Today I’m pleased to announce our participation in a joint project with Simplifying and EyeForTravel to identify and reward the most engaging hotel brands in social media. You can see the details in this post, and then nominate your favorite campaigns.

[Update: August 30, 2011] After receiving dozens of nominations, our list of finalists is below. Vote for your favorite now:

For more details and the full contest, read this article on the Simpliflying website.

One representative from the Top 3 most voted in each category will get a free pass to attend the EyeforTravel Online Marketing and Social Media Summit on October 10 in Amsterdam. The winners will be announced at this event.

I’ve always been a strong advocate of adopting a publisher’s mindset as a key ingredient in the recipe for hotel marketing success. Because of this, I’m delighted to let you know about a free online class we’re hosting at ReviewPro.

Thursday, April 28th at 8am PST San Francisco (11am New York EST, 5pm Barcelona CEST), I’ll walk you through:

• Why content marketing and social publishing is so important
• How to align your content with your current and intended audience
• Practical tips for producing high-quality content – while making your job as easy as possible
• The best time of day to publish on each of these networks
• Insider tips for promoting the content you create
• An analysis of some of the most successful hotels in social media
• And much more…

Learn from successful practitioners

To illustrate the best practices we discuss, we’ll also hear from innovators at two of the most creative hotels on the social web:

• John Knowles, Director of Innovation at Roger Smith Hotel (sharing perspective from an independent property)
• Sam Weston and Amy Spark, E-Marketing Managers at Apex Hotels (sharing perspective from a brand)

Win a personal publishing strategy session

Those who attend this event will have the chance to win one of two 30-minute publishing strategy consultations with me. This will be a good opportunity to plan out an implementation roadmap based on the concepts we discuss in this seminar.

Register now for this training

This is going to be an event you don’t want to miss – and your staff shouldn’t miss either. Click here to reserve your seats today

Today I’m pleased to announce a special report in collaboration with Jacob Morgan and Connie Chan of Chess Media Group:

An Introduction to Social CRM for Travel

In it, you’ll find answers to:

• What is social CRM?
• Why should the travel industry care?
• Who is ‘social traveler’ of today?
• What data is available online about your customers?
• How to implement a social CRM strategy

Jacob and Connie did a great job with this. Download your copy of the report here:

Thanks to Scott Ginsberg and others, I’ve been impressed with the value of having a few core ideas to “champion” in everything I do.

Here’s the five themes that will be infused into my work in 2011:

Theme: Marketing within constraints

Very few of us have hours to spend surfing Facebook or Twitter, so I’ll be constantly looking at ways to get around time and resource constraints and still use the social web effectively.

Theme: Spending time on human connections, not data collection

I’m becoming an increasingly vocal advocate of social media reputation software that collects online mentions and data, freeing you up to spend time on the things that matter – personal relationships.

Theme: Customer service as the new marketing

Word of mouth is playing an increasingly important role in travel decisions, and investing in delivering an extraordinary experience is the single most effective way to promote today.

Theme: A broader use of social intelligence

Applications can be made for everything from pricing & revenue management to strategic investment decisions. We need to start seeing social media as more than just a peripheral activity and spend more time integrating it with the rest of our business operations.

Theme: Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM

I hate buzzwords, but this is simply all about integrating new and emerging technologies with your organization. It’s a really big topic, but I’m doing some work with Jacob Morgan and others to explore how this can work within the context of hospitality.

Some big topics in this area are looking at how to gather insights from the social web to provide more personalized experiences to your guests….and also how to use social media as not just an external communications channel, but as a way to better communicate within your organization.

Stories and case studies are the best way to learn

I’ll share lessons on the points above through stories as often as I can. Like you, I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of marketing articles out there. Jason Falls shared something I think will become increasingly true as social technologies mature:

The ‘gurus’ will fade away while the practitioners excel.

It’s all about getting stuff done. I learn the most from stories of people putting theories in action and to the test. And these case studies are what I’m planning to share with you.

As you know, this blog is a collaboration with you – our “Shakers” – so let Katie & I know of any story ideas you have for any of the above topics.

Thanks!

When I shared 16 ways we could improve travel conferences, I received a lot of requests for specific event recommendations. At the top of my list heading into 2011 is EyeforTravel’s Customer Centric Strategies in Travel conference, to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA January 26-27.

At the event, I’ll be sharing how travel companies can use technology to listen to and serve their guests and customers. Joining me will be other thought leaders on this topic from Hilton, Facebook, Delta, Carnival Cruise Lines, Expedia, Amadeus, British Airways, Choice Hotels, Marriott, Cognizant, Travelport, SAS, Topguest, IHG, and Google. You can see the full event agenda speaker line-up here.

EyeforTravel’s Global Events Director Marco Saio shared his purpose for the event with me on the phone this week:

My argument – and really the whole point of the show – is that all departments should be concerned with this, to really put the customer at the heart of all of their commercial operations.

