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Are you tired of reading articles on how to use social media? This one is going to be different: I’ll start with two assumptions: 1) You’re smart, and 2) You already have basic profiles on sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

If this describes you, what’s next in social media? I’d like to share some of the “hacks” I’ve seen used to optimize social media activity.

Facebook: Add a fan page widget on your homepage

Placing a Facebook Like Box on your website allows visitors to become a fan of your Facebook Page without leaving your main website. Additionally, you can share the most recent updates on your page, and show some of the people who are already part of your community. (The subtle difference between this and the Like Button above is the the Like Button is just for sharing content; the Like Box is for fan page signups.)

Facebook: Post on Saturday for more interaction

According to research from Dan Zarrella, your hotel will get a lot more interaction on Facebook updates made on the weekend (especially on Saturday):
Not working during the weekend? Just use a tool like HootSuite that allows scheduled future posting on Facebook.

Twitter: Using lists to save time

Anyone starting out on Twitter quickly notices the volume of updates from people they follow can become overwhelming. How can you keep up with the updates that really matter? The answer is through Twitter lists. You can create lists for any number of people you follow.

Read: How to Use Twitter Lists (Twitter.com) and Mashable’s Twitter Lists Guide

Twitter: Create a background design that sells

Not enough people pay attention to their Twitter background design, but it can be a powerful marketing tool. It’s nice to have a layout that matches the rest of your visual identity, but I like to go a step further and include sales information. Provide contact details. Highlight a special offer or promotion.

Twitter: Ask guests to follow you right after a booking

After someone makes a reservation or checks in to your hotel, you might recommend they follow you on Twitter for service. You can do this in person or over the phone, but I’ve received great results by putting this request on the “thank you for your reservation” page that people see immediately after making a booking. Once someone has made a commitment like this, they are obviously interested in what you offer, and the chances they’ll follow you on Twitter or elsewhere go up dramatically.

Blog: Use Flickr to find “insider” secrets in your city

Flickr can also be a useful way to identify what visitors may find interesting in your city or destination. It helps to have a fresh set of eyes when creating a visitor’s guide for your destination. Searching Flickr enables you to:

• 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

Flickr: Publish under a Creative Commons license to increase your visibility

As mentioned earlier, the Flickr Creative Commons license gives bloggers and web publishers permission to use images in their own work. From the perspective of the photographer – you in this case – it can be a great way to raise visibility. I recommend releasing every photo you upload to Flickr under this license. Photos of your property are great, but photos of your city or destination are even better.

YouTube: Optimize your videos for search

Many people are surprised to learn that YouTube is the web’s second-largest search engine (after Google). Videos uploaded to YouTube should be optimized to increase the chances of people finding it. There are whole articles on this topic, but some starting actions you can take include:

• Try to identify which niche search phrases are most relevant to your audience and the video, and then target these
• Use the word “video” in the title
• Write a keyword-rich description – it’s the next-best indicator to search engines of the video’s content, after the title
• Provide transcriptions where possible (search engines cannot index video content, so this helps them get a feel for what the video contains)
• Tag your video with keywords when uploading (which should go without saying)
• Select an attractive thumbnail image

Email: Add your latest Twitter updates to your email signature

A service called WiseStamp allows you to instantly embed your latest tweet or other social media update in every email you send. Even if you don’t want to use it for your personal account, it might be a nice touch for customer service or sales emails.

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Again, this article is just a small excerpt of a report containing 20 additional simple, yet powerful changes you should make to maximize your presence on Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, YouTube, Flickr, and Email. Enter your email address below, and I’ll send you a free copy of Beyond Social Media Account Setup: 29 Hacks and Optimizations for Better Results:

Call Summary

02:01
JM: How would you define remarkable hospitality?

02:05
JH: I think that’s got a number of components. Probably the two key components are sensitivity to your audience and the other piece would be engaging that audience that you wish to serve. And what makes it remarkable is how you merge and marry and blend the two to create something that is very different and very distinctive. That’s what makes it remarkable.

02:41
JM: I hear a lot of talk about designing “guest experience” from consultants, agencies and hoteliers. What in your mind is wrong about the way hotels are currently designing their guest experience? What do you think is missing?

