Megan Harrod is the director of marketing for Mosaic House. I’ve been watching them develop a new website for their soon-to-be-opened property for a while now. When they added Facebook Connect to the homepage, I knew we had to talk…

Josiah: What were some of your goals when redeveloping the website?

Megan: We wanted to focus on the things that makes Mosaic House, Mosaic House. For us, the biggest thing is the atmosphere created by all the communal areas in the building. For the website, we really wanted to show this element. We’re still building out the full website – it’s in progress right now.

Design is also important to us. We wanted that to come through in the imagery.

You mentioned one of the key selling points of your brand is the social aspect. How do you communicate this through design?

The biggest thing for us is the addition of the Facebook Connect feature. What I was talking to the designer in the planning stage, we decided to add this because it’s all about engagement. We haven’t even opened yet, but have nearly 800 fans on Facebook.

The Mosaic House is all about bringing people together. So adding Facebook Connect to the website enables us to bring people together online. We have further integration planned as we rollout the full version of the site. So when people land on the home page, they see a whole mosaic of faces…and then we can direct people to our Facebook page where we encourage further interaction.

I love how you’re integrating Facebook into the website – I don’t see a lot of hotels doing that. Very few hotels are able to reach 800 fans so quickly. Can you talk a little bit about how you promote your Facebook page? How did you get so many people signing up?

Read more…

Google Buzz has received a lot of, well, buzz over the past couple weeks. When it comes to reviews, we have everything from Jason’s sugary love note to the Wall Street Journal’s piece on why Buzz isn’t humming along.  I wanted to take an open-minded look at it from a hotel marketing perspective.

What is Google Buzz? How is it different from every other tool out there? How should we use it?

Google Buzz is a an alternative way to share updates with your contacts, whether they be links, photos, videos, or status updates. Everything is integrated and accessible within your Gmail account.

Let’s start off with Google’s own 2-minute introduction video:

The Features

What Google buzz reminds me of is an RSS reader combined with social networking tools: all within your Gmail inbox. Some of the key features that you can expect from it are the following:

• There’s no set-up required. Since it’s already integrated with Gmail, you automatically follow the contacts you’ve already made. Google starts off by showing updates of the people that you’ve emailed and chatted with the most.
• The option for public and private sharing. You can either set up your feed to be viewable by anyone or just close contacts like friends and family. If you’re going to use Buzz for marketing, you’ll choose the former.
• Inbox integration allows you to view all updates from your contacts within a single Gmail feed, instead of flooding your inbox with updates like most social networking clients.
• A “Recommended buzz” which shows friend-of-friend content in your stream, showing media with the most feedback from your contacts or which has content of similar interest to your own.
• An option for direct comments. This feature’s similar to Facebook’s status updates where you can carry a conversation in real-time and keep it monitored by sending the message to your email. You also have the option for direct replies to posters, which is done simply by placing an “@” sign before a user’s name to have a message addressed to them (much like Twitter).
• Buzz seems to work well on mobile phones – particularly on Android and iPhone browsers – so that you can view updates on the go.
• Rich media sharing allows you to combine networks like Picasa, Flickr and Twitter into a single feed. I like the way Google displays large images:

The benefits

I enjoy how Buzz shows “just the good stuff.” (Something I love on Facebook as well) As you start working in social media full time, the sheer volume of content can be overwhelming. Buzz, on the other hand, can be ‘trained’ to your preferences. Don’t like what you see? Just click “dislike” and Buzz will start to learn the types of content that interest you.

Read more…

Josiah’s note: In the second part of my conversation with Tom McCallum, we discuss what’s changed in PR and media relations.

PR is now a major element of your toolkit. This is true at all levels – even for a small bed & breakfast. Hotels don’t need to hire a PR agency, they can create their own blog. It’s next to free.

Don’t be boring

Reactive PR doesn’t work. Boring PR doesn’t work.

There is so much noise out there. Journalists must spend half their day throwing out boring pitches.

When girlfriend getaways were a big thing a few years ago, we did a “Guys Getaway.” It was nothing special until we included something unique: a sparring session with a Caribbean heavyweight boxing champion.

That cut through the noise. It made a full page article in USA Today. And as we all know, unpaid mentions carry so much more weight.

The importance of brand consistency

Effective story-based PR means that whatever you are offering should be consistent with your brand. The resort that did the Guys Getaway package was known for being irreverent and relaxed – so suggesting their guests spar with a boxer fit their persona. If I were a traditional grand, 5-star hotel there’s no way I would offer that package.

