This week, Josiah and I discussed the best ways to promote a hotel’s eco-initiatives and exceptional service with Chris Syvertsen, General Manager of Mosaic House – the first hotel in the Czech Republic to use 100% renewable electricity and 100% biogas. Planning an eco-overhaul of your own? Focus on these eight strategies:

1. Skeptics are (rightfully) wary of properties that appear to be “greenwashing.” Stick to specific, meaningful improvements. Guests can tell the difference.

Chris: For Mosaic House, it’s relatively easy to promote our property authentically. The eco-initiatives we have incorporated are industry-leading and complex, making it easy to distinguish our efforts from those who have merely “greenwashed.”

We have a sophisticated water recycling system with heat recuperation, which is only the second of its kind in the world. This system recycles all the waste (or grey) water from showers and sinks using an eco-friendly bacterial filtration process, and then sends the recycled water to all of the toilets in the building.

The water savings is tremendous. The system simultaneously recaptures the heat energy from the warm waste water, and then uses it to pre-warm the fresh water used for showering. The heating of the fresh shower water is also aided by the solar panels on the roof of Mosaic House.

2. Strive to become the best property in your niche.

Chris: We are the only hotel in the Czech Republic to utilize 100% renewable-source
electricity and 100% biogas, making our energy consumption 100% sustainable.

Further, we have a sophisticated climate management system which continuously
monitors and adjusts the temperature in every room, based on numerous variables, in
an effort to minimize energy use.

3. Don’t think you need to be “traditional” to appeal to a wide variety of guests.

Chris: We’ve never been the ‘traditional’ type. Between us, we find it a little boring. Mosaic House was dreamed to be as a unique environment in which all kinds of people from all different places, cultures, and backgrounds (a ‘mosaic’ of guests, if you will) could come together and share their stories and experiences.

Through offering affordable, design-conscious private and shared room accommodation, we’ve learned it is possible to appeal to a wide variety of guests.

It’s important to point out, however, that it’s a challenging concept to make work successfully. We work hard to create an environment which ensures all of our guest’s experiences are completely satisfactory.

4. Improve your online feedback and reputation by exceeding expectations.

Katie: So far, Mosaic House has earned 97% positive TripAdvisor feedback; it looks like you’re changing a lot of online reviewers’ preconceptions about hostels.

Chris: Our goal was to incorporate the positive elements of what defines a ‘traditional hostel’, namely a relaxed, friendly, and fun environment, while striping out the stereotypical
negative elements (i.e. stale design and cornflake breakfasts) and blending with four-star, environmentally-friendly offerings.

Based on guest feedback, so far the concept seems to be working. For example, in one recent TripAdvisor review, a guest mentioned ‘being pleasantly surprised at the quality of the accommodation and at the ambience’. Another guest review describes Mosaic House as having ‘a modern-yet-classic vibe that’s both hip and relaxed’.

In addition to the atmosphere and design, guests also comment positively on our service, international staff, green features, cleanliness, and breadth of offerings (such as the gourmet breakfast, Prague customized maps provided upon check-in, and daily entertainment at our own Belushi’s Bar & Restaurant).

5. Set the stage for storytelling and engage locals with in-house entertainment and social spaces.

Katie: You mentioned that Mosaic House likes to create experiences that inspire guests and staff to spread news and stories; could you share a couple examples of these stories?

Chris: Yes, we like stories… and providing a stage (figuratively and literally) for their creation. Not only was the space – which is 100% smoke-free – designed to bring guests together, but we also pay focus to our in-house entertainment. Karaoke nights, themed parties (such as Australia Day and St Patrick’s Day), as well as live music on our theatre stage and sports on the big screen, are on for guests (as well as Prague locals) almost any night of the week.

6. Tell stories with photos.

Chris: Take a gander at Mosaic House’s Facebook page to catch a ‘storybook’ glimpse of what’s ensued over the past year, including our Green Gala event early last month; we were celebrating the announcement of our newest green announcements: utilizing 100% green electricity, gas, and our new fully electric car.

7. Think long-term. It’ll take years of research and adaptation to fine-tune your ecological efforts.

Katie: Which of Mosaic’s features make the biggest environmental impact? Which do your guests most appreciate?

