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After reading three articles on the advancement of multiple device interaction in the hospitality industry written by Hotelmarketing, Vizergy, and Tnooz, it became clear that hoteliers need to assi...

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DealAngel Finds the Best Hotel Value For the Best Price

If you’ve ever planned a trip, you know what it’s like to spend hours and hours searching for a hotel. Not all hotels are created equal, so it can be very difficult to find the right place to stay. With so many choices, prices and so many hotel search sites, it can be impossible to know if you are really getting the best deal. That is where DealAngel comes in. As the first hotel “find” engine, the site promises the highest value for your money across the whole market.

DealAngel works like a stock broker for the stock market for hotels: it keeps tracks of the price changes in the hotel market to calculate the fair market rate for each hotel on each day. DealAngel compares criteria such as location, features and star value as well as part pricing. Then the site compares the price to its fair market rate to come up with those priced significantly below their value. For example, if a room on any given night would normally cost $300 and it’s only $150, that’s a great deal. However, someone who is searching primarily based on price may not factor the value in.

The screenshot above is of hotel prices in Las Vegas in June. As you can see, DealAngel gives each hotel a grade based on how good of a deal the price is based on guest reviews, stars and amenities. You can also sort hotels from low to high prices, stars and guest reviews to find the perfect hotel at the right price.

The tool is most useful for those looking for a quality hotel of great value in destinations where there are a number of competing hotels, such as Las Vegas, New York, Miami or San Francisco. DealAngel is a great idea, but the site is competing with online travel agencies, deal sites like Groupon and Google hotel search. And one could argue that consumers may not care so much about value. If a hotel is cheap and decent, will that be enough, or are guests willing to pay for more value?

What do you think, will you use DealAngel next time you book a hotel? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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New Startup Triptease Creates Visual Review Platform

Tired of anonymous and poorly written reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp? Triptease is a new startup aimed to refresh the review space with high-quality and visually appealing reviews. Triptease is aimed at the luxury end of global online travel market, those who would likely never contribute to Tripadvisor.

Triptease wants to correct the problem that online reviews are often anonymous and can paint a negative picture of even the best looking hotels. The site takes a visual approach to reviews in order to bring an experience to life in a beautiful format. The reviews merge text and images in a platform that is visually appealing for travelers.

Both hotels and consumers are tiring of plain text reviews. Triptease’s reviews focus on images and building a community of highly trusted opinions. The startup is counting on hotels to promote their service through emails, websites and face-to-face interactions by providing great content to share.

Triptease takes pride in providing fresh reviews that are less than six months old. If a hotel, airline or agent encourages one of their guests to write a review on the site, Triptease will link directly back to the partner for free without the typical OTA fees.  The site aims to empower hotels to encourage and promote content that they can be proud of.

It is true that travelers often share their photos via Facebook Timeline or Instagram stream, and Triptease aims to make reviews as popular. If you look at the image above, it shows a large, “cover photo” of the hotel and the city it is in with a headline, rating and reviewer bio. The layout of the site reminds one of the print era and magazines with gorgeous pictures, headlines and bylines. While it is certainly visually appealing to the eye, one has to wonder if content is curated, which could bring into question its authenticity. And how could you write a negative review on such a site?

What do you think of Triptease? Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts below!

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JetZet Makes Business Travel Social

Sometimes traveling on business can seem kind of lonely. What if there was a way to easily find out if someone you know lives in the area you are traveling to? That is the idea behind JetZet, a new itinerary management website that allows you to organize plans in one place, manage relationships while you’re traveling and receive automatic updates.

Travelers can import details stored in Outlook, Google, and iCal along with their contact lists from social networks and email. JetZet competes with other web and mobile itinerary management services such as TripIt or check-in services like Foursquare.

What sets JetZet apart is that it is focused on allowing you to reconnect with old friends and business connections at airports or travel destinations. Users can create “circles” for different groups in their lives, such as co-workers, family or friends and decided who to share each trip with, much like Google+. These groups of people can be from social networks LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or your email contacts.