02:57
JH: I think we’re in the midst of some pretty interesting times and I think what’s happened in the last probably 2-3 years and will continue to evolve is the whole, I guess, outlook of and consideration of what the hotel experience should be. I think before the recession it was kind of happy-go-lucky, people were just spending without being very attentive. I think hotel properties became devalued in terms of the experience. When new hotels were being developed it was still the cookie-cutter kind of approach and then all of a sudden, wham. You had the recession. And it’s the old story, out of the ashes will rise the successful properties and I think we’re really starting to see that and actually for hotels. You know from what I’ve been reading it’s gonna be into the smaller properties who are the real winners in lifestyle, lifestyle and value.

04:10
JM: How do you define “lifestyle”? I’m very interested in moving us away from the cookie-cutter approach to hotels, but is this only a design issue? Are there some staffing and training factors at play here?

04:33
JH: It’s the whole ball of wax. As I said, an evolution. And the operators who understand that would be very successful, while as the operators who try to maintain what has been in place simply will… Will fail. In my eyes its pretty cut and dry. Unless all of a sudden we have huge, huge, prosperity again across the board and I don’t think that’s gonna happen. And then people tend to forget and they settle.

05:12
JM: So what does the traveler of today expect? How can we actually go beyond their expectations and really delight and wow them?

05:20
JH: Like I said, and I think this recession really created a pretty significant belweather if you will. Up to that point I think, sadly, our travelers were really dumb down and they were excited when somebody smiled at them, if someone gave them eye contact, and if the food they ordered was what they ordered and was hot, if it was supposed to be hot. So they were just kind of settling, if you will. And hoteliers and restaurateurs, that was just fine because they were still making money.

So I think nowadays what has really changed in the make up of your traveler, those who are traveling, is they are very distinctly looking for value. They very distinctly are not settling for second best.

High on their agenda is a good quality, valued experience versus what they would’ve expected three or four years ago. What delights them is a whole other, you know what I mean. We’re talking about this whole evolution. What probably disgusted them or they accepted three or four years ago, as I said, was really a low level of attention and service. And once again the savvy operators moving into 2011 and beyond, they’re gonna be very attentive to simple things, just simple courtesy. That has a premium nowadays and you just don’t see it in the marketplace. You don’t see it in your hotels, you don’t see it in your restaurants, you don’t see it at your pharmacies, you know, or at your dry cleaner. So I mean now there’s some very simple things that have real currency nowadays that just aren’t gonna cost an arm and a leg to put into place. I think you’re gonna have once again successful operators needing to really define what their mission is, what their story is and blending that with what they know about either their current audience or the audience they seek in order to create that memorable experience. So there’s gonna be some new definition out there on the landscape.

08:06
JM: For hotels trying to reach the value-oriented guest of today, it’s not all about slashing rates, it’s about providing an extra level of service that makes the guest feel special and cared for.

08:19
JH: Absolutely. You know, make me feel respected. Make me feel loved.

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The rest of this transcript is available to our Insider’s Circle partner hotels only. Please sign in to access the complete interview. If you haven’t yet brought me on your team, you should see the details of my Insider’s Circle program.

[Prefer to listen? Download the mp3 recording here]

If you want to jump to a specific point in the conversation, here are the topics:

• 2:45 – Should you offer free wifi? (We debate the issue)
• 5:00 – Could offering free wifi improve your online reputation?
• 5:45 – Which is better: free, slow wifi or fast & paid?
• 8:45 – Hotels – tell us what your Internet costs are
• 13:00 – Some research on what amenities guests want most
• 15:00 – An interesting case study from Ritz Carlton on Twitter
• 18:30 – This example is just a logical extension of the core values held at Ritz Carlton
• 20:10 – Case study of hotel pre-opening, where all employees began blogging
• 22:45 – Question: how to handle construction and avoid disappointed guests?
• 26:00 – Opening a hotel during construction all at once vs. a gradual opening

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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.

Listen to this conversation here:

[Prefer to listen on the go? Right-click here to download the mp3 recording]

For those of you who prefer to read our conversation, here are the highlights:

[00:50] Josiah: Today I wanted to talk about a report that you had shared a few days ago, titled “Delighting Your Customers in a Social Media Era”. What’s going on in the hotel industry that makes this so important right now?