Chris: We’ve taken a big step, but we’re certainly not experts. While we do have projections as to the benefits, it will take years before we are able to truly realize the impact of our eco-initiatives. We’re reluctant to offer advice at this stage, except to recommend performing as much research and analysis as is feasible.

In general, guests really appreciate the overall initiative. They admire that we’ve taken such bold steps towards sustainability and actively work towards minimizing our impact on the environment.

They also appreciate the tangible concepts. For example, our electric car, which is plugged into the side of Mosaic House. The low-flow raindance showers are beloved, perhaps as they also have a bit of a luxurious feature.

8. Find creative ways to measure guest satisfaction for specific initiatives.

Chris: We’ve actually just begun a program which will help us measure guests’ true
appreciation. Because the additional cost of using 100% green electricity and gas is
fairly significant (roughly an additional 40,000 Euros annually), we are asking guests to
consider donating their 2 Euro key deposit towards helping Mosaic House to continue
to afford green energy.

Through measuring how much guests donate, we will get a more accurate picture of how willing people are to actively participate in our effort to make a difference. You might consider checking back with us in six months to see how well the program has performed.

Thank you Chris, and a special thanks to Mosaic House’ enthusiastic Experience Manager Shannon Maroney for reaching out to us!

Today, Dave Lemmon shares with us how Redcow Marketing helped The Museum Hotel improve their conversion rate by 100% and achieve a 70% increase in online sales. You can download Dave’s case study in its entirety, below.

The Museum Hotel’s Challenges:

The owner of Wellington NZ’s Museum Hotel – Chris Parkin – wanted…

• More bookings through his hotel’s website, more brand awareness, and more sales.
• To increase his website’s presence and make the most of its visitors.
• To reduce the fees he pays to third party travel sites for bookings, and to encourage guests to book from his website, instead.

Dave suggested they…

• Make better use of the hotel’s booking engine.
• Address usability and testing page enhancements to improve sales.
• Add sales elements on the website to improve the sales funnel, and add new content to the homepage and other vital areas that would enhance engagement.
• Work directly with the hotel’s booking engine provider to improve features.
• Work directly with the reservation staff and manager of the hotel to increase bookings.
• Address the site’s SEO content.
• Redesign the online advertising pay-per-click campaign.

First, they accessed the website’s analytical data to determine how much traffic was coming to the site, what levels of contact were made, what and how many bookings were generated, where people went when they visited, how long they were there, and where they left. All of this information helped to paint a picture of the site’s performance.

Dave reviewed the site for usability issues, friction, and confusion points, then looked for gaps in the website where they could enhance value, and studied the site’s flow of information.

Their major challenge was to make the website more interactive and focused – to get people moving into the booking engine as quickly as possible from the website itself; once there, the likelihood that a booking would be made was very high.

Dave proposed a new layout for the home page, then tried and tested different versions to find which one most effectively raised guests’ engagement levels with the site and booking engine.

The next step was to address the pages that were visited the most – providing feedback to the hotel on what those pages were lacking. They also added new tracking systems to monitor visitors and conversions levels, allowing them to track which parts of the pages people were more interested in, what keyword phrases were bringing in sales and customers, and other valuable information.

Finally, they added clearer navigation to aid the user experience, including new contact forms, maps and directions.

They rolled out these changes over the course of a few months, analyzing and tweaking along the way to enhance the overall package.

Results:

By focusing on both the conversions and the traffic, and creating an alignment between search and usability, business from their online bookings increased – on average – by 20% month-on-month.

[Click Here to Download The Museum Hotel Case Study PDF]

Thanks, Dave!

Travel Spike Social Media Manager Carly Redgers and President Ryan Bifulco shared with us the inside story on how Sofitel Luxury Hotels earned over 28,000 quality followers on Twitter – and became one of Klout’s Top 20 Most Influential Hotels – within one year.

How do you define “quality” Twitter followers?

Quality is, of course, very subjective. For some clients, you might say it’s related to power or influence, so you’d review their Klout score. Our project objective – how we define quality – is to earn fans and followers that are local and interested in fine dining, wine or french culture.

Tip #1 – Appoint a social media coordinator for each property.

