Last evening I sent out emails to each of my Insider’s Circle partners, recommending they consider purchasing .TV domain names for their hotels.

Why .TV domains could be important

We’ve all seen how video is playing an increasingly important role in digital communications – it’s what inspired the launch of This Week in Hotels. Reading Marketing in the Moment by Michael Tasner, watching uStream broadcasts, and doing some research has opened my eyes to how powerful this channel could become.

How hotels might use their own internet TV channel

Our hotels will probably start out with creating a 4-6 hour mix of content, and then continually looping that – with occasional intervals of live programming. The topics might include:

• Professionally-produced videos of your property
• A video tour of your neighborhood (like the New York Barclay)
• Guestsourced content (with permission)
• Specials & promotions
• Live social media integration
• Live events
• etc, etc

This is really just an extension of the content marketing I’ve tried to advocate all along. The “concierge approach to marketing” doesn’t go away – it’s just evolving along with technology.

How we might integrate the TV channel

Right now, the plan is to host this on the “.TV” domain name, and then our sales & marketing staff can send people do this….and we can integrate it with our various web properties.

Seamless integration will be important for boosting popularity and views, but the separate domain name will help differentiate it as a separate communications channel.

Become a case study!

I hope to have a public case study or two ready for you by the end of the year, but if you want to be one of the early adopters on this project, now would be a good time to join the Insider’s Circle…

This makes sense – but do your communications reflect the fact that nobody cares about you?

[Watch on YouTube]

Fabrice Burtin asked this question in a comment here on the blog:

The Internet in the hotel industry has been a revolution. No doubt about that. It has completely changed the way we find, discover and book hotels within 10 years.

However, how much the Internet has actually improved the bottom line in the industry? Have we seen an increase of occupancies? Average room rates? REV PAR? Gross Operating Profits? While the Internet and social media have revolutionized the way we promote hotels and sell rooms, are we spending less on sales road shows? Have we seen a decrease in sales departments payroll? Or have the savings simply been re-allocated to the newly created large e-commerce departments?
In other word, if technology has increased the efficiency and rationalize expenses, has it been only balanced by a dramatic increase of all sorts of new expenses?

Or have the buyers (guests) been the only big winners in a revolution that was initiated by the sellers (hotels)? Have the hotels lost out at their own game?

Guillaume and I discussed this in the most recent episode of This Week in Hotels:

For those of you that don’t have time to watch the video excerpt, our big points were:

The internet doesn’t improve overall occupancy

More people probably are not traveling now because the internet exists.

The web is just a platform for communications

Savvy hotels have more opportunities to listen to their guests, and provide better service.

The web probably does improve efficiency

You can share information easier than ever. You have instant access to nearly anything. Of course, you have to avoid distraction from this.

If you’re not in, you’re left behind

Other hotels will use new tech to gain market share and attract the guests you want to host.

As with any quickly changing field, if you’re not taking any action, you’re moving backwards.

It gives smaller, independent hotels an advantage

As a web publisher, you are on an equal playing field with the big guys. If you’re using all 3 components in the one-line social media success formula, you have a distinct advantage.

…

Fabrice is working on a white paper on this topic, and you can share your feedback with him on his blog.

I found one comment on his site especially interesting:

[The internet] has turned us into paranoid computer slaves! Both as hoteliers and as potential hotel guests. As hoteliers, we are constantly fussing about our reviews and worrying about overbookings by overlapping online booking systems… As potential hotel guests we are never sure if the website pictures are real and which review to trust… In short the opportunities are fantastic, but the psychological cost unbearable!

What are your thoughts? Does it even matter what we think – must we adapt or die? Or is there a better route?

In this week’s episode of This Week in Hotels, Guillaume and I discuss:

• The branding problem around the phrase “social media”
• What hotels should do with their mobile presence
• What defines a good mobile website
• Mobile booking behavior

This is our last episode on YouTube: next week we’re moving to ustream. Details to come on Twitter…

In this week’s episode of This Week in Hotels, I talk with Guillaume about how to choose the right blog topics – and how to think about social media’s ROI for your hotel:

We fixed Guillaume’s audio from last week…now I just need to get the lighting right on my side!

We’re wondering about expanding this show’s format beyond 10 minutes to include longer discussions, and perhaps new types of material.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback.

Keyword research is the process of finding which search terms are most popular for users of sites like Google. Before, it was something used exclusively by search engine marketers as they optimized websites for higher rankings.

Now, smart bloggers and content publishers include keyword research in their writing. Little things like the words you choose for an article title or video make a difference in how many people will find it.

So how does keyword research work? This video shows how:

As Martin and I were brainstorming ways to create better guest experiences, we came up with the idea of using Flickr – the photo sharing site – as a way to identify what visitors find interesting in your city or destination.

It helps to have a fresh set of eyes when engaging in concierge marketing, and Flickr can be a helpful tool for this.

• See what visitors are taking photos of
• See what type of photos got the most attention
• Identify the best photographers in your city (and work with them?)
• Locate out-of-the-way points of interest in your neighborhood
• Participate in discussions with photographers to determine the best places to take photos

Here’s the video demonstration:

In this video, I review Love is the killer app by Tim Sanders:

The big idea: Business tends to squeeze out that no-ROI thing called humanity. When we share our intangibles – knowledge, network, and compassion – it creates a memorable experience for the people we interact with.

I’ll try for better lighting and camera positioning next time – I didn’t want to run through the whole review again this time

Listening to Andrew Warner’s Mixergy.com interview with Simon Sinek during my morning run helped define my purpose for this site. In this 4-minute video, I explain:

There are many cool things coming here soon, but defining WHY I’m doing all this was important for me to do. Once we know ‘why’ we exist, ‘what’ and ‘how’ will follow.

Why do you do what you do?

The last few days my twitter stream was filled with people commenting on a viral video campaign gone wrong. Hong Kong’s Langham Hotel tried to create a series of videos promoting their hotel, but they backfired pretty badly.

The videos featured “tourists” having bad experiences in Hong Kong, then  retreating to the hotel to recover.

Langham quickly responded by removing the videos and stopping the campaign. (Above video was republished by a blogger.) In a statement, the hotel said they were disappointed the satirical nature of the campaign was misunderstood.

Actor/marketing consultant Kay Ross distanced herself from the campaign, and gave her side of the story.

What do you think: was this just good fun, or did Langham cross the line here?

In my opinion, this campaign flopped due to lack of respect. How did they expect to attract more travelers to Hong Kong this way?

Elmer is right: don’t promote yourself at the expense of the city you’re located in.