So try to develop a cool story a journalists can pick up through the noise. It should reflect the persona of the hotel and the unique value of the property to the customer.

You can’t hire a PR Agency to create the story

You need somebody on the property to come up with the stories. The PR agency will just guide you on how to pitch it. If you are going to use outside PR professionals, have them give you the mechanics of how to get the story out. But they can’t create the story, because they’re not imbued in the brand.

Be 100% sure that you can deliver

How many times have you read about some cool package, and thought there’s no way they can deliver that?

You have to be equipped to do deliver on your promises. I’m all about delivery and execution – I used to be a hotel GM.

Get somebody creative

This could be anyone. At one of the hotels I worked with, it was the head bartender. She was the one talking to everyone, and she was the one that came up with the stories.

Through a person she knew, the hotel was able to put together the package that received a full-page story in USA Today.

Thanks, Tom!

Learn more about Tom McCallum on his blog, or follow him @TomCayman

[Photo credit: Evil Erin]

I was doing some research on social media use for a project, and found the vast majority of statistics quite useless. For example, what can you do with the fact that 55 million status updates are posted daily to Facebook – or that every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube?

These stats, however, looked like numbers we could act on:

1. Social media is used more often than personal email (Nielson Online)
2. 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs (Universal McCann)
3. Organizations that blog get 97% more inbound links to their website, and 55% more website visitors (Hubspot research)
4. 80% of companies use LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees [update 1/27/10 - Robert points out this is not totally accurate - I apologize for the error]
5. The average Facebook user spends 55 minutes per day on the site
6. Typical person on Facebook has 120 friends, but only communicates regularly with 4-6 of these (Economist)
7. Only 5% of Twitter users have more than 100 followers (Pear Research)
8. 5% of users account for 75% of overall tweets (Pear Research)

What type of statistics are most useful to you?

UpTake recently released a new project called Travel Gems. The online travel aggregator is now including select blog content in their pages – which benefits both them (more website content), and the bloggers (more with visibility).

I spoke with the marketing team at UpTake, and they said this new program was a natural extension of their current business. They gather travel information from all over the web, and use pingbacks to find relevant blog posts for inclusion. Posts are screened and approved by editors to ensure high quality. From their site:

UpTake showcases bloggers’ posts throughout our site. Every post is reviewed by our editors and covers things to do, places to stay and where to go. The posts are relevant to travelers. For example, a post about a hotel stay will appear but, a post about a bad day at the office won’t appear. By showcasing posts from blogs alongside travelers’ reviews, travel searchers can find better, more relevant information and make better trip decisions.

[Example: Santa Monica page]

Since this just launched, there has not been much market feedback yet, but apparently the people who do know about it are very enthusiastic.

I know the majority of you aren’t travel bloggers, per se, but I think smart hotel publishers should take notice of this strategy.

How could you aggregate blog content into your own websites?

Savvy marketers know that Twitter activity is basically made up of three functions: listening, communicating, and broadcasting. Replies and two-way conversations obviously require personal involvement… but you can develop and use systems for monitoring and broadcasting.

Although it’s possible to setup RSS news alerts for keywords at search.twitter.com – I use HootSuite to automate searches and track everything in one place. If you prefer software to install on your computer, TweetDeck is another powerful tool with many of the same functions.

Broadcasting on Twitter is one-way messaging that you use to share information and communicate special offers. Many of these can be written and prepared in advance.

This may include things such as:

• Local information
• Hotel and property information
• Answers to common questions
• Special promotions planned in advance

A good way to save time on Twitter is to routinely write a big list of tweets on these topics in advance. This could be every week or every month — depending on your schedule. Then, using a scheduling tool like HootSuite, schedule these updates to be sent “live” at predetermined intervals in the future. Usually, a few each day works best.

If you intend to fully automate your Twitter presence, SocialOomph is one of the most powerful tools I’m aware of. Among other things, you can:

• Send direct messages to new followers
• Automate the process of following other people (based on criteria you select)
• Find “power followers” – ones with most social influence
• Weed out spam tweets and DMs
• Auto-forward tweets and DMs
• Schedule recurring updates

Automatically following back people that follow me on Twitter is something I experimented with for a while, and ultimately decided against. However, you may find it useful for your own goals. Using tools like SocialOomph.com, you can auto-follow people who follow you…and unfollow people who unfollow you.