This person will be the eyes and ears on the property, including sharing specials at the spa or menu changes at the restaurant. They coordinate with sales, marketing, weddings, meetings, events and the concierge to share updates and help their social media team get the message out.

How did you select a social media coordinator at each property? What was your criteria?

We asked each hotel to identify the person that either had the most experience or enthusiasm for social media. Since Travel Spike trained them on social media and we ultimately handle social media strategy and management, we did not need anyone to be an expert, just passionate about the project and willing to learn.

The Sofitel Miami's Leblon Party

Tip #2 – Be authentic.

Customers don’t want to read updates that sound like a robot has written them. Sofitel is a unique upscale brand known for its stellar service and French style, so the social media updates stay true to the product.

Could you define “be authentic?” How did you allow personality to come through while still adhering to guidelines?

Authentic means to keep things real and applicable, rather than just sharing corporate robotic propaganda – regardless of the company. Sofitel does have corporate guidelines, but we allowed the brand’s personality to shine.

Sofitel is French, stylish, magnificent, elegant and upscale. So we give their social media presence a bit of a personal touch, and include local specials and events they support.

Tip #3 – Target your demographics.

For Sofitel, targeting discerning travelers and gourmet diners remains a top priority.

How did you target demographics?

We started the social media program with just Facebook and Twitter, and we’re expanding the program in 2011 to new outlets. Our team reviews public information provided in profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Our Miami hotel networks with people living in the Miami area, for example, because they want to promote their restaurant and bar to locals.

Tip #4 – Sprinkle in local events.

Show off your concierge skills by becoming the local inside source for events, parties and festivals. Sofitel Los Angeles, for example, tweeted live from their recent Golden Globe Gifting Suite.

How else can events can be used as a social marking device?

You can do a lot with events. We’ve organized TweetUps at properties – where we invite Twitter users to network in person. We tweet live during the event for extra exposure. You can also Tweet live from other events around the city or promote events on the Facebook events calendar.

Tip #5 – Engage with your audience. Don’t just sell.

The quickest way to lose a consumer is to ‘bang them over the head’ with product information. Sofitel Washington DC asked their Facebook fans which DC tips they would like to receive; consumers responded that they want to hear more about museums, family travel, luxury dining, and romantic tips for couples.

What questions did you find got the most engagement? Can you tell us a little more about how you used social media for research?

We keep things fresh and engaging by varying interactions with our followers; fun trivia questions are very well received. We solicit feedback from the followers and invite them to participate in the process, which goes over quite well. For example, we might ask followers to vote on a type of drink special, or suggest a new spa treatment.

We use the reporting provided in Facebook, and also review reports from a social analytics company – Sofitel’s social media research partner. Our team does social media research on the competition, and we poll users to gauge interest and test new programs, as well.

Thanks, Carly and Ryan!

I’m worried about the number of hotels I see neglecting to make their websites friendly to international guests. As an American, I see far too many hotels in the US doing nothing to encourage international business – though this is something that seems to affect many other hotels around the world. For an industry like travel, it would seem the importance of international presence and marketing would be clear. Research from Amadeus and others indicate strong growth in inbound travel from Brazil, China, and other Asian countries. According to their Travel Gold Rush report created with Oxford Economics, there will be a “dramatic realignment of travel spend” with global travel doubling between 2010 and 2020.

Yet for too many small groups and independent properties, awareness remains very low about the importance of building visibility in international markets. How can you get started?

Begin with translation

The web is becoming increasingly multilingual, and translating website content is an important first step in attracting international visitors. In his article 3 Tips for Content Marketing in Foreign Languages, Christian Arno writes:

From 2000 to 2008, Web use among the Chinese grew by a whopping 755 percent, while Web use skyrocketed by 2,064 percent by Arabic-speaking individuals. As a comparison, web use increased by 204 percent among English-speaking people. In the near future, Chinese will supplant English as the top language of the Web. As a result of this trend, businesses realize their success on the Web will depend on creating foreign-language Internet marketing strategies.

A quick look at Google Analytics can help you decide which languages are important to publish information in. Also, consider which parts of the world you need to develop a presence in. (The reports linked above may help you with this.)

Provide localized content

Translating your existing content is an important first step, but localization takes it a step further. Travelers from regions look for (and react to) different content. People visiting from different countries will find different types of information useful.

