Day 1 Recap: EyeForTravel Social Media Strategies 2010

EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies conference got off to a good start today here in San Francisco. I am pleased to see the conversations (for the most) part move beyond “Should we use Facebook?” to more meaningful discussions.

Specifically, I enjoyed hearing — and want to hear more tomorrow — about two things:

1. Examples of how people are integrating social media into their campaigns (What works? What doesn’t?)
2. What’s next for social media — how will this evolve over the next few years, and what should we do to prepare for these changes?

Susan Black began with a good introduction (as always). Social media is a conversation, not a tool. E-mail and social media are converging. Separate channels should be used for promotions and customer service/conversations.

Porter Gale opened a panel on the social media landscape by explaining customers now expect real-time, 24/7 support. Installing WiFi on their Virgin America flights resulted in a lot more online activity. [Would hotels experienced the same thing?] She believes social media is something the whole team should be involved in: Guest services deals with service issues, PR develops content and watches for stories, Marketing monitors everything and posts information.

Virginia Suliman of Hilton emphasized that social media tools are not more important than the trip as a whole. Think about your entire guest experience, and see who you can partner with to create a holistic guest experience. She reminded us that we would never put in a new front desk employee without training, and the same should go for social media. Social media isn’t free – you need to invest in training & tools.

Del Ross from the InterContinental Hotel Group showed studies that e-mail is not part of the daily communications web for people under 30. They’re not using Twitter either. Twitter may be coming less of a personal communications tool, and more of a media outlet. There are three basic ways for hotel to increase revenue: generating demand, converting demand, increasing revenue per sale. He doesn’t care where the improvement comes from… as long as it comes. Experimentation is the key to social media success. Find a way to fail cheaply and fail quickly. You won’t know what works for you unless you try.

This is just a quick overview – I plan to do a more comprehensive summary of the event on Friday. In the meantime, I live tweet every session so that you don’t miss anything important.

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