Hraba Hospitality Consulting

I think we need to start with a couple presuppositions about social media:

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

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

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

Now the question we are trying to answer:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a quick and dirty post, something I seem to be a fan of.

YELP IS INCREASING TRANSPARENCY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I imagine this is one of the first mash ups of a live-twittered conference?  If not the first, one of the only ones because this was massively, overly, insanely, time-consuming.  I do think what came of it was worthwhile, and I hope this sort of serves as a testament to all we spoke about and considered during Eye for Travel SM SF 2010.  First thing: I am not going to list contributor names here – I assume this is mostly for those who attended, and we know who we are.  However, Susan Black was going to compile a list of everyone involved in the conference for further networking, and think we might be able to do that here?  Please comment and leave your info for people to connect with…. twitter, buzz, and anything else you wish to share about the conference.

The below words are basically a mashup of every single tweet (processed & filtered) from the #smtravel conference (blended with my commentary in the parentheses).  I arranged the information best I could, however *completely* subjective said arrangement is. I hope it makes some form of sense – or at least you can potentially peer into the chasm that is my logic.  At the least I hope I didn’t misquote or misrepresent anyone.  Speaking of transparency – I left some fairly meaty and helpful implementation/action ideas at the end that were not necessarily even part of the conference… I figure if you can find them and actually read that far down, well.. you deserve them.

I will go out on a limb saying that 100% of the data is accurate, because I basically copy and pasted from the tweet stream. I am sad to say the nature of making the “tweety casserole” of our conference helped it to lose much in the reference & citations arena, but if you need to see the authority and professionalism of those involved, please refer to list of speakers at the conference. For those that don’t know me – I am a big skeptic, and vigilant about data and non skewed statistics, as well as generally skeptical about enthusiastic marketing. If anyone would like to challenge any of the information or data below, please do! I am always up for conversation and learning…. and if incorrect data was given out at this conference I assume we would all like to know (this is highly unlikely)! So let’s have at it – Eye For Travel’s Social Media Conference #smtravel 2010!  (Boy I hope this makes sense)

My attempt at organizing the concepts throughout the conference:

1. Social Media (general)
2. Facebook
3. Twitter
4. Geolocation / Mobile / Augmented Reality
   
5. ROI
6. User Generated Reviews / Content
7. Takeaway / Important Thoughts
   
8. Action / Implementation

You will note a lot of information on Geolocation/Mobile & User Generated Reviews/Content.  I think that’s because there is real data, opportunity, and engagement in those areas.  The other areas are more guesswork and hoping.  Twitter provides ROI, to be sure… but I think we should focus on what provides results, vs. what we like to think *may* work.  In that, I personally suggest you alot some of your Facebook time to understanding and interacting with Geolocation, as well as becoming more involved in the review sites.

(more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

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 cataloged 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 behavior.  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 (more…)

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.

I had been finding it difficult to explain *exactly* what I am doing for hotels.  Lots of the baby boomers are confused about it, but they know the kids are getting them on facebook.  Even the tech savvy ones that understand social media’s impact still can’t wrap their heads around it.  So I wanted to write a concise definition that I could pass around to clients, friends, family, etc.  I think this is good.  Any feedback is appreciated.  Cheers!

Social Media and traditional marketing, In or Out?

This isn’t marketing or press in the traditional sense, and thinking of it like that is where a very large disconnect will start to occur.

Print media marketing is highly manipulated brand management, with an “opt out” style of force feeding clients your information.  Most people think of this as spam now.  Billboards, print ads, radio commercials… all mentally tuned out and becoming ineffective.  That media model will always exist, but now….even Tivo makes it so people don’t even *WATCH* commercials anymore, let alone listen to them.  Print will always be around, but the media has effectively stopped working as it did.

Social media, conversely, is where consumers choose to “opt in” to your brand.  What’s more, they control your brand with one social voice, therefore encouraging you to build and maintain a brand that has an ethic, ethos, and intent that the consumer can identify with.  Damage control and retroactive brand management doesn’t work as effectively.