William: Social media has just exploded in the last five to ten years, from discussion boards and bulletin boards to social networks that provide real-time connectivity for people regardless of location and industry, and it’s really changing the nature of the conversation between the service provider and its customer. There’s a network effect going on that magnifies the potential awareness of that conversation, and by extension, its brand-reinforcing activities or its brand detracting activities. That’s really never been seen before.

[3:56] Josiah: How can a hotel delight their customers? What goes into creating a great guest experience?

William: I think there are many who would argue that it begins long before the actual guest experience, in that traditional sense. I think a strategy has to look at every aspect of that journey, from the customer getting the idea to want to visit your location, to isolating your property as a place to stay and then actually forming and re-enforcing positive pre-check-in thoughts that you reinforce once they arrive.

[07:04] Josiah: Is this whole concept of delighting customers more of a management issue than a marketing topic?

William: Marketing is full of platitudes that we ascribe to our own brand. We talk about ourselves as a premier experience or the best in our vertical, the best in our location, whatever it is. But the actual experience is what the customer, the guest, the consumer is going to remember and our ability to shape that experience is a function in management at the property level.

[08:30] Josiah: Should more people be getting involved in social media at the property level beyond just marketing? Should we be bringing on the general manager, should the concierge be sending Twitter updates and what-not?

William: I think about what the Four Seasons hotel brand does now with it’s properties. It appears that every single property has a Twitter presence right now at a unique property level.

The Four Seasons property in Vale talks about the art festival going on over Labor Day, as an example. And it talks about it in a very fun, very engaging, very welcoming kind of language, inviting the follower to engage with them further and maybe start to plant the seed that if not this year, maybe next year, that might be an interesting location for a late summer getaway.

Five or Six years ago, we didn’t have the kind of mechanisms to enable cost effective and customer-engaging ways of communicating that really cant permeate like social media can right now. It’s something that needs to be tested and explored, and feedback is a gift.

I think [social media] may open up all sorts of new opportunities to really deepen the relationship with an existing customer and then to influence people that they can influence. That’s the value of this whole idea of the Ultimate Question and this notion of the Net Promoter Score ideology. To identify true brand advocates. People who are so happy and satisfied that they become de-facto brand ambassadors.

[13:11] Josiah: Do you think the rule of marketing has changed it all? Is it more relationship building? The types of messages that we’re pushing out, do they have to change a little bit in content? Do we want to encourage conversation between our guests?

William: The potential upside is to look at [social media] as a series of conversations or one on-going conversation. Like, if there’s a new chef or a period of construction has ended and something is new and available at the property level, this is something that would resonate with long-time frequent guests of the property and it’s something that may capture the attention of the individual that has never stayed at the property before.

[15:50] Josiah: For a single, independent property, the concept of one to one conversations is reasonable and it usually can be carried out fairly easily. With some of the larger brands or hotel groups… how can we create platforms that enable conversations without interacting one on one with every single person who mentions our brand?

[16:43] William: At the larger level, you have to find more things of common interest. I think one of those unifying concepts would be a loyalty program. This is something that travelers are absolutely impassioned about.

There are also opportunities that may be counter to the gut intuition of a brand manager, but these are conversations that will occur regardless of all participation. An example of that could be a negative experience with the brand. These negative situations are opportunities for the brand to demonstrate several things. We can demonstrate that we care, that we’re listening, and that we’re doing everything that we can in the public form and in private with the individual to try to resolve the underlying issues that were involved with their negative experience.

Companies with multiple properties should not be afraid to open up their communities to encourage this type of feedback. I’ve seen types of communities that are “open” but not really open, where they seek to positively reinforce the brand at every single possible opportunity by, in effect, censoring content that gets posted by travelers and not realistically viewing the nature of these channels. And what happens in that case is that the disaffected customer doesn’t view this channel as credible and that extends to the brand itself, and they will find another channel.

The lesson there is that in these social media channels, we are just one participant in the conversation. We are no longer in control of the conversation. The guest, the customer, the prospect, they’re all equal participants in the dialogue and we have to encourage honest and forthright communication, and we need to respond as honestly as we possibly can.

[22:19] Josiah: Can you define the Ultimate Question and the Net Promoter Score and and talk a little bit about why these are so important?