CEO Nick Farina has plans to add value to JetZet in the future with ExpertFlyer Seat Alerts. Soon you’ll be able to check for availability of airline seats, possibly so that you can sit with people you already know also traveling!

The beauty of JetZet is its simplicity. You can easily import all your information as described above, and then see which of your Facebook, Twitter of LinkedIn pals are located in your destination. For example, I am traveling to Las Vegas this weekend. As prompted, I added my trip dates and hotel. Under “Local Friends” I can find people I know that live in Las Vegas…unfortunately, I don’t seem to know anyone yet! However, for my Bay Area trip following, there are 24 of my Facebook friends that live in San Jose.

JetZet is a useful tool for maintaining relationships for frequent travelers. Would you use JetZet on your next business trip? Feel free to share your comments below!

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A Guide to Marketing with Reddit

These days, every marketer is singing praises to Pinterest, the newest darling in social media. The site is extremely visually appealing and has the potential to bring a ton of traffic to your site through the use of pictures and sharing. But what if you content marketing strategy relies more on words rather than images? No worries, there is a social network for sharing unique stories, blogs and websites: Reddit.

The site doesn’t call itself “The Front Page of the Internet” for nothing. If you visit the site daily, you’ll find an interesting mix of news, links, social commentary and general geekdom. You can find a “subreddit” or secondary communities on almost every topic imaginable.

 However, this is not your average social network as users are in complete control of the content. There is a system of karma with every user and the content they post. Users can up or downvote content to bring it up to the front page or bury it forever into oblivion. Content that reaches the front page has the potential to be viewed by Reddit’s 43 million monthly active users.

43 million users? Sounds like a gold mine, right? Unfortunately, mastering the karma system can be quite tough. There is a “reddiquette” to follow in order to gain targeted traffic and not be marked as spam. Marketers should tread carefully into Reddit, as any wrong steps can cause explosively bad results.

 I’ve only been using Reddit regularly for a few months, but I’ve learned some tricks. Here are some quick tips for marketing on Reddit:

1)      Don’t try to deceive users. Choose a legitimate account handle and be sure to label content from your blog or website as such. Credibility goes a long way in building karma.

2)      Explore the subreddits and try to find a few that match your desired audience. Each subreddit has its own unique focus and rules, and in order to be successful, you have to make sure your content falls within the boundaries. If not, you could be downvoted or banned from the subreddit all together.

3)      Don’t submit too many posts to a single subreddit at once. Often if you do this, moderators won’t allow you to submit for a few hours to prevent spam.

4)      Do submit funny, catchy, interesting and sharable content. Also be sure to participate in the communities by commenting on other posts to prevent being banned as a spammer.

5)      Ask questions. One of the most popular subreddits is AMA, where users interview famous people, those of certain professions and much more. You’d be surprised how curious people are about what you do! Asking questions will get conversations flowing and in no time at all you’ll be able to introduce your blog, website or product as a solution.

6)      Buy advertising on Reddit. According to Ignite statistics, most Reddit users are male, between the ages of 35 to 44, with 25-34 year-olds in tow. Most are educated, from the U.S. and make between $25,000-$50,000 per year. If this demographic matches your audience, you can buy an ad for specific subreddits that users will see right on top of the page.

Reddit can be an incredibly powerful tool for gaining traffic if your content appeals to its niche community. Do you have any experience marketing on Reddit? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

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How to Respond to Social Media Backlash for Hoteliers

We’ve discussed how important it is for hoteliers to respond to online reviews, and how to respond to a negative review on this blog before. But how should social media backlash be dealt with? Backlash often consists of negative posts from hotel guests on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Here are some tips on how to respond if you start seeing negative comments from customers on your Facebook Timeline or Twitter feed.