In our interview with Isabelle Lozano, she revealed this about the website for Apostrophe Hotel:

The French part has more articles and talks more about things that are less-known than in the English part. We’ve realized that the French customers were really reading alot of our posts. After arriving at the hotel, after their booking, they would say, “I’m going to go see this exhibition that I saw on the website.” The English part follows the same idea, but talks more about the hotel itself, because that’s what English clients want to learn about, we’ve realized.

At first we were just translating, but we asked customers what they thought, and we found out that our English and French customers wanted different things. English and Americans were saying, “That’s too much information; we just want to learn more about the hotel.”

The lesson: Ask your customers what type of information they expect from your website, look for recurring trends, and then provide this localized content.

Be aware of local social networking preferences

The use and choice of social networking platforms varies from country to country. Vincos created this helpful chart showing the most popular social network in each country:

Facebook is quickly increasing in international popularity. Nick Burcher has an interesting year-over-year usage table for Facebook that shows explosive growth in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Phillipines (among others). Yet Facebook is still by no means universally used around the world: the majority of people in important markets such as Brazil, China, Russia, and Japan prefer other platforms to communicate:

Optimize content for local search

Web content is only helpful to you if people find it. This makes country-specific search optimization an important part of an international hotel marketing campaign. There are detailed tutorials on how to do this, but I like this simple infographic from Elliance via Search Engine Land:

Aside from the technical part of search optimization, selecting the right keywords is very important. Use tools like Google Trends to identify which words and phrases are most likely to be used to find what you offer.

Manage your international online reputation

The fact that guests are talking about your hotel in other languages and leaving feedback on popular websites abroad is overlooked by too many hotel managers. If you want to increase your business from international sources, focusing on building your online reputation worldwide is critical. And while you may have a good reputation on a few domestic websites, do you know what prospective guests are saying (and seeing) on review websites in other countries and in other languages?

Make sure to use a reputation management tool that collects feedback from a wide range of international sources, and multiple languages.

Actively encourage people to leave reviews on their preferred review website of choice, rather than just one specific site. As you attract a more diverse clientele, you will build your global reputation as well.

What are you doing to increase your hotels’ visibility internationally?

Social technologies are rapidly changing the way companies communicate and operate, and I believe we’ll look back on 2011 as the point this trend quickly accelerated. Because of this, I’m focusing all my time right now studying and championing this “social” approach to management.

In our Introduction to Social CRM for Travel, we defined the concept as:

“A way in which to conduct your business through new communication channels while keeping the customer needs, wants and expectations as your focal point.”

I encourage you to create a document on how this will look in your hotels. To get you started, here are some suggestions to expand on the idea:

We will have guest feedback guide everything we do

Everything from big-picture strategy to day-to-day tactical decisions will be made with guest feedback in mind.

The social web will act as a giant focus group to do research in and gather feedback from.

We will obsess over experience design

We know that that our guest experience is directly correlated to the feedback we receive, and the story others will tell about us. We will use all the resources we have to design and deliver a remarkable experience to every single person, every single time.

We will spend time on personal connections, not data collection

The value to participation is in relationship building, not data mining. We’ll use technology to make the best use of our time in this area.

We will create very specific social reporting to cut through noise

There is a lot of chatter on the social web, and not all of it is feedback we can use.

We will avoid this pitfall by creating position-specific reporting that executives, managers, and frontline staff can use immediately in their day-to-day jobs. Insights need to be simple and there must be no confusion on what action should be taken. It should not require a “guru” to interpret. 2011 will become the year of the practitioner, not the guru. If we are going to make social media analysis something everyone takes part in, then we need to simplify it so non-specialists can understand the action steps.

Additionally, we will decide how to leverage additional analytics such as influence scoring into our reporting systems for highly-targeted communication and service.

We will actively use social intelligence in every area of our organization

Insights from the social web are useful for more than just our marketing and PR people.

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

We will use social feedback scores for performance accountability

To measure the quality of our guest experience and level of service, we’ll use guest reviews and ratings as a barometer of success.

We’ll even look at making customer feedback scoring a factor in our bonus incentive packages for management.

We will see customer service as the new marketing

Service is not a cost center but a way to generate additional profits through taking great care of our customers in a way that builds loyalty and creates brand evangelists.