William: An individual with the Bain Consultancy, Fred Reichheld, who was a senior managing director at Bain, had written an article for the Harvard Business Review in 2003 which really kind of framed the idea of boiling down complex customer satisfaction surveys into one simple question. And that is to ask a customer, in effect, on a score of 0-10, how likely would you be to recommend our company or our brand to someone else?

And it really sought to demystify the area of customer satisfaction science because it had become such a beast onto itself. It had taken on so many different permutations and there were so many theories and methodologies for inferring the mind of the customer without basically getting at the root to what we’re all striving for as commercial businesses and that’s to grow our business and more fundamentally, to keep customers that we’ve fought hard to win, usually at great costs.

The idea of the Net Promoter is to gauge, with a visitor or guest, that if they have a good experience, will they be likely to recommend the experience to someone else? And conversely, if they were dissatisfied with the experience, how likely will they be to become a detractor on behalf of our brand?

[26:37] Josiah: Referrals dramatically increase in importance, so asking this question, tracking your progress against the Net Promoter Score, becomes all the more important over the last few years.

William: Absolutely. The important proposed benefits of the method really derive from simplifying and communicating the idea of creating more promoters and fewer detractors.

So, on a 0-10 scale, you consider your 9s and 10s to be promoters. If a customer being asked this question comes back with a 7 or 8, we may consider that a moral victory but in the field of Net Promoter methodology, you have an individual who’s generally satisfied with their experience. They’re not so satisfied as to very likely remember it a few days after checkout.

The goal of Net Promoter is to isolate the behaviors throughout every point in the guest booking value chain, if you will, from the time that the guest engages with marketing, to the time they make the reservation, to the time they’re at the check-in desk, to the house keeping, to the amenities, to checkout.

The science of the Net Promoter score card has begun to evolve since 2003 to a rich little cottage industry of breaking down every aspect of the guest experience and isolating where the opportunity to drive that 7-8 experience to a true Net Promoter likelihood behavior at a 9-10 level. You start to form actionable steps that can help your brand to begin to really move towards true transformation that drives topline and bottomline growth, especially in a very competitive environment.

The full transcript will be available shortly to Insider’s Circle members.

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…

[The video was a little messed up this week...probably the fault of my software. Sorry! You may want to just listen: Download the mp3 recording here]

Prefer to read our discussion? Here are the highlights:

[1:30] Josiah and Guillaume discuss the recent launch of Facebook Places. Why should your hotel follow geo-location developments?

Josiah: On the last few episodes, we’ve been discussing this topic – everything from how you can use Four Square for your business, down to… will Four Square be acquired by another service, or is Facebook going to offer or launch a competitive feature – and that’s exactly what happened only a few hours after we finished recording last week’s episode.

This is their entrance into geo-location; this is how they’re going to engage the 500 million people that use their network and I think that is going to be the key to their success. But only one week into the program… it’s a little to early to make a judgment call about whether there’s going to be a strong return on their investment.

Guillaume: So, have you ever experimented with Facebook Places?

Josiah: I’ll be trying it out more in the weeks ahead, but I have to say that I’m pretty impressed. For me, a service is only useful if my friends are using it, or if I can be connecting with people. Wiith Facebook Places, I can see if my friends are at a venue, for example, if I’m at a concert, or… a sporting event, I can see if my friends are at that venue; we can connect that way. You can check in some of your friends as well.

Guillaume: Well, I didn’t play around with Facebook Places, but to me, it was another additional feature that allows you to post where you are… so all of this is already available. I think the difference, maybe, is that it’s instant communication. The difference between what I’ve been using, Four Square, versus Facebook Places, is the “gaming” aspect, where I can be the mayor of a place, I can earn some badges. Facebook… there’s nothing. I don’t see what sort of advantages I’d have, in the long run.

Josiah: Right. I think that’s a good point, because these two tools are quite different in that regard. Like you say, in Four Square, you’re competing with the whole Four Square community: who’s there most often, and Facebook is more, well, the title of their blog post announcing this is “Who? What? When? And now, where?” So, they’re trying to tap the location element to the Facebook network, but to date, it’s not really competing against the larger group of people that are visiting your favorite establishments.

[7:50] Do you agree with Guillaume that “Four Square’s days are numbered”?