So, social media is not about forcing people to like your brand, but courting those that already do.  100 people interested in your brand are worth much more than the 10,000 print media people that are not.  There are photo sites, mini blog sites, and more where people are talking about you!  Conversation is happening everywhere, and it is important to engage these people as an interested, interactive community member rather than someone just selling something. Consumers will only trust, identify with, and endorse your brand if you are transparent and earnest.

Interested consumers are talking about you all over the world and you need to engage them!!

TripAdvisor responded to me earlier posted questions for the tripadvisor hotel relations team.  They did not respond directly to some of the more esoteric questions, pontificating on social media.  But they did provide some useful information that I am sure many hoteliers are clamouring for.

The main juxt of my questioning was whether owners use profiles like normal users, and who is allowed to be a management respondent.  I am surprised by some of the info.  Especially potential ethical violations of hotel owners.. swapping good reviews or shill review for their property, or against a competitor.

Their response to the above link was as follows:

—————————————————————-

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email and questions regarding the site.

Can you please tell me the title and date of the review the management response which you would like to edit is attached to?

Yes, your owner account is the same as a user account. We do not have restrictions for owner features, it is all up to what you want your preferences to be.

Even though you are using your TripAdvisor account to write management responses you are also able to post reviews for other listings under the same user name if you desire.

Anyone representing a property is able to write a management response for a review.

Though I cannot go into great detail about how we sift out questionable material, I can tell you that TripAdvisor invests a great deal of energy and resources into separating out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.  Aside from employing the use of a set of automatic filters to constantly scan both published and incoming reviews for suspicious behavior, we also manually inspect each post before it is published to our site.  Beyond that, we respond to every piece of support correspondence that we receive from both hoteliers and our members.  If you ever find a piece of content on our site to be fishy, please do not hesitate to drop us a line.  I think that you’ll find out support team quite responsive to your concerns.

Unfortunately we are unable to reveal any statical data about reviewer history throughout the site.

In order for us to best serve our community, we like to rely on e-mail correspondence for customer support issues as opposed to phone support. 

Please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Take Care,

TripAdvisor Hotel Relations Team

———————————————————

There is something fairly revelatory about my mother’s new purchase… a Lexus “this is not an SUV” SUV hatchback.  I have zero green commentary, I have zero bourgeois commentary… I have nothing negative to say guys… calm down.  It is a practical car for her needs, the “endless errand running”-”take too much on” go-getter.  That is fine.

What is interesting is that she has owned multiple mercedes’ since her 1990 economy purchase of a Honda Accord.

I don’t think this says anything about Lexus per se… possibly that their online brand was strong.  But what really shook me was that my mom, a NON web 2.0/user generated content/ social media woman actually turned to the net to resolve her ongoing problem with Mercedes.

SO… here is the story of a non web 2.0 user and how she actually used web 2.0:

She first researched her Mercedes dealer and noted the results were incredibly poor.  She then researched her new Lexus dealer, and found striking and positive comments.

(When I say “research”, I mean typing specific, exact keywords in google; then perusing the different sites that popped up, namely Yelp).

She would look through the comments…. recognizing that some people were just extreme, ignorant, bad mouthing, or unhappy.  She actually knew to mentally cull the wheat from the chaff as a matter of unconscious habit.  This is sometimes suggested as a dent in the social review model, in that casual users don’t “get” to filter reviews, so I found it of interest she casually mentioned she was ignoring bad reviews.

She then found a number of places through that same manner, grouped them all together…. and had them directly bid for her business on the exact model she wanted.

I know this sounds deliberate and literal, but these habits are constantly questioned… so I thought I would throw it out there.  It is utterly simplistic, and not a real case study, to be sure….. derrrrrrrrr.

But it is amazing how social media and user generated review sites are becoming relevant even to the completely passive internet users.

Also, not only that it creates an outlet for unhappy clients… but, what’s more, it offers a place for clients to get massive amounts of research and real “case studies” before buying.  Very simplifying for the consumer, and very empowering.

For the strong, pervasive, talented brands as well…. it is an amazing opportunity to have that one to one direct marketing ability… and I mean DIRECT, at your disposal.

As for the weaker brands, don’t pay attention.  Trust me.  It’s scary.  Sorry Mercedes.