DO NOT DELETE THE POST! Just because you have the power doesn’t mean that you should abuse it!  Many hoteliers censor negative posts on their social media sites but that is not the best solution. Yes, it is censorship because you are breaking the trust we share in this country that everyone is allowed to express their opinions freely. It does look bad when someone complains about your hotel on such a public forum, but deleting the person’s post will not resolve the conflict. Often, the person who posted the comment will become even more upset that his or her opinions were censored, and continue to post on multiple networks until his or her opinions are heard.

Respond ASAP. Responding quickly to the poster will show other potential guests that you care about their concerns and are working to address them. Respond directly to the post on the social network and via email or phone, if possible. If not, offer an email or phone number where the complaint can be directed. A timely response can also stop further backlash on other social media sites.

Apologize and be polite and courteous in your response.  Since social media sites are public forums and anyone can read what you write, it is important to craft a professional response. Remember to make it clear that you are doing everything you can to resolve the complaint, such as offering vouchers for a free night if appropriate.  It is much better for potential guests to read a complaint and a well-written response directly from the hotel so that they know if there is a problem during their stay; the hotel will do everything possible to make amends

It is important to remember that social media is a marketing product that must be maintained so that it represents the best image for your hotel as possible. Do you have any other tips on how to respond to social media meltdowns? If so, feel free to share your ideas in the comments below!

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HotelSwaps Promotes Employee Retention for the Hospitality Industry

Do you work in the hospitality industry? If so, whether you are a manager or simply part of the staff, you may be interested in learning aboutHotelSwaps, an innovative new hotel staff retention and incentive program launched yesterday.  Hotel managers and owners can exchange their vacant hotel rooms with other hotel members around the world for staff reward, training and other incentive purposes.

Hotels can deposit room nights during slow periods in exchange for points. These points can be awarded to high-performing employees in exchange for free hotel stays at other member hotels. According to Hospitality Net, over 700 million room nights were left unoccupied in the European Union alone in 2009. Employee recruitment and retention is one of the largest issues facing the hospitality industry today. HotelSwaps is a creative and inexpensive way to reward hotel staff and make use of unused hotel rooms.  The program is flexible in allowing owners to send members of their team on training breaks to similar hotels or reward its staff with a family vacation.

Hotels can apply for membership on the HotelSwaps website. They claim to generally approve 3 to 5-star properties in attractive locations in order to benefit members. The point value of room nights deposited varies depending on a hotel’s category and seasonality. There are low, mid and high season weeks as well as 7 quality categories depending on hotel facilities and amenities, local star ratings, location desirability and pricing.

“Not only can HotelSwaps be built into a training and incentive program, but it also has spin off benefits such as additional revenues, qualitative feedback and sharing of best practices. We look forward to affiliating many quality hotels to the program and seeing HotelSwaps become a key partner to the hospitality industry for years to come,” comments Preben Vestdam, Managing Director of HotelSwaps.

In my opinion, HotelSwaps seems like a great use of empty hotel rooms as incentives for the retention and training of hospitality employees.  Since HotelSwaps publicly launched yesterday, hotel owners are allowed to try out the program for free for 12 months before deciding to become a full member. For more information on this special, click here. Hotel owners have nothing to lose when trying out this creative new program and I believe other industries could also profit from taking a similar approach to incentivize employee retention.

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Flights with Friends Makes Planning Group Travel Easy

Anyone who has traveled with friends knows the hardship of planning flights, hotels, car rentals, tours, activities, and much more with many different people in different places. Often one person has to carry the burden of planning everything or worse, paying for everything up front. New startup Flights with Friends aims to tackle this challenge through Facebook and email integration.

Those who visit the site are prompted to select whether they need flights or hotels (or both) from a departure city to an arrival city. Then you enter the dates you are traveling or if it is a one-way trip and then press the blue “Search” button. Then Flights with Friends will transfer you to a four column page with flights, hotel options, and a map. There is also a column on the right-hand side that allows you to sign in with Facebook and invite your friends to join the service. Then you can chat and book flights and hotels right then and there, all in one window.