Again, I have personally decided to manually follow people on Twitter to keep my network quality high. But if you’re going for sheer volume of fans, an auto-follow strategy may work for you.

When planning your Twitter strategy, make sure to make your followers’ experience takes highest priority. If that requires a little extra time on your part, so be it. You can’t skimp on delivering lower quality just because it saves you a little time. But by automating a couple routine functions, you can focus more time on creating valuable content.

How do you improve your Twitter efficiency?

[This is an excerpt from How to Automate Your Marketing]

Much of the conversation around social media is about using it to reach guests and customers, or to connect with other businesses. But savvy “PR 2.0″ organizations are using it to communicate with journalists and increase their media coverage.

First, some tools, then some strategy.

7 Social Media Tools for PR

• Help A Reporter Out (HARO) – 3x daily email newsletter with dozens of ‘expert source’ requests from journalists
• Social Media Press Release Builder – share stories via the social web
• Your Pitch Sucks – get a 3rd-party expert review of your news release
• LinkedIn and Jigsaw can be used to find contact info and start conversations
• Twellow – a directory of people on Twitter that can be used to find journalists
• Media on Twitter – a more focused directory of journalists on Twitter

Now, just because you’re using new media doesn’t change the fundamentals of public relations. Your communications needs to be relevant, and your stories need to be newsworthy.

I receive dozens of press releases each week – most of them having nothing to do with what you would want to read on this blog. Hiring a new manager at your property may interest you, but I probably don’t care…and I know my readers definitely do not want me to publish that.

Please keep that in mind.

How do you use social media for PR?

Qype Logo

Qype is a local review website especially popular in Europe, but with reviews in cities around the world. While TripAdvisor may have more worldwide reviews at the moment, it’s important not to underestimate networks like these. While living in Europe, I found Qype more useful and informative for my own travels.

In this interview, I talk with community manager Rob Hinchcliffe on how hotels should promote themselves on the site, and use the power of guest reviews.

—

Josiah: As hotel marketing professionals, we often have to improve our position on guest review sites like yours. What are some ethical ways we can do this – that you approve of? Also, are there any promotional activities you want us to avoid?

Rob: We try very hard to make it easy for any business owner to use Qype in order to promote their business. Really it should be just as intuitive for a business owner to arrive on Qype and know what the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to go about things are as it is for a user who’s there to review something.

The first thing to know is: you can’t get away reviewing yourself in glowing terms (and you definitely shouldn’t start submitting bad reviews on your competitor’s listings!). Social networks are self-policing in that the community is acutely aware of the balance between a genuine piece of content and something that’s spam or self-promotion. And once you submit disingenuous content to a user-generated site you are asking for your honesty to be brought into question. No business owner wants that, so we’ve made it very easy for people to ‘claim’ their business on Qype. Putting your name next to your business and submitting an objective and balanced description of what you do is the best way to start a dialogue with any online community. People respect transparency and they will respond to it in a similarly objective and thoughtful way.

It’s easy to be cautious and petition your friends and colleagues to review your business with five stars and a handful of adjectives like ‘amazing’ and ‘spectacular’, but be aware that users are looking for information, not hype. A genuinely informative and balanced four star review is much more likely to bring in a new customer than a five star review that reads “The best hotel in town. Why would you stay anywhere else? I loved it!!!” So don’t be afraid to ask your customers to review you. Put your Qype URL on your promotional material, send follow up emails asking for feedback, and encourage people to talk about their experiences.

Business owners ask: but what if people are nasty? And I tell them that people are very rarely nasty, and they’re much less likely to be negative if you proactively ask them for their opinion. And wouldn’t you rather find out what the things that are annoying people are now, rather than six months down the line when it’s annoyed hundreds of other people?

If a hotel has a poor reputation on Qype, what steps should they take to improve it?

To quote Douglas Adams: “Don’t panic!” Occasionally a business owners will see a bad review and go into damage limitation mode. That normally means an irate email to our customer support team threatening legal action and nasty comments on the user’s profile. That isn’t reputation management, it’s fanning the flames. Of course if you find defamatory content about your business online then you need to deal with that, but it’s far more likely that, if a customer has taken the time to compose a balanced review of his or her experiences, then they are not out to defame or damage that business, they are trying to express an opinion on a forum that has been provided for them. Luckily that platform also has space for you to respond, a mechanism which didn’t really exist a few years ago. In the past that customer would have gone away, moaned to their family and friends and never come back again. Now you have the ability to take that complaint, deal with it, and potentially win back the customer (and attract new customers into the bargain).