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 we can promote our hotels today.

We will use social technologies internally

Social technologies can make our organization stronger from the inside. Rather than just viewing social tech as an outside activity, we’ll use it within the business as well.

We’ll implement communications tools to make our team more  productive and internal workflow more efficient.

Doug O’Reilly, Oliver Sohn and their Seventh Art Media team reviewed about 2,500 Facebook page posts by 75 hotel brands and identified six key elements that influence success. The following is a summary of their recently-released white paper, available in its entirety below.

1. Understand that not all content performs equally.

Content that conveys a unique sense of brand/place and makes a personal connection with followers performs the best.

Photos are the clear winner. Facebook users like the quick-hit satisfaction of a witty post or a beautiful or clever picture. Some of the highest performing photo content was not necessarily professional level quality but at a minimum connected on a personal level. A quick snapshot of the first snow of the season and a giant pumpkin are examples of connective content that required little effort.

Unfortunately, what we see occuring is that the second lowest performing content – links – are also the most commonly posted. The most common links by far have tenuous relationships to a brand or property and do little to create a connection, incent sharing or extend a brand experience. In short, most of it is filler.

2. Understand your guests and goals.

Facebook requires upfront planning, programming, and goals. The goals hotels set for the page will define their content, processes and the people who choose to follow them. If hotels want a specific type of customer ‘liking’ their page, they need to program to that customer’s specific needs.

If you don’t plan out your growth strategy for the long-term you might find you’ve built a community of the wrong target market.

3. Facebook pages are best for amplification – not engagement.

Building engagement is not Facebook’s strong suit. Creating amplification (impressions) is easier and returns a brand’s bottom-line benefits much more quickly.

The push to get 100K followers in a short amount of time and then figure out what to do with them is a losing strategy. It’s better to have one thousand advocates who love your brand and interact with your content than twenty-five thousand discount-seekers. Focus on quality followers who value the brand beyond discounts.

4. Get your content right.

A simple question to ask about any content is, “Why would any of my guests share this?” If the author cannot answer without hesitation, the content should not be posted.

You may find that the best content often already exists. Most of the top performing content in terms of engagement and amplification was not manufactured or contrived. Instead, it was generally a highlight of existing activity or content brought forward on Facebook.

While video is a booming engagement tool for other sectors, hospitality is lagging due to poor quality content, subject matter and execution. This is a huge missed opportunity.

Don’t expect your fan page to increase or to sustain amplification rates as it grows, without maintaining a steady flow of the right type of content.

5. Measure ROI on amplification and direct response.

Facebook has some handy tools for measuring impressions, and these should be leveraged in developing an assessment of the channel’s contribution to cost saving vs. comparable CPM rates of more standard online advertising.

Content should be set up to track views beyond the channel and generated click-throughs. Back-end systems (such as Google Analytics) should be structured to capture the contribution of the channel to referrals and conversions.

Most hotel brands show little discipline in reviewing the performance of their pages by repeatedly posting the same under-performing content types.

6. Look to other channels for one-to-one engagement.

Hotels should not look at Facebook as their primary point of engagement but as a channel to amplify engagements that happen elsewhere. Facebook is a powerful but also specific tool that does not elegantly transition to the gentler aspects of one-to-one customer service required in a hospitality setting.

Read the full report here:

Seventh Art Media – Hospitality Brands and Facebook – Identifying the Opportunities

Thank you – Doug and Oliver – for sharing your excellent work with us!

As has become my tradition at the end of each year and beginning of a new one, here’s my summary of 111 marketing ideas to consider as we enter 2011.