Guillaime: There’s no way around it; 500 million against 3 or 4 million users is going to be difficult… I think their days are probably numbered.

[9:23] In what way does Four Square have an advantage over Facebook Places?

Josiah: I think the company has a cool technology and a very passionate user base. From what I’ve seen, the Facebook users who are using Facebook Places, it’s sort of a passive, “This is kinda cool; it’s not too difficult, you know, why not try it?”. But Four Square people are much more engaged with the network…

Guillaume: Yeah, just watch these spaces in your free time: Twitter, Facebook, blogs. There are different free places where you can benefit by getting new customers to knock on the door of your hotels, and leave Facebook Places, and Gowalla and Four Square for later. I think it’s too soon to invest too much time in this.

[10:45] How can hotels decide which languages to use for their social media communications?

Josiah: So on the topic of location, I know you wanted to talk a little bit about languages that hotels are using on their website, in their communications. Let’s talk a little bit about your thinking on that. How do hotels decide which translations to offer? Which localized bits of information or social network they should be engaged in? Is there a criteria people can use for that?

Guillaume: It’s been an ongoing dilemma. When you launch a website for a hotel, the first thing you’re going to do is have it in English, because you want to reach as many people as possible, and then you go after other languages that are related to your targeted prospects. So if I’m let’s say, a hotel in a Spanish resort, there’s a good chance I want to have it in Spanish and English and German and Dutch, because that’s my target market. What I’m seeing sometimes, is that when I go to the hotel chain website – and I’m not talking about The Big Guys, I’m talking about the smaller guys – they push instantly, as a default, the local language.

Have you thought about localizing your promotion in different languages? It’s great to open a Facebook account, and a Twitter account, but most of it is pretty much done in English. Why don’t we open an account for Spanish travelers, or French travelers? What do you think of that?

Josiah: Would it make sense to create a separate Twitter account for each language that you wanna be engaging people in? Or do you think it’s good to just mix all languages into one account?

Guillaume: Well, the good news is, it is possible, thanks to Twitter applications that help you manage multiple accounts…

Josiah: Or, just think… who do you have on your team that would be able to facilitate this? For example, one resort that I work with in Canada has a lot of seasonal workers, a very international staff: people from Italy, Germany… there’s at least 5-6 different languages represented on their staff. And if you could just have each of those people maybe tweet out a few times a week, then you don’t need to think about, “How can we manage this relationship with all these different translators?”

Guillaume: Something that I’m sure they’re conscious of is the cost of translation. When you start translating a website, you want to make it right. You want to really professionalize the translation, making sure that it is understandable, and that’s why you have to make some choices about how many languages you want to cover on your website, your Twitter account, and Facebook. What have you been doing with your hotel website?

[16:40] Why is it so important for hotels to speak their guests’ language?

Josiah: I think this is so important because… even if someone understands English – they read, they speak English – I saw some study done a while back; people are more likely to purchase something – and this may have not been in the hotel industry, specifically – but, people in general would rather purchase something in their native language.

I’d like to kind of wrap up this topic with some really practical steps. How would a hotel decide what languages they need to be offering? Do they look at past guests’ records? Are they looking at Google Analytics to see which language people are coming from? Do you have any ideas on that?

Guillaume: They should have in their sales plan, marketing plan… “Which guest am I trying to attract? Which nationalities am I likely to get, based on my location? Based on what things are around my hotel? And how can I get to those guys? Could I do this as well myself by offering a good translation on my website, and be able to get direct bookings?” Those kinds of things need to be factored in. Do you have something to add?

Josiah: An effective translator will know how to communicate your intention into something that’s regionally and culturally appropriate for your target audience. So if you have someone on your team already, if you have multi-cultural staff, think about how you can take people who are already working for you and involve them in the process of translating and reaching more people.

[21:13] Should hotels offer a guest-referral-discount through social media channels?

Josiah: Question number one is from someone who sent it in anonymously. I have the email up right up here; they want to create sort of a hotel referral deal for their social media users. For example, you get two of your friends to book a room at the hotel and receive 50% off of your stay with them. The question is, “Have you seen anything like this before? Do you think the idea could work?”