It’s very much looking at how social media can be weaved in with other organizational disciplines to enhance their effectiveness, the bottom line, etc. So we’ll be looking at exactly those areas; how do we collate the vast amounts of data that social media can generate? How do we make meaning out of chaos? There’s no use hitting every single Facebook fan of ours – or every single Twitter follower – with just generic messages. It’s trying to establish that dialog and higher customer engagement.

If you’d like to join us in Atlanta next month to explore this topic, you should register now.

Today, I’ll begin working with ReviewPro hotel reputation management to help hotels profit from listening to their guests and customers. My role will be to analyze the industry and educate through writing guides on how to use the social web.

This collaboration builds on my mission here at Hotel Marketing Strategies, which is to assist you in using technology to better serve your guests and create better travel experiences for them. This new arrangement should allow me to serve you even better. I’ll have access to more case studies and examples of what hotels are doing to leverage the best new technology. And even more exciting, I’ll be able to provide you with some original market research using one of the most extensive data libraries in the world on this sector.

I originally met founding CEO RJ Friedlander at an EyeForTravel event in San Francisco last March, and then spent quite a bit of time with the ReviewPro team in Barcelona this week – getting a good understanding of what they’re doing. It seems the goal of ReviewPro is similar to my own mission: they are building the best monitoring software to help you improve your online reputation through service.

Here’s the top reasons I chose to work with ReviewPro, and why I feel you would benefit from working with them as well:

1) A team driven (and positioned) to be #1 in the world. The founding team is comprised of world class technologists, and they have assembled a great team of specialists to surround them. Having a string of successes behind them means they’re bound to repeat it in this sector.
How this benefits you: A company is only as good as its people. The investment ReviewPro makes in its people has a direct benefit to how well they can serve you. Also, it’s important to partner with best-of-class industry leaders, and ReviewPro is well positioned to become this.

2) A focus on the data. This is a product that takes analytics beyond any other product I’ve seen in the market. I’ve had the opportunity to see a bit down the product development pipeline, and ReviewPro is moving to a whole other level above what currently exists in the market. The core technology that powers the system is fundamentally more advanced, and that will help us bring you some very cool features in the weeks and months ahead.
How this benefits you: The right information leads to more sales, more profits, and better service. Better data gives you the competitive advantage.

3) A tool built by the customers. Every new direction the company takes with the product and service seems to be a direct result of real life usage feedback. This is the way great products are built, and I was encouraged to see this development philosophy
How this benefits you: You have a say in how this tool get developed, and can recommend features or functionality that is important for your business.

4) Customer education is a management priority. I suppose this is where I come in, and my collaboration with the team will result in us developing a number of additional marketing guides. But even before now, they’ve published some great material.
How this benefits you: Working with ReviewPro is more than just buying a product. We’re dedicated to showing you how to make money through providing service in the social web.

5) A passion for support. Watching the amount of service this company provides their customers was a deal clincher for me. Support and education is provided at each step of the process. Everyone on the team is putting in the extra work to deliver world class service.
How this benefits you: Again, this isn’t just something you buy and then have to figure out how it works. The ReviewPro team measures their success by how much you profit from the product.

Why reputation and social media monitoring is so important

If you’re not listening, you’re missing out on what your brand could become.

I’ve said this over and over in past articles and presentations. But there are so many websites and opportunities out there that you need a tool to assist you with the listening and measurement of this area.

This is where ReviewPro helps you

ReviewPro makes it easy to track and report on all online activity related to your hotel in one convenient dashboard.

I suggest you request a demo to see how it works for yourself, or start by signing up for a free account for your hotel.

If you need a list of all the best marketing opportunities in one place, look no further than The Savvy Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas. It’s a compilation of over 1,000 of the best marketing techniques we’ve discovered over the years, written especially for:

• The General Manager that wants to stay on top of her game
• The Director of Marketing who is looking to lead the market with the most advanced tactics
• The Sales Manager who wants to use digital communications to accelerate the sales cycle
• The customer service manager who wants to use real-time media for better service
• The public relations professional that wants to find and share stories
• The management company that wants to maximize the profitability of their portfolio

To make sure you have the latest tactics for your toolbox, we just finished a complete revision of the guide. Across 10 categories, you’ll find tips, ideas, case studies, and action steps:

• Part 1: Strategy
• Part 2: Market Research
• Part 3: Advertising
• Part 4: Website
• Part 5: Search Engine Marketing
• Part 6: Online Reputation Management
• Part 7: Social Media
• Part 8: Press and Media
• Part 9: Metrics and Measurement
• Part 10: Service

Version 2.0 also includes access to a constantly-updated document that includes fresh new ideas as I discover them. So it’s more like a database that you can keep going back to as you plan strategy.

Additional bonuses with your purchase

When you purchase this now, you’ll also receive instant access to some bonus material:

Bonus #1: A manager’s tips for reputation management (with special guest Daniel Edward Craig)

I brought Daniel in to teach my Insider’s Circle partners about reputation management, and you will get access to this 50-minute training session with your order.