Planning & strategy

• The #1 purpose of marketing is retaining your customers. Focus on that before pursuing new markets.
• Read The Concierge Approach to Content Marketing
• Why you? Why now?
• Personalization is a growing trend - use it wherever you can
  
• Make a stop-doing list
• Make sure you’re signed up for fresh new ideas from me each week (if you haven’t already)
• Talent is everything. Spend all you can (and then some) recruiting, retaining, rewarding the best people.
• Do you have a list of allstars you want to hire? Always be casting. (Good Seth Godin post)
• Recruit from clubs
• Offer new hires $2,000 to quit before they begin
• Are you prepared to let 75% of your new initiatives fail?
• “The most important trait for innovation today isn’t creativity, but curiosity.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Consistency is everything
• We’re all stock traders now
• Post a list of customer suggestions in action
• Read Peak by Chip Conley

Social Media

• Appoint a social media ambassador to “own” your efforts in this area
• When building your social media team, include person from every department: management, marketing, PR, product development, customer service, etc. ““Employees can take brand message, localize it, and put their personality behind it.” – Claire Elias/STA Travel
• Read my free report – Beyond Account Setup: 29 Ways to Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
• Don’t try to buy social media fans. Avoid the “campaign” mindset, and understand that forming the relationships for a great online community will take years.
• The one-line recipe for success in social media: An inside story from a real person that loves what they do
• Turn guests into content producers
• Turn your loyal fans into celebrities
• Put a Flip camera on every property
• Make sure to have a human identity behind your corporate social media profile
• Don’t outsource Twitter
• Retweet your own important content (people could miss it otherwise)
• Try using Twitter to collect testimonials. Save positive tweet mentions as favorites you can refer back to.
• Use TwitterSheep to find what your followers care about
• Create a Twitter background with contact/sales information
• You don’t always have to make sales offers in social media to make a lot of money – go 0ff-topic every once in a while
• Try some of these Facebook plugins from Involver
• Think twice about advertising your Facebook page URL – it only builds their brand, makes you even more reliant on them. Instead, send traffic to a landing page hosted on your site.
• Get creative in the way you share photos on Facebook
• Used LinkedIn to generate sales leads
• If you’re opening a new hotel, consider using a Flickr group to build pre-opening buzz
• Social media is the richest focus group that ever existed
• Learn from Fairmont and have social media followers create your next promotional package
• Social ROI is from insights, not necessarily sales
• Google and Bing have confirmed that Twitter/Facebook postings do help with search engine placements
• Understand the basics of social CRM
• Start observing the best hotels on Facebook, like Joie de Vivre
• Start following the best hotels on Twitter, like @FairmontHotels @Kimpton @ApexHotels
• Learn from Fierro Hotel on how to use Tumblr: InsideBuenosAires.com and WeLoveFierro.com

Website

• Don’t celebrate the launch
• Be compatible with Google’s Instant Previews
• Build content through partnerships
• Buy a .TV domain name and create a video channel there
• Look at these 15 well-designed websites – and see why they work so well
• Try optimizing landing pages around ‘who’ you know, not ‘what’ you know. (Including connections from networks like Facebook gives a personal connection to the company.)
• Drive traffic by reaching out to past guests
• Make sure you do 3 things in 3 seconds: 1) load the page quickly 2) Visually WOW them 3) Get them involved
• Use this checklist of 43 questions if you’re going through a re-design
• Take advantage of “white hot” online touch points when asking for action
• Use video creatively throughout the revenue cycle
• Think about using travel webcams like Starwood is doing with RoomWithAView.com
• Search optimization is more important than ever, but the rules have changed. Learn and adapt.
• Know how Google instant affects your marketing
• Use live chat on your website to close more sales
• Maintain consistency (in everything) across all booking channels
• Encourage direct bookings by verifying website security, offering multiple language and currency support
• Read Speak Human by Eric Karjaluoto

Mobile

• Create a mobile-friendly website to avoid platform issues
• Know that 81% (to 19%) prefer mobile websites to mobile apps for researching products and prices (eMarketer 2010 survey)
• Make sure you don’t run a mobile ad, and then send traffic to a page on your site that’s not mobile-friendly
• Use QR codes to bridge the online/offline gap (Example from Tailor Made Hotel)
• 4 important things to do with mobile for customers: learn, recognize, reward and personalize
• You’re not going to succeed in mobile on your first try. Experiment now – learn by doing.
• A big opportunity for mobile is rewarding loyalty.
• Look at TopGuest
• Creating great mobile experiences requires you to get out in the world and interact with your environment. Don’t design in a cubicle.