Qype provides a messaging service for business owners to reply privately to reviewers or you can leave a public comment on a review. We encourage people to respond publicly as it shows how willing you are to be up front and transparent about the issue. If the user has a genuine complaint then thank them for bringing it to your attention, apologise, and let them know what you’re doing to fix that problem. Ask them to come back so you can make it up to them, offer them an incentive. That one customer can turn from a detractor into your biggest fan and that two or three star review can turn into five stars with one or two emails.

We’ve spoken to our users, and they’ve told us over and over again that they are more likely to be attracted to a business by an open and friendly owner, than they are by any number of glossy photos or special offers. Once you know that, then it’s just a matter of common sense.

Read more…

With so many social media options available, it can be very hard to keep track of your hotel’s online presence. A software tool can make the process simpler and more effective, and Radian6 is among the industry leaders.

I recently met some of their team at Blog World Expo, and asked Tom Hasselman a few questions:

Can you tell us what you do and what the benefits would be for an individual hotel property?

Basically it’s going to give that individual hotel property manager or community evangelist an idea of what people are saying about them across all the media channels that are out there. Traditionally they would not ignore a phone call,  a suggestion in the suggestion box, so naturally they should not  ignore people who are talking about their properties across the blogosphere or the 420 video sharing sites, Twitter, forums, and mainstream news comments. Our tool tracks images — somebody can take a picture of a property and say it’s really nasty and dirty or this was a beautiful spot that I recommend: hotels need to be aware of this consumer driven content

We also track micro media such as Twitter and FriendFeed. It’s very common for people to post quick updates to share their experience at a property.  For example while I was at Bog World, I stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, had excellent service the moment I walked into the lobby, checked in to a beautiful room so I decided to Tweet about it.  Within about 30 minutes, @LasVegasHilton followed me on Twitter and thanked me – I thought it was a nice touch.

So that’s a good example of one-on-one marketing, one-on-one sales, and really building a relationship.

The tool we have essentially allows “brands” to tune into all those conversations and make sense of it, find out where the most relevant ones are happening. Which one has the most comments, and identify viral trends –  positive or negative.

As a hotel marketing manager, why should I use your product instead of going to Twitter search (for example)?

We bring everything together in one place. So what happened before, is someone would have Twitter searches, use Google alerts, they’d have an RSS feed up on their desktop, and they’d be searching through you to manually. That works, but it’s an incredibly cumbersome and time-consuming approach.   Not to mention Twitter search covers, well, Twitter which is a great place to start but one would be limiting oneself to Twitter, Blogs, Forums, Images, Social Bookmarking Sites, Facebook discussion groups are equally important to tap into.

So, what we do is bring all this information together in one dashboard. So instead of going from platform to platform to platform, you can just make sense of all this data in one dashboard. And the beauty of it — and one of the reasons companies chose Radian6  — is that we are a real-time monitoring  service, customers can listen-measure-engage in social media.

As content is published, the end user knows about it immediately. Some of the free tools won’t update for up to 24 hours — so you won’t know about a blog post until sitting out there for 24 hours. We know that 90% of the activity on a blog post happens within the first 24 hours, it’s essential for you to be there instantly and to react to whatever is published or at least be aware of its presence.

So how do you gather this data? Do you crawl the web?

We crawl the social web with our own proprietary crawlers. We also attach ourselves to RSS feeds and APIs.

Is there anything else we should know about your tool?

We have some unique integration abilities such as being able to tie into web-analytics such as Web-trends and CRM packages like salesforce.com

Thank you for your time, Tom.

A lot of our social media discussion these days centers around Twitter and Facebook. But there are other social media tools that can bring you great results. A good example of this is StumbleUpon: a website recommendation/bookmarking tool.

Without any promotion on my part, this network alone caused a giant week-over-week increase in traffic to my new hotel design blog.

It seems some types of content work better on this site and others. My design blog is photo oriented, and may have a broader appeal than this hotel marketing site. But if you’re trying to promote images or similar content, this tool is definitely worth your consideration.

Update: As I write this post, my last article – 10 Ways to Improve Your Landing Pages – was just “stumbled” and received 100′s of visitors within the past half-hour. I guess lightning can strike twice!

Another idea for your tool kit….