For now, Flights with Friends only displays flights and hotels, with the cheapest options first, but the start-up has plans to integrate rentals, tours, restaurant reservations and much more in the future.

When you invite your friends to plan with you via Flights with Friends, everyone in your trip will see the same flights and hotels, and the service will make sure there are enough seats and rooms at the price listed. You can set search filters for the whole group, pin favorite options and see what your friends have booked. The service works best for small groups of 2-9 travelling together.

Currently, Flights with Friends also has a “Concierge” option available. When you click on the link below the form on the front page, you can enter your destination and dates. Flights with Friends will deliver Yelp results for breakfast, coffee, lunch, dinner and activities. You can search for activities and book if necessary. Thus Flights with Friends is useful also as an activity itinerary for your trip.

I used the service to browse options for a Las Vegas trip I am planning. It seems fast, easy, and brings lots of options to the table. I like how it brings all aspects of a trip with the ability to book in one place so that you don’t have to check multiple sites. I can see great potential with this service, especially when Facebook’s new Graph Search launches, as tips can be integrated from friends who have already traveled to your destination.

What do you think of Flights with Friends? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Top 5 Overlooked Yet Important Aspects of Hotel Websites

For my first post of 2013, I thought it would be fun to put together a list of five areas where hotel websites commonly fail to inspire bookings. As part of hospitality marketing company, I see many hotel websites on a daily basis and believe myself to be a good judge of what attracts potential customers and what drives them away. With the growing popularity of OTAs in booking, it is important for hotels to take responsibility for their own business and focus on improving these aspects of their websites.

5. Text

While I would say this is the least damaging mistake to make on a hotel website, it is also perhaps the hardest to execute well.  Very few people wish to read a full-length novel on a website, yet too little information will not properly sell a property or destination. In this case, I would argue that less is more: a few short paragraphs on the home page about the area, attractions, and amenities should be more than enough information to entice guests to book. Any additional written content should be located on other pages such as an area guide, separate amenities page or perhaps even a hotel blog.

4. Navigation

This refers to something called “information architecture”—where important information is placed on your website. Sites with good IA are easy to navigate, with photos, amenities, attractions and a reservation button where a browser or the user expects to find it. There are far too many websites out there with poor IA though, forcing us to hunt for important information, such as contact information, social media links and the reservation process. In the best cases, such as the Little Palm Island Resort & Spa website, the navigation invites you discover the destination intuitively through an enticing word cloud, gorgeous pictures, arrows, scrolling navigation, and quotes. But most likely, if your customers are forced to hunt, they will just give up and find another hotel.

  3. Pictures

I’d argue that if there is only one aspect of a hotel’s website that inspires a guest to book, besides price, it would be glossy, high-resolution photos. Many people are visual, as evidenced by the popularity of picture-centric websites such as Pinterest. Hotel guests want to see what your hotel looks like before booking a room so they know what they are paying for.  Do invest in professional photography if you are serious about attracting guests. Don’t use old, outdated, amateur or pixelated photography on your website unless your property has historic significance. Pictures are crucial in creating a compelling destination experience for your guest.

2. Usability

With the popularity of mobile booking via smartphones and tablets, any hotel website that uses Flash today is making a big mistake. Sure, it may look cutting-edge to have moving pictures and text on a computer screen, but do you really want to risk losing all the iPhone and iPad users out there? Flash also prevents your content from being “pinnable” on sites like Pinterest, so you also lose a lot of potential traffic. Many hotel websites also do not have a separate site optimized for mobile viewing, which can mess with the navigation as described above.

1. Layout

Many of these aspects are a matter of budget, and this is no exception. Many hotel websites suffer from poor or outdated layouts. Many independent or even chain hotel websites do not redesign their websites every two years as recommended and therefore look terrible in comparison to those that do. There are still many websites out there that use tables and layouts from the 90s—if you don’t know what I mean, consider yourself privileged. In the past, it was very common and attractive to incorporate moving text, images, pop up windows or music in the home page of a website, but now it is frowned upon. Today’s average web user looks at many websites every second and does not need to be bombarded with clashing imagery, colors, and text. Too much conflicting and confusing information will drive potential guests away from your site and into the arms of your competitors. Further, on the subject of sound, if you must add music or sound effects to your website, at least give users the option of whether or not to listen with on and off buttons. There is nothing worse than a forced melody every time you click or open a page.