Reputation Management

• Tracking online reputation should not just be aggregating reviews. Use a tool that gives you insight into trends and patterns.
• I recommend you start using ReviewPro (Why I am)
• Begin tying online reputation to your staff bonuses
• Know that 86% of consumers are using reviews as a deciding factor in their purchasing decision
• An unhappy customer used to tell 3 people, now they tell 3 million. This highlights the importance of quickly catching and resolving issues.
• On the brighter side, the majority – two-thirds, actually – of online reviews are positive [research from Keller Fay Group]
• Increase customer confidence by monitoring, collecting, and re-publishing positive reviews
• Monitoring for online mentions sometimes provides you with some great promotional material
• Write better post-stay “thank you” emails to encourage online reviews
• Get creative in how you ask for reviews. Like a banner on your WiFi network login page.
• “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

Advertising

• Run a brand ambassador campaign in social media (Mashable examples)
• Let a customer write your next ad
• Experiment with strong risk-reversal messages in your copy
• Embrace behavioral ad targeting in PPC and elsewhere
• Banner ads are quickly evolving
• Partner with websites that attract people already decided to visit your destination
• Barter unsold rooms for advertising

Email

• Social media use has not replaced email for sales (Just look at Groupon)
• Make sure to use good landing pages
• Add some security indicators (like a sample email screenshot) to increase email subscription rates
• Segment your email list by personas (not just purchase history)
• Build a preferences center to help subscribers receive more relevant emails
• Permission isn’t forever

Service

• Customer service is the new marketing
• Understand the “Brand Butler” trend
• Ask your guests if they would recommend you to a friend
• Create a buying experience centered around the customer
• Re-think your guest check-in process
• Real-time responses are crucial on the social web. Have systems and processes to deliver timely information and support to your guests.
• Try a service like CoTweet to share support responsibilities among staff
• Read Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

Amenities & Technology

• A poor hotel Wi-Fi experience influences 36 percent of business travelers on whether they re-book that specific hotel in the future [more research on hotel WiFi]
• iPads are the #1 most-wanted tech amenity guests want from a hotel [USA Today poll]
• Consider virtual meeting technology as a way to profit from lower business travel volume

Press & Media

• Send out social media news releases
• Try PitchEngine – a social media PR builder
• Start offering more unique hotel amenities that get people talking
• Listen to the PR 2.0 chat

Measurement & Analytics

• Understand travel booking isn’t usually a linear process
• Learn how Barbara Pezzi improves her marketing with analytics segmentation
• Run these 10 reports in Google Analytics
• Social media should shorten your sales cycle. Watch your number of sales leads, cost per lead, sales closing ratio, channel conversion rate, and time to closing to measure improvement.

For over 1,000 hotel marketing ideas and strategies for implementing these concepts, I encourage you to get the Savvy Hotelier’s Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas

If you found this list helpful, please share it with your colleagues via email or through Twitter. Thanks!

Yesterday, TripAdvisor flew me out to Las Vegas for their second Master Class conference. The event detailed TripAdvisor’s expansive owner-focused developments and suggested specific ways for hoteliers to proactively manage their reputations. Daniel and I agree: it’s a great initiative. As for the conference, here are three things that they really nailed:

1. Pre-conference modules gave hoteliers a hands-on look at TripAdvisor’s newest features.

3. Group Q&A sessions were brief and immediately followed by opportunities for in-depth one on one discussions with presenters.

Bryan Payea – TripAdvisor’s head of Industry Relations – addressed a common concern: how to react if a guest uses the prospect of a bad TripAdvisor review to ‘blackmail’ a property?

Bryan suggests that hoteliers notify TripAdvisor of the potentially biased review ahead of time, inform guests that providing them with incentives for good reviews is against TripAdvisor’s policy and – in some districts – illegal, and remember that a very small percentage of these would-be blackmailers follow through with their threats.

Five more live-tweeted lessons:

Thanks for having me, TripAdvisor; we look forward to following your progress…

Hoteliers, what do you think of these changes?

Thank you, Kara!

In the last episode of This Week in Hotels, we went through some of the biggest mistakes travel companies make in using Twitter. (Inspired by Darren’s post here.) You can listen to the whole conversation in that post, but I just wanted to summarize the main points here.

Mistake #1 – Registering, but not responding

Darren: The main thing really was companies that sign up to Twitter and then don’t respond to people’s questions and complaints.

I had a recent experience where I was stranded in The Hague and I tried to contact the airline via Twitter and nobody acknowledged me or responded to any of my questions. I’ve seen it happen with other people as well.

