 

This is why you need to establish your social media presence.  This is why you need to reply to reviews… so reviewers know you are there and will review you more professionally.  This is why you need to search social networking sites, so you can assist in people’s conversations about you, or questions in regards to your offerings.  This is why RSS feeds become important, piping updates from Blogs to Facebook and more.

Otherwise, all your employees and guests that are online will know you aren’t in the room.  They will say whatever they please, and possibly consider you irrelevant.  What’s worse, they might not consider you at all.  You don’t want people knocking on your lobby door, asking questions and choosing their next stay when you aren’t listening. It isn’t just about missing out on an opportunity, it’s that ignoring it could be a real disaster.

I cannot believe how alone I feel in my concern over the future of social media.  No one, it seems, wants to talk about it.  Beatrice Tarka with Mobissimo teetered precariously close to an incredible conversation, offering a seemingly benign nugget of info (at least how it was received):  You may have to start preparing to pay for your brand presence on twitter.  They desperately need to monetize, and this is the quickest, ways to do so,  if not a dauntingly difficult task to achieve.

I am massively skeptical though.  Much of this is simply about marketing, not so much utilizing the tools or talking about social media so much as a how-to primer for positioning your brand on Facebook and Twitter.

Personally, I am incredibly worried about this… putting so many fragile eggs in such a fragile basket.  You have Facebook which still hasn’t demonstrated to me anything more than a static page where people “fan” it as a novelty.  I am challenging any of you readers… if any of you have seen any real relevance or interactivity of users on FB, please let me know.  On one single of my many high end hotel brand pages, I have seen one user post one picture, and a couple mentions about how they love the hotel…. but nothing relevant or impacting that could mean “business”.  Twitter, as mentioned, has no monetization and I really think that puts a dent in the “cause celebre”.  What happens when brands flood twitter as will start happening?  How will you stay relevant?  How will you interact as twitter actually builds their business model?  How will brands protect themselves about spoofing, like my @ryanaironline hijinks?

Not only are hotels thinking very short sighted, they seem to be ignoring important issues in regards to how to *use* social media.

The fantastic Richard Bonds from the PA Tourism spoke of Flickr, and it gives rise to the question of FLICKR’s terms of service expressively forbidding commercial uses.  That being said, he did adequately justify his usage, in that it isn’t the presence of a brand so much as a social conversation of a place.  It isn’t room shots with rates… and he is right on about that.

But what of these companies.. airlines or hotels… ignorantly moving into Flickr and posting stuff expressively in violation of the TOS?  It just seems there is this panicked disconnect between people who know how to use social media, and marketers who want to exploit it.

Is it that the majority of travel companies are more interested in the dollar signs of social media and ROI conversations rather than the actual conversation?  It seems a lot of brands are aggressively moving forward with social media without having a clue what they are doing, or having any real plan.

Of course, this is where Forrester’s P.O.S.T. principles come into play, but it is more of a self-congratulatory “we are using a cool sounding tool” than people actually using P.O.S.T.’s methodology.

What’s more, the conference presenters so aggressively focused on ROI (and I am aware that was the structure for the panel presentation), it seemingly dismissed the social conversation of social media COMLPETELY.  Not only does that strike me as disingenious, it seems like they are missing a lot of the point if it is only measured in cold ROI.  I think there is a chance to miss a lot, frankly.  I understand you need to measure ROI, but you negate the power of and functionality of social media by being so myopic.

This is my round one report.

There is sudden, endless interest on how to instill the labour for a social media person on the property level of a hotel.  But if you look back in my posts, you will be reminded that hotels are not technological innovators, and are typically behind the curve.  Nothing to be ashamed of, as we aren’t in the technology business.  We are the hotel business.  Sometimes, however, it feels like we have been co-opted (Some of us still remember punch card days).

Until we end up back in the “guest ledger on a lazy Susan” days, much of this “social” or “new” media is being thrust toward the marketing and PR firms of hotels, and they are panicked looking for measurable impressions, calculable effect, and readying themselves to be in control of a massive and daunting visual display of graphs, charts, and quantified data.

But data is not readily available, and measurements are confounding at best (Just because we have become comfortable with a tool of measuring impact of dollars spent, doesn’t mean it’s flawless.  For this reason, I still suspect print measurement).

In the end I think “ROI” conversations will fall by the wayside as properties recognize that you simply need to be part of the conversation.  It will be like a “internet concierge”, and just part of your overall labour budget.

Back to the PR people.

It is damning for marketing groups however, because in a world of too much information these poor people just became responsible for so much more – keywords, tags, blogs, videos, user generated content, etc.  Frankly, keeping up with my google alerts is a job within itself.  So I have a empathic concern for marketing groups that will have to hire some Gen Y kid just to watch the stream of internet consciousness…. It is confusing, and overwhelming.  Learning to not waste your time with some, while being hyper-aware of other data… this is the ultimate experience of separating the wheat and chaff, as well as looking for a needle in a haystack the entire time.

New Media and old Marketing have about as much in common as <insert witty dichotomy>, but these companies are still tagged with the responsibility of following this new stream of information.  It is like when a F&B manager is fired, the floor manager fills in the F&B Manager spot… and then what do you have?  You have a floor manager (someone skilled at a specific job) acting as an F&B manager (a totally different job)… you haven’t increased the floor managers salary (limiting incentive to fill the role), but that person becomes taxed/stressed and is doing a job outside their experience level or role.  Such is the path of social media being slopped on top of traditional marketing firms responsibilities.

Until hoteliers, operators, marketing teams, and ownership step back, recognize what social media is, and implement someone who is meant to grow into the role and focus on the online concierge aspects of web 2.0…. owners will be anxious, marketing groups will be taxed and confused, and hotel management will be nervous.

Social media is not Marketing & PR the same way college degrees or public relations have prepared people for.  Giving the job to someone that doesn’t understand it in the hopes of being successful with a campaign, while performing on the job training, is dangerous and we need to move past it.

At least, let’s let them focus on their skill set, while allowing already operating members of the social media conversation to fill in as “online concierge”.  Traditional marketing and PR is changing, but it will never go away.  It will be in flux for some time, and might put a new notch in the belt buckle, but it will always be necessary and vital.  It won’t be, however, the long term mitigator of social media.  This is a slapdash approach to new media, and in time it will move to a property level, corporate/property specific job.

What’s more is that this is an exciting moment in hospitality.  This is new job forming!  How often does that happen?  We have been skilled at getting rid of the labour pool for years (just think of the last time you saw an elevator operator or shoe shine booth).  This new position will be a customer relations specialist , and will be filled by erudite, excited, savvy people that have hospitality’s core beliefs at their forefront:  Be aware of the guests needs, and service them based on those needs.  Whether they are in front of you or not is irrelevant.  It isn’t about controlling your brand, damage control, or PR.  It is about earnest concern about a guest’s reactions, needs, or thoughts.  It is about being real in your conversation with a guest, precisely what much of marketing is not.  To be fair, at least we can lighten the load on these confused firms that overreact to one bad review, or panic because they still don’t “get” twitter.

I look at this as a great opportunity for hotels to transcend the limiting mentality that web 2.0 is all marketing and PR.  It is daunting to be sure, but it is also humbling, fulfilling, and vital to the ethos of your brand, and the core of your offerings.

It’s time to get hip, and it’s time to be real.