Moral of the story is… if your hotel site suffers from any of the mistakes in the imperative areas described above, it is definitely time for a redesign. If you’re overwhelmed by all the information and options available in hotel website design today, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

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The Twitter Hashtag Strikes Again, This Time with Advertising

Ads, meet the hashtag. That’s right, they’ve finally found a way to monetize the ubiquitous social gesture.  Facebook started with Sponsored Stories,  and Twitter has Promoted Tweets. Now social ad firm RadiumOne has come up with a new way of targeting people using the infamous #hashtag.

You probably already know that hashtags are short subject labels starting with a # sign in a tweet or post. Surprisingly, hashtags did not start with Twitter but they have become popular in other social networks including Pinterest and Instagram.

Radium One is making hashtag targeting available to advertisers so they can reach out to interested consumers in real-time across the Web based on the hashtags they are using. For example, a brand like Nike can reach out to users who use the hashtag #nike, #olympics, or #running with ads for their running shoes. Fast food chains like McDonalds could target people who tag their tweet, post or Instagram photo with #burgers or #hungry.

“Essentially, you are going after consumer sentiment,” Gurbaksh Chahal, RadiumOne CEO, told Adweek. “Hashtags are a way to target display media now. It’s cross-platform, which is important because so much content is consumed via mobile devices.”

At the present time, hashtag ad targeting will happen only on RadiumOne’s social sharing service (which is a bit like monile Pinterest ) Via.me which reaches 11 million people a month. In the future they aim to extend it to broader social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, etc. RadiumOne does has filters available to avoid ads on negative hashtage such as #Nikesucks.

Hashtag retargeting has potential to finally allow monetization without degrading user experience. RadiumOne can earn money by dropping invisible cookies attached to the hashtags. It is also a way for advertisers to reach people who are already interested in their products. Someone who posts pictures of themselves biking is likely to be interested in a fitness company now as opposed to an ad from a potentially outdated Facebook Like.

I think the above is a very valid point, and hashtags have a lot of potential for targeting news customers, but I am skeptical that they will have much more success than say Facebook ads as many social media users are used to tuning ads out. What do you think of hashtag ad targeting? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

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My Thoughts on Mashable’s New Redesign

Mashable is one of the many blogs my co-workers and I read daily for the latest in social media and technology news. Yesterday when I visited the site, I noticed right away there were some big changes.

The site now has three columns of articles. Stories now begin the left hand column called “The New Stuff.” As they become more popular, they move to “The Next Big Thing.” Finally, those with the most social engagement move to “What’s Hot.” These columns are designed to help readers stay “ahead of the curve.” The redesign also introduces some innovative features including allowing readers to share only portions of a page’s content, infinite scrolling, embeddable content and Pinterest-inspired images on the homepage.

Founder and CEO of Mashable Pete Cashmore explains that updates have been designed to adapt to social, mobile and visual aspects of the web.  “Social networks have evolved beyond personal updates to become venues for news discovery,” Cashmore writes. “Mobile phones and tablets have become an increasingly popular way to read Mashable on the go. Meanwhile, modern web browsers now let us make websites that work more like apps.”

Perhaps it just an initial resistance to change but I’m not a huge fan of Mashable’s redesign. I like some of the new features, such as sharing “microcontent” and embeddable content for better sharing but I find their new homepage much more cumbersome to navigate. The three columns have story blocks sized appropriately according to their “popularity.” I can see the logic behind such a move, but the different number of sizes makes the page look unsymmetrical. Also, I know Mashable joined the Pinterest bandwagon, but I’m not sure why, as it is the content on the site that I find most valuable, not the pictures. So why have such a focus on images? Further, the images and headlines are no longer nicely aligned, making it harder for me to quickly scan titles for the stories that interest me.