The thing is, when you join Twitter, you have to be prepared to deal with the communications side of it. So if somebody’s got a question, you’ve got to be able to answer it. I think one of the things I’ve noticed quite a few, especially with the UK tele-operators were that if people had complaints, instead of sending a direct message to the consumer to ask for more information, they just gave them an email address which the consumer could then use to complain. It defeats the purpose of using Twitter in the first place.

Josiah: You need to empower the people who are using Twitter to actually resolve situations. I know it can get complex because I’ve talked with a few people at airlines that are managing Twitter accounts and obviously there are some cases where you may be able to point people in the right direction or give them the right direction, in other cases you may have to hand it off to someone in your department. But just handing off a generic customer service email is just really unacceptable. It’s not solving the situation and it doesn’t look like you’re making any effort at all.

Mistake #2 – No identity behind the company

Josiah: One of the other big things was no identity behind the company. I think everyone out there on Twitter is looking for a human connection. They don’t really want to connect with the company, they want to talk with another human being. I’m wondering how we can do that practically especially in the scenario where you have a large company and maybe several people are involved in social media management?

Darren: I think it’s probably a lot more difficult for larger companies if they’ve got a number of people monitoring the account, so I think using initials [to identify which person is replying]  is a really good idea.

I can’t think of any companies off the top of my head at the moment but I have seen it where they’ve got a background with pictures of people who are monitoring the account and then their full name and the initials next to it so at least you can actually relate to a human being rather than just text on a screen.

I’ve seen good examples of smaller companies, like Stuart of Around the World Flights. He said that his followers actually increased when he put his photo as his avatar along with the logo of his business.

So there’s definitely advantages to being more personal on Twitter and those are just some of the ways you can do that. What I’ve noticed some people do is they use the SEO keywords that they’re trying to target, so rather than having their business name or personal name, they have a keyword there, “London Hotels”, and that’s not good to see neither.

Josiah: I think I’m guilty of that with @HMarketingHelp as my username – but its a great point and I think the whole idea of creating an identity behind the company, I’ve tried to compensate for that by having a personal background image.

Mistake #3 – Outsourcing Twitter management

Josiah: You made another point in the article about Twitter accounts run by clueless agencies. I would probably go as far as to say it’s impossible to outsource Twitter. You can’t expect someone that’s thousands of miles away to have a really good pulse of the heartbeat of your organization. It just seems disingenuous to me to have a third party trying to be the face of the company. I don’t know how it could work.

Darren: I completely agree. You need somebody who’s actually familiar with the business and somebody who can deal with that query or that piece of advice that somebody’s wanting quickly. What you don’t want to do is to ask a question and then 3 days later somebody responds because by then you’ve probably found the answer yourself.

Josiah: Real time monitoring is so important – even if you have someone who goes in for 5 minutes at a time, 3-4 times a day… because these issues have to resolved within hours or the value of the response is just worthless. Just having a question answered four days from now especially from the real-time travel environment where perhaps I’m sitting at an airport or I’m at a train station and I need an answer right now, I don’t need it four days from now.

Guillame: And thank God there are tools out there now like TweetDeck that help you to be really active to tweets that talk about your brand, or you can also do some free customer service. I always look up to what I have been doing for nearly a year now where I’m trying to help travelers on the go to answer their questions. I think it’s a fantastic way to engage all these people.

Darren: I can add something to that as well. I use a tool called CoTweet (cotweet.com) and that’s really good at monitoring what people are saying and I don’t really monitor the term “Travel Rants” but I also have a new project which is a local guide from my home city of Leeds. What I’ve started to do is if people are asking questions about Leeds hotels, I’m able to assist that person by offering them some suggestions for hotels depending on what they’re wanting to get out of their stay in Leeds. That’s actually helped me generate bookings which in return has also generated revenue. So for local hotels, monitoring that kind of discussion is really useful and can only benefit them.

Josiah: I think that’s even more important than just monitoring the brand name, especially at the local level. You need to be looking for people who are coming to your city and looking for a place to stay or suggestions for activities and things like this. This is what people are tweeting more often than just something about your brand name. But I think that’s important as well so you have to be monitoring both these types of queries.