Guillaume: I think it’s innovative. It’s probably worth a try. It depends on how old the hotel is. If the hotel just opened, I think it’s a great idea. You need to start somewhere, right? The question then is, how are you doing this? And how do you measure this?

Josiah: That’s a big one. Tracking is the biggest issue in my mind, at this point…

[23:31] Should hotels reward guests for taking satisfaction surveys?

Josiah: Okay, so the second question is around the topic of incentives, as well, and Brent sends this in. He’s working with a group of hotels in the U.S. and he saw a campaign done by a hotel in Hollywood, where they’re rewarding guests who take their guest satisfaction survey with money. And so, he thinks that, “Hotels should reward valuable customers, but not necessarily for completing a satisfaction survey” because he thinks that, “Guests are very savvy and will see right through this.”

I think the bigger question behind it is, “What’s the best way to encourage people to take a survey?” It’s all in how you ask for it, right?

Guillaume: A detailed survey is definitely a good way to understand where you can really make a dramatic change, but if it’s a long survey – it takes half an hour – I understand hat you might actually reward people for their time, but usually those kinds of surveys are done face-to-face, or over the phone…

At the end of the day, people will definitely respond if they think they’ll contribute to a better product.

Josiah: Well it all comes down to giving the right incentive, right? I think the people that you’re asking need to think, “Okay, this is actually going to improve my life.” People are selfish to a large extent, and if people see that their feedback and their insights will have a direct impact on making their life better, their experience better, the product better…

I’m a very big fan of one-question-surveys. The ultimate question being, “Would you refer us to your friends and your family?” I was on a website the other day that said something to effect of, “What did you come here for, and were you able to find it?” And it was a two button “yes or no”, and it probably takes about two and a half seconds to give this feedback. That would give you some good insights, and a lot of responses.

[31:20] What can hotels do to maximize exposure through the GDS?

Guillaume: Okay, so another question that was sent to me on Twitter about half an hour ago was, “What can hotels do to maximize exposure through the GDS?”

Well, first of all, you need to make sure of who you’re competing with on GDS. Remember – I think – it’s about 500 thousand hotels in the world; GDS is about 100 thousand. So, of those hotels in your location, who are you competing with? Another thing to look at is which market you want to target. Are you on the GDS to have international coverage and just target everything, or are you on the GDS because you know that this specific GDS – whether it’s Travel Port, or Amadeus, or Saber – have a good footprint in, let’s say, Mexico, for instance? That’s something you should know, because there are clear markets for different GDS.

Josiah: And make sure your GDS partner has the right firepower to support your hotel. That’s crucial.

Guillaume: The last point I wanted to make about exposure on the GDS is, make sure that your hotel’s information is accurate, up-to-date, and that you share a lot of pictures, as well. And let’s not forget other languages. GDS do support other languages, so make sure that you have your description and amenities translated.

Josiah: Good show today, and as always, if you have any questions, let us know, either through Twitter or through a comment on one of the blogs. We run this show to answer your questions, to help you look at everything that’s going on in the world of technology and hotels, explain it, and hopefully make your hotel more profitable.

Guillaume: Right; thank you, guys. Enjoy the rest of this week, and see you next week!

If you were opening a new hotel in this market, how would you position it?

That’s the question I’ve been examining with Martin Rosberg, Managing Director and co-founder of Fierro Hotel – a new hotel opening in Buenos Aires this September. Fierro is an Insider’s Circle partner: a very design-focused hotel with all the best amenities. iPads in the lobby and suites. Double-glazed windows to ensure a silent, relaxing environment. The sort of place where you would love to spend a week or two.

But we both know having the best product is just the first step. We need to help travelers visualize the guest experience through our communications. So as we prepare for opening, Martin and I have been thinking:

“How can we communicate the Fierro Hotel difference, and separate the property from all the other boutique design hotels in Buenos Aires?”

It may help to have a little background.

The building will include the Hernán Gipponi Restaurante. From HotelChatter…

Chef Gipponi, by the way, is a local lad done good, having spent time in Michelin-starred kitchens in Spain before returning home to Argentina. We hear that the restaurant promises to become a local hotspot, but be warned that this does not mean it will be classic meat-haven parilla.

We’d happily eat steak day after day in BA, but if you’re a vegetarian or simply need something other than beef in your diet, you will be pleased to know that Gipponi will be serving up dishes such as Foamy Yogurt with caramelised pumpkin seedsm and Grilled Scallops with bok choy, pineapple and ginger juice, and pine nuts.

Additionally, the hotel’s wine cellar is run by Martin’s brother, Andres Rosberg – president of the Argentine Sommelier Association.

So here we have this beautiful design hotel, paired with some of the best food and wine in the city. Now, the brand position is obvious.

Fierro Hotel is the place to stay for the gourmand visiting Buenos Aires

Or, “The best lifestyle hotel for foodies.” If you’re a bon vivant, you need to be here.

We’re still finalizing the wording, but the difference is clear: If you’re serious about experiencing some of the best food and wine that Buenos Aires has to offer, Fierro Hotel is the logical place to stay. Not only do you have these great options on-site, but you have some world-class experts to recommend other establishments in the city.

The positioning lesson for you

Examine your story to find what position your brand can occupy exclusively in the market. Fierro Hotel has this strong emphasis on food and wine, but you will have something else. Whatever that is, define that…and then repeat it over and over in your communications.

Want to work together on branding for your hotel? That’s just one of the areas we cover in my Insider’s Circle program. See details on the special end-of-season offer available now.

We’re nearing the end of the summer season here in the Northern Hemisphere, and for some of our hotels & resorts, that means the end of busy season is approaching.

What are the most important steps for you to take at this time? Or really, after any time you have a busy stretch?

Survey your customers

Try asking The Ultimate Question; it’s so powerful: “Would you recommend us to your friends?”

Forget the 25-question survey; you can gather additional information elsewhere. If a guest will refer their friends to you, you know you’ve succeeded in delivering an excellent experience.

In conversations, try to find out why they stayed at your property. Why did they choose you over your competitors? Identify common elements, and see how you could build future communications around these issues.

Collect public feedback

Gather people’s thoughts from review sites, feedback forms, and elsewhere. Multimedia content is best. Then publish the most accurate and compelling feedback everywhere online.

The goal here is to communicate your value and your difference through the words of others. Let them tell your story.

Gather guest-published content

Search photo and video sharing sites like Flickr and Youtube. Try a few blog searches. Look for material people have published without your knowledge.

Then highlight the best pieces of content.

This is Guestsourcing. Promoting the stories that others are telling about you, and connecting your past guests with potential future ones.

Take another look at your website analytics

Compare them over the same period last year. What trends do you notice?

With my hotels, I’m noticing increased mobile and video use. But every situation is different. You need to look at your numbers and see what’s changing.

Big, industry-wide changes matter less than how your guests’ digital usage changes. You need to watch what they’re doing before you can provide new, channel-specific content.

Identify your most profitable customers

This should really be something done on an ongoing basis. But now is a good time to confirm what type of guests and reservations brought you the most profits.

Then, you can work to maximize these types of bookings in the future.

Remember, the #1 function of marketing is not attracting new customers, but retaining your existing profitable ones.

Send something nice to your best guests

It doesn’t have to be expensive, just a gesture of your appreciation.

Some managers send out a letter with a discount. Inns by the Sea sends a monogrammed bathrobe. There’s a million possibilities – decide what works best for your situation.

Brainstorm with your concierge

“What were the most common questions you were asked by guests?”

Identify the top 10, 20, or 50…and then create a series of blog posts or articles answering these. (This is the proactive concierge approach to marketing that works so well online.)

Develop a system for staying in touch

Avoid having your guests forget about you by planning a way to provide followup communication.

Maybe this is an email newsletter, maybe it’s a Facebook page. The channel isn’t as important as the concept. Provide some way to stay in the minds of your core customer base.

Continue to provide interesting, valuable content – and they’ll remember you for next time.

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Important: To help you implement this, we’re running a two-week special promotion on our Insider’s Circle. See all the stuff I’m giving away in our Back to School Sale.

[Prefer to listen on the go? Download the mp3 recording here]

Show summary

[1:50] The end of summer may quiet online, but it’s a busy time for hoteliers!

[2:46] Guillaume says, “Now is when you can get the best feedback, because so many people are on holiday and may have more time to talk to hoteliers about their product. Why don’t you actually record that conversation with your customers, and who knows? Maybe because they’re very happy with their stay, they could be the best ambassadors to feature on a video that you can promote on YouTube, instead of spending a lot of money on a slick promotional video.”