According to Cashmore, a sophisticated algorithm decides which stories go in which column. Unfortunately, this algorithm cannot possibly accurately predict what stories every reader will find interesting. Just because there is a lot of social engagement around an article doesn’t mean every Mashable reader will want to read it. I read many pop culture, travel and social media articles on Mashable that have low engagement just because I find the topics interesting. Now it is harder to find these posts because of the focus on images and articles that don’t interest me. That makes me want to read the blog less.

Do you agree? Do I just need to become accustomed to the new design? Feel free to let me know in the comments below!

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5 Tips for Google Plus & Your Marketing Strategy

The following is a guest blog post from Amy Harris. Amy Harris is a writer for Expert Market – which offers a free service to businesses, providing a sourcing tool for finding office equipment and business services. She enjoys staying on top of marketing trends and helping businesses with their marketing efforts.

It is a fact that utilizing the power of Google+ is essential for businesses looking to gain an edge against their competitors. Not only does the network have over 250 million users, but Google+ can also have a significant impact on your SEO. Without a doubt, using Google+ will give your marketing campaigns the advantage with regards to search engine visibility and gaining credibility. However, to make Google+ work effectively for your company, you must follow these five simple tips.

1. Engage in Conversations

In any social media, marketing success depends upon engaging in the relevant conversations. The best way to do this on Google+ is to combine your business page and personal page. Through your personal page, you can use the Google + shared circle databases to begin conversations with people relevant to your industry.

This is the most effective way to get started because on Google + business pages because you cannot circle people, they must circle you. To get people to circle you, refer to your business page once you have engaged in a conversation. Introductions in this manner are more likely to encourage others to circle your page.

2. Use Keywords and Related Links

Like it or not, Google + profiles are becoming increasingly important for search engine rankings. The next step in getting this service to work for you is by making the most of your ‘about’ page. This page offers an overview of your company’s products, and can include links to your webpage which should drive traffic to the important parts of your website. Ensuring the about page includes the relevant keywords for your industry will increase the SEO of your page.

3. Use Hangouts and Events

Hangouts are a way in which marketing departments can connect with customers on Google + and build excitement through online events. Hangouts are especially popular with business to business based companies, but increasingly they are also being used with great success in many different marketing campaigns.

Taylor Swift announced her new album in a Hangout and the date when her single would be released. That song got to number one faster than any other record in history. Setting up Hangouts also allows customers to visit your business even if they can’t attend real life events you are running. The Events section is similar but also is a way to invite your clientele to real life events that you are hosting. Including a confirm option helps you monitor interest in the event.

4. Maximise the Power of Videos

The most popular Google+ pages offer unique and unpredictable content. The type of content that proves popular on business pages are customer video testimonials, or videos giving away useful information such as tutorials. For a video to be of interest to customers it must offer something the customer values, so generic information will not be enough. Videos that prove to be a hit with customers can also be shared on YouTube which provides a further boost for your marketing activity and SEO.

5. Google Authorship

The final step for businesses to take is to sign up for the Google+ Authorship scheme. The Google Authorship program is Google’s way of authenticating your business and accepting it as a source of high quality content.

Once you set this up, you will immediately gain marketing benefits such as your picture showing up next to blog posts. This step alone has been demonstrated to increase traffic to websites. Once you enter the authorship program, any original posts made by you will rank higher than any posts which have scraped your original content.

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MapQuest Discover Helps Travelers Discover New Places

Have you used MapQuest lately? With the popularity of Google Maps, the AOL-owned map site seems to have been left in the dust in recent years. This week, MapQuest announced its decision to fight back and put a stake in the world of travel planning. MapQuest Discover is a beta product launched this week that uses a Pinterest-style travel planning service.

The goal with MapQuest Discover is to allow users to browse content, create Collections of trip ideas, discover new places within an area in a visually interesting application and share the content within their networks. The application combines content their writing team with that from other sources such as AOL Travel and Gadling with recommendations of popular activities in a destination.