Bonus #2: Special report – “How to Automate Your Marketing”

Are you letting the urgent get in the way of the important? In this industry, there are so many demands on our time, and it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks and lose sight of the bigger picture. One of the best ways you can fight this tendency is to put select marketing tasks on “autopilot.” Of course, there will always be activities that require your active participation, but those may be less than you think. This guide will show you some practical, straightforward ideas to automate select routine marketing tasks.

100% Money-Back Guarantee

1. Order this product and quickly scan through it to see if it would work in your situation.
2. If the material looks interesting, I encourage you to keep it for as long as you need to test the ideas in the “real world”
3. If it’s not working out for you — or you just plain don’t like it — you can return it at any time for a quick and cheerful refund.

Since I can’t promise this product is for everyone, my goal with this simple refund policy is to allow you to check it out with no risk.

Buy it now, and decide later if you want to keep it!

Josiah’s note: We’re putting this through the newswires now, but I wanted you – our Shakers – to be the first to know….

—

Soap Hope Partners with Josiah Mackenzie to Distribute Poverty-Fighting Products to Hotels via HotelSoap.org

San Francisco – September 2, 2010 – Soap Hope and Hotel Marketing Strategies publisher Josiah Mackenzie believe hotels can change the world by changing their soap supplier.

Dallas-based Soap Hope, founded by Salah Boukadoum, invests 100% of its profits into anti-poverty organizations that provide loans, training, literacy, healthcare, and other services to enterprising women, permanently lifting whole communities from poverty and providing families with the resources and skills they need to be self sufficient.

They call the program “Good Returns”, and that mission extends to their 100% natural products. Derived from plants or milk, and free of petroleum-derived ingredients, artificial colors, fragrance, or parabens, their soaps satisfy a growing shift in consumer preferences toward health and eco-conscious products.

To introduce these amenities to hotels and further the vision of Salah and co-founder Craig Tiritilli, Josiah Mackenzie set up an exclusive distribution partnership to supply the hospitality industry with Soap Hope products through HotelSoap.org.

HotelSoap.org Gives Hotels 3 Ways to Fight Poverty

Soap Hope and Mackenzie work for “Good Returns” at every stage of the operation:

#1 – Buying soap from the right manufacturers

They work with producers that:

• Commit to environmentally-friendly operating practices
• Create jobs in their local communities
• Produce world class, all-natural soaps

#2 – Fighting poverty through profits

100% of the operation’s profits are invested in anti-poverty organizations and micro-loans to small business owners in developing countries: an approach proven to help families become self-sufficient and lift entire communities out of poverty.

#3 – Recycling soap

The 4.5 million hotel rooms in the United States alone produce several tons of tossed toiletries every day. Most hoteliers and guests don’t realize leftover and unused soap can be salvaged and re-purposed to fight disease and prevent poor-hygiene-related deaths, and that’s where Hotel Soap and their friends at Clean the World come in. Recycling and shipping hotels’ leftover soap to needy regions is a final step that’s the ultimate “Good Return”.

Hotels interested in changing the world through their soap supplier should visit HotelSoap.org, call them at 1 (888) 817-7619 or send an email to hello@hotelsoap.org.

Tomorrow (Friday) is Digital Down Day. Those of us who are constantly plugged in are taking a day to unplug and go offline. This includes myself and my team – we won’t be around.

Tony Sheih of Zappos has said the best social media tool is the telephone. Pick it up today and call a few your customers. Take them out to lunch. Better yet, throw a beach party!

Go offline and get outside!

[Photo credit: Sean McGrath]

[Important: This is time-sensitive - I can only provide this to the first 10 hotels that apply at the bottom of this post]

I just posted about the future of web ads, and want you to try this for your hotel. You need to see for yourself the revenue that can be made.

Plus, I’d like to create some case studies with some hard, dollars and cents numbers.

Here’s the thing: I’ve already beta-tested some of these techniques with a handful of pilot hotels, and we brought in a lot of money. Now, I’d like to try this with a few more locations. For this experiment:

• I’ll personally handle the entire campaign setup process (research, keywords, ad copywriting, structure, etc)
• I’ll personally manage and monitor the campaign as it runs
• I’ll pay all the click costs to Google

Since I’m going to be trying some experimental tactics, I don’t expect you to pay me up front.

Instead, let’s do this: you just give me a cut of the revenue I bring in. When you get paid, I get paid. Sound fair?

Just a few simple criteria:

1. You need to have a coupon code function – or similar field – in your website booking engine to track bookings through this channel
2. You need to provide a coupon code for 5%, 10%, or $10 off the lowest available published room rate
3. You cannot have an existing Google Adwords campaign running
4. You need to be willing for me to use your campaign results as a public case study here on the blog

All clear? Apply now…

The first 10 hotels that apply below will get this free Google campaign setup.

If you meet the criteria above, and want to give this a try, please enter your details here…and we can discuss: