This Week in Hotels, July 11, 2010: Renaming ‘social media’, and what you should do with mobile [Video]

by Josiah Mackenzie on July 11, 2010 12 Comments



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…

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Article by Josiah Mackenzie // July 11, 2010 Josiah partners with innovative hotel managers to help them use new media and the social web to create memorable guest experiences and increase profits. To bring him on your team, call him now: 1 (415) 347-6784

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Comments

 
  • Katie Clapp // July 11, 2010 @ 7:25 pm Reply

    Love these videos.

    What do you wanna bet “Social Media” will end up on Lake Superior State University’s 2011 list of banned words? ;)

    In that event; some replacement name suggestions: “Collaborative Marketing”, “Digital Communities”, “Free Exchange Networks”, “Niche Marketing”, “Transparent Networking”, “Mass Mobil Marketing”…MMM… can you think of any more?

  • Mitaroy Goa Hotel // July 11, 2010 @ 7:37 pm Reply

    Thanks Katie !

    I would have loved to watch the video but my broadband simply isn’t fast enough :(

    Mass Mobil Marketing !!! Free Exchange Networks !!! Social Media !!! OMG, how I hate all these terms !!!

    Schmocial Schmedia seems to be my best choice ;)

    Cheers
    Mihir

  • Fabrice Burtin // July 12, 2010 @ 12:23 pm Reply

    Hi Josiah, great stuff. Always a pleasure to listen to you and Guillaume talking about technology in the industry.
    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?

    I have started writing a white paper about the above and I would love to hear your opinion and experiences. Please feel free to share here http://bit.ly/9Ln8dH or email me.
    Thanks,
    Fabrice Burtin

  • Are Morch // July 12, 2010 @ 3:52 pm Reply

    Great discussion.

    I am not a big fan of mystifying Social Media. Web 2.0 or 3.0 is to wage for me, and I rather focus on the technology and the trends.

    I agree that we are beyond the basics of Social Media, and need to focus on the next steps. And I like that you guys brings up discussions like this.

    I am big fan of using various listening outposts, and so far in general I find that the guest is setting the standards for the Hotel Industry when it comes to Social Media. We see a lot of great travelers blogs where they utilize Social Media to express their hotel experience.

    And I think we need more discussion around some of these elements, so that more Hotels can implement this and be source that link the guest experience with what the Hotel actually are capable of providing. This is where I see that we can put more focus.

    Maybe we can look into more niche related Social Media words, but else it is like Guillaime says most of the Social Media authorities use the same terminology.

    At the moment there is not really good mobile reservation system, but it will come. Location based systems is just a minor step in the right direction. At the moment you just earn ‘brownie’ points with Foursquare and Gowalla. But I am confident there will be more advanced options there in the future. We are already seeing special deals there.

    Maybe you can connect the service up to the member service in some way where you already have credit card on file. My bank offer today services via mobile phone. So it is not long before I think mobile reservation will be a reality.

    One question I have, and maybe Guillaime that works with TripAdvisor has some thoughts about this – What Impact do you think it will have that Facebook now has acquired the Social Travel Recommendation Site nextstop?

    Cheers.. Are

    • Josiah Mackenzie // July 14, 2010 @ 10:58 pm

      Hi Are – thanks for watching the show! Guillaume cannot talk about TripAdvisor’s business activity, but I’m sure we could discuss these broad trends.

      We’re doing a live show tomorrow afternoon, and perhaps we can bring this up then…..

  • Fabrice Burtin // July 16, 2010 @ 3:03 pm Reply

    Hi Josiah, did the live show on July 15th with Guillaume happen? If yes, are you planning to post it? Thanks

  • Anthony Green // July 17, 2010 @ 5:45 am Reply

    +1 for “Social Web”. I like it because it’s a ‘neutral’ expression — “Social Media” often makes hoteliers think of traditional ‘media’, which is a one way, one-to-many process (TV, newspapers, etc). They think of this process, and don’t really get that to succeed in Social Media you need to create a web of content across all these different sites and channels. Coming to this realisation will help them to succeed in this vital area.

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