MapQuest Discover has adopted a Pinterest-like design and feel to help users curate content and collect ideas for vacations. The collections can be share on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks but also edited to become a travel scrapbook. There are plans to add a blogging/journal element from acquisition Everlater for early 2012.

The company has created around 30,000 city pages for the U.S. and Canada. Each page features points of interest, a map, links to other collections and access to book hotels through Hotels.com. One of the most original aspects of the city pages is a leaderboard of things to do for each destination. MapQuest has put the data captured when people are searching for directions in a place to pinpoint the most popular restaurants.

Visitors can get inspired by looking at destinations, activities and expert guides with a focus on pictures. You can use the Popular button to find inspiring Places and Collections, Add it to your Collections, and then mark “Been” or simply “Like” it.

With these Collections, MapQuest aims to find more users and relevance in markets outside of the U.S. As the site averages 40 million unique visits per month, there is a good chance that this update will make more people switch to MapQuest when planning trips and searching for directions.

What do you think of MapQuest’s new application Discover? Feel free to comment below!

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Why Writing From Experience Matters For Hotels

As a content producer for E-Marketing Associates, I have the opportunity to stay at our client hotels and write about my experiences. This is a component of our new RevBooster product for independent hotels.  While this is an optional component, I think it is essential for content producers or copywriters like me to get a complete and accurate picture in our heads of a property. I can explain why in one world…”details.”

I often write copy for hotel websites, describing the rooms, amenities and area to potential guests. There are some properties that are comfortable, but predictable. And then there are some that hold a special character that is only accurately experienced using all the senses. As a writer, I research and read a lot every day. But there is no better research on all the particular “details” than actually going to a hotel, talking to the staff and owners, eating the food, seeing the rooms, experiencing the area and sleeping in that bed myself.

One of the hotels I stayed at was in a historical building where famous writers had lived in the past. I knew this before coming, but I remember walking from the covered parking lot into the lobby and thinking I was in a different world. From the brass fixtures to skylights and mirrors to the white and gold lined columns connecting to the walls, it was obvious that this building had witnessed much in the past. I felt transported into decades past—a feeling not unlike when someone is actually traveling.

There are some things you just can’t learn about a place from words and pictures. A good example is the level of customer service a hotel provides. Of course every employee and general manager says that they provide the best customer service to guests, but nothing can compare to actually experiencing the service yourself. I once stayed at a hotel whose owners ate dinner with me at the restaurant next door, as if I was part of their very own family. I saw the waitresses and staff talk to hotel guests like old friends. That level of hospitality is best seen firsthand rather than through words, and experiencing it allowed me to accurately write about the hotel on their website.

Something must also be said about experience vs. research. Sometimes small details can get lost in the constant stream of information. However, I have found that it is easier to remember details when they are associated with a memory or experience, especially a positive one. Since I actually stayed in certain hotel rooms, I can tell you exactly which amenities they had, as opposed to simply reading a list online.

Writers are forever told “write what you know.”  Can you really know about something you haven’t been exposed to? Perhaps you can, but there is a certain verifiable truth, mood and feeling that comes from words written from reality.

Don’t forget that these words work. According to eMarketer, 92% of internet users read product reviews and 89% of people say that reviews influence their purchasing decision. For more information on our hotel marketing product RevBooster, I invite you to schedule a complimentary webinar with our specialists today.

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Social Media “Listening” Tools for Hotels

If you’ve been keeping your ears open, (like you should be!) you’ve probably heard that 76% of U.S.travelers now share their travel experiences on social networks, according to a survey by the world’s largest travel site,TripAdvisor. These shares include photos, status updates, check-ins, and reviews.  Hoteliers should be aware of all these conversations happening regarding their properties for instant, easy feedback. By simply listening, they can take appropriate action to correct a problem if necessary, or thank a happy guest for a positive comment.  Both of these are great first steps in building loyalty with your guests.