[3:35] How to encourage guest feedback on multiple channels

[5:05] Josiah says, “Almost everything I do on my blog is to encourage hotels to come up with new ways to attract direct bookings.”

[5:49] Josiah says, “If you offer a lower rate through an OTA, you’re basically training people to go off of your website to get the better deal. You want that to be switched around. You want people to come to your website for the best deal.”

[6:15] How to find OTA partners who are compatible with the guests you’re trying to reach

[6:40] Guillaume says, “Offering a better rate on your website: is that really feasible today?”

[7:18] Decoding OTA “best rate guarantee” contracts: The “best rate”vs “the lowest rate”.

[8:38] Creative amenities and incentives to build into your online booking package

[9:09] Josiah says, “Make sure there’s sufficient security on your site, like SSL certification… and some foreign guests may want to book in their own language and currency.”

[9:42] Guillaume says, “If designer that you employed to build your site hasn’t thought about security, fire the guy and get somebody else.”

[10:14] Josiah says, “Think about which partner websites can send you the most direct traffic…”

[12:35] Guillaume explains a recent experience with hotel guidance via Twitter. Josiah asks, “were rates any lower?”

[14:00] Did hotels offer Guillaume rates publicly or privately?

[15:00] Hootsuite’s new “freemium” model: is it reasonable to ask customers to pay for new features?

[16:45] Guillaume weighs in on the “freemium” model, “There are quite a few Twitter applications, out there… but at some point you’ve gotta make money. These companies are not charity organizations.”

[18:34] Guillaume says, “I’m considering paying for Spotify (a music streaming application) at the moment, because I’m just so sick of paying for advertisements. Spotify, for me, is just the best application that I’ve seen in the last 2-3 years.”

[20:25] Josiah thinks an issue with “Freemium” may be that, “Social media has been positioned as a free marketing tool… I hate to break it to you folks, but social media is not free. That time element is one of the most expensive parts.” How much is a distraction and ad-free online environment worth to you?

[22:05] Chris Anderson’s cover story for Wired Magazine: The Web is Dead: Long Live the Internet. Josiah discusses why “people will pay for convenience.”

[24:30] Guillaume says that the future of the web will be less about searching, and more about “pushing the relevant information to me.”

[25:35] Josiah agrees that “we’re all overwhelmed by so much content… what we may see in the years ahead is a consolidation of some of this information.”

[26:00] Josiah shares action steps for hoteliers that want to provide value, online. “Being a curator for all of this content is going to be a huge opportunity for you.”

[26:55] Why “video is exploding in popularity”.

[27:25] Guillaume hypothesizes on the evolution of online content, connections and competition.

[30:00] Why offline retailers, and music retailers in particular, need to change their business models.

[31:20] Website review: Mafiaisland.com

[32:00] Josiah: “I’m usually not a huge fan of flash websites, but in this case, it sort of helps, because it’s not a part of the world that may get a lot of tourism and traffic; maybe it’s the first time a visitor is part of that world.”

[32:59] Guillaume: “I’m not a big fan, either, on Flash. I have to say, most of the websites where I see an intro, I just close it down.”

[34:15] Guillaume: “When I’m on the website, something that strikes me, is that the text basically cannot be found by search engine, because it’s an image.”

[35:00] Josiah agrees: “That might be something to add. Make sure you have alternate text for all images on your website.”

[35:23] Guillaume: “Other than that, I like that the rotating picture… I can see also, a live chat!… I like that. I’m not sure how you handle that on a 24-hour basis. That would be an interesting question to ask them.”

[37:00] Guillaume navigating the online booking option: “I can’t figure out how to put the date in!”

[38:02] Josiah: “So, maybe simplify that reservations system a bit… and make pricing clear and upfront.”

[38:22] Josiah: “I like what they did with content. I feel like I got a good picture of the different activities and what to expect when I arrived.”

[39:15] Guillaume weighs in on mafia island’s blog

[39:55] Josiah: “They’re doing a great job of curating content. Maybe the thing to take away from this is to just make it really easy to make a booking.”

[40:18] Josiah shares the best way to introduce guests to your Facebook presence