The thought of tracking all of these shares across multiple networks can be daunting: how can one hotelier possibly keep up? There is no question that there should be a designated marketing team at any hotel that wants to succeed. There arepros and cons to hiring in-house or an outside agency, which we wrote about in a post earlier this year.

Regardless of how your hotel marketing is managed, you’ll need to take advantage of certain tools available to effectively listen to all the conversations out there going on about your hotel. The good news is that there are many tools out there specifically to help you monitor tweets, Facebook posts, and photo shares. Below I will share three of the best free tools I know of specifically for listening.

Google Alerts: Anyone in business knows that it’s a good idea to set Google Alerts. You can pick certain keywords to monitor to research a sector, industry or competitor, or your own hotel. You can receive daily, weekly, or minute-by-minute alerts of the keyword to keep abreast of new trends, blogs and mentions.

Hootsuite:  This tool is widely known as one of the best out there for managing multiple social media platforms. What you might not know though is that you can also use Hootsuite to keep track of all the mentions of your hotel on Twitter, and in some cases, Facebook. There is a “Mentions” tab in Hootsuite that keeps track of every time your hotel’s Twitter account is mentioned in one stream. You can also create a “Keyword Tracking Stream” in Hootsuite that functions very similarly to Google Alerts.

SocialMention: This is a social media search engine that you can use to research conversations about your hotel. The tool searches blogs, comments, bookmarks, events,  news, videos, and microblogging sites like Twitter to provide metrics around keywords, including a positive or negative measure of “sentiment.”

These three tools will get you off to a great start monitoring conversations going on in the social space about your hotel. Are there any great tools I missed? Let me know in the comments below!

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90 Second Intro to Mint.

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Mint.com Makes Personal Finance Simple For All

For this blog post, I’m going to write about a tool I started using regularly this year to track my finances: Mint. As a creative person I am usually not a huge fan of keeping track of numbers, particularly when it comes to my own wallet, but this application has made managing my own personal finance easy, and even recommended ways that I can save money. So here’s what I love about Mint:

It tracks your daily spending in one place. It can be hard to track all of your spending with so many options of payment: checks, debit card, and multiple credit cards, along with your savings accounts and investments. I didn’t even mention mortgages, student loans, auto payments…the list goes on. With Mint, you can link all of your financial information together so that you can see it all in one place. You can even add cash spending in manually. Every transaction is automatically grouped in broad categories like dining, groceries, or auto & transportation. You can break it down even further to restaurant, coffee shop, etc. Categories can even be customized so you can really see where your money is going. Then you can see through pie charts and graphs how much you spend on each category per month.

It can help with setting budgets by analyzing your spending. Seeing where your money goes every month is crucial to learning how to set a realistic budget. If you find that you’re spending over $500 dining in restaurants, that is definitely a place where you can start to cut back. It’s not realistic to put it down to $20, yes, but perhaps $400 or $300. Once you create your budget per category, Mint tracks your progress throughout the month.

It has a built in alert system for bills , over spending and going over budget. Whenever Mint detects that you’ve spent over your budget, both the website and application if you have it installed will send you a notice that you’ve broken your budget. Mint also keeps track of when all your bill payments have to be made and sends you reminders as the date gets closer. The site also alerts you when you have a low balance to avoid fees. This is also helpful in the case of identity theft as Mint will alert you when it tracks abnormal spending in any category.

All this is absolutely free! Both Mint.com and its mobile application are completely free. I like the mobile application for its alert system, which is described above, except to your phone instead of email. You can also quickly track cash purchases as they happen. The app gives you a quick snapshot of your account balances or how your investments are doing while you’re out and about.

Of course there are some drawbacks: often you have to visit the site to update your accounts and automatic category assignments are often inaccurate. More importantly, there are security issues with having all of your information in one place online, but note that everything is read-only, so no actual transfers of money can take place on Mint.  Overall, Mint is a great, simple tool to use to manage your money.