The hotel industry, like much of the service industries, are very dependent on knowing just what the consumer wants, hopefully before the customer knows it themselves. With wafer thin margins, increasing competition and constantly rising costs hotels need every advantage they can get to win customers and keep them.

Here are three social media tips for improving your guest’s stay and getting them to spread the word about your excellent level of service.

Mobile Site

If you’ve ever been lost in a strange city late at night searching desperately for somewhere to stay after a business meeting has run over time you’ll know the stress and frustration you experience as you scan through the online list of available accommodations only to find that none of them work on your mobile device. Even if the sites are not full of Flash Action Script bells and whistles (and most are) they are image heavy, poorly optimised sites that take forever to load over mobile broadband. Providing a version of your hotel website that is mobile optimised reduces these frustrations.

Mobile devices have actually outsold desktop PCs for over a year, so this is an issue that is going to become more prevalent. It is possible that your existing content management system (CMS) already has mobile site functionality (many do) so there might be only minimal additional costs involved in providing your prospective guest with the option of a text-rich mobile optimised site, whether as a replacement or in addition to your usual site. And because so few hotels offer a mobile optimised site you are already creating a point of difference with your competitors. It is a significant competitive advantage that you can utilised to offer special deals for weary travellers that are just looking for respite after a hard day’s work/travel.

• Pros: Customer focused and broadened market penetration
• Cons: Might be some minor additional establishment costs

Listening

Hotels wishing to fully realise the benefits of social media need to establish a broad-based monitoring program. It is not enough to just monitor for keywords on your established platforms (ie. Twitter, Facebook), conversations about your brand can happen across many platforms. In order to obtain a detailed overview of what is being said about your brand online you can use a range of tools to remain informed, whether it is through paid tools, like Radian6 or Brandtology, or free ones like Social Mention.

Once you have established an extended monitoring program it is important to listen to what the conversants are discussing. Only through listening carefully can we prepare the correct response. I cannot stress how important it is to listen and understand the nuances of the conversation. To a customer there are few things worse than receiving a scripted reply based around a peripheral point. This is especially true when offering customer service or feedback channels. So listen, comprehend and then respond, calmly and professionally. And don’t just respond to negative sentiment, positive feedback can also be responded to even if it’s just a short Thank You.

By listening and responding carefully to feedback and complaints, you move from being just a soulless brand to a real, caring person who is genuinely interested in improving rather than just trying to clear service tickets. Listening will provide you will invaluable and unfiltered insight into how you are perceived by your customers and will offer you practical improvements to increase service levels.

• Pros: Improves customer service and feedback channels. Generates goodwill.
• Cons: Time intensive. Paid tools can be expensive.

Influencers

It’s great when a celebrity or other high-profile figure recommends our services, but the likes of Oprah can’t visit nor recommend every hotel. You can, however, generate goodwill recommendations by targeting selected influencers, both online and offline, and offering them a service level similar to what you would provide to a celebrity.

Targeting influential guests can be achieved through allowing them to record their social networking details with their booking. Sites like Klout, Twitanalyzer or Grader can assist you in determining influencers. From there all it takes is a little research to offer a wealth of information. Is it their birthday or anniversary? Have they’ve just secured a major deal which they have announced on Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus? Maybe they’re just feeling low. Offering a little extra personalised service can bring bountiful rewards.

• Pros: Generates recommendations from a broad-based trusted authority at low cost
• Cons: Ongoing research can be time intensive.

As with all social media both expenses and returns must be accurately measured. It is vitally important that each of these implementations provide a practical dollar value return on your investment. Tracking mobile users through the site to sale, recording resolved customer service issues through social media and additional bookings from influencer recommendations can all be used to assist in the measurement and analysis.

By employing these ideas, along with the key concepts from A Social Media Strategy for Restaurants, you can offer new and better levels of service for your hotel guests. It will also provide you with new opportunities to become more customer focused.

Fremantle Media have announced a partnership deal to bring the American Idol brand to the virtual world, Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel). The deal will involve merchandise and sponsorship rights and coincides with the eight season of American Idol.

For further details check the press release.

It is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

When does a PR disaster become a disaster? There’s a saying that any attention is good attention. Now, I’m sure some public relations people would disagree with that but the question has to be asked: just how far are you willing go to get attention for the brands?

Netizens in particular react badly to poor netiquette or unwanted intrusions into their protected domains. However there have been some very successful marketing campaigns that rallied against the accepted net norms beginning with the Canter and Siegel Greencard spamming of Usenet in 1994. Are such schemes only indications of a novice or is the only difference that the novices get caught? So, how far would you go?

Would you concoct a disaster just so you can then turn around and amend it later to appear like you’re a good guy? To make your brand more appealing: an organisation that can take criticism and reacts well in a crisis? Hip and on your toes. Sure the risks are pretty big if you’re found out but think of the potential benefits. And nobody’s going to find out anyway, right?

So, is Oops Marketing something that you would do? Or have done? Tell us what you would do/have done and why? Was it successful? Or a disaster of biblical proportions? The reason I’m asking is that I think we’ll see more of this sort of stuff in the future. Everyone needs an edge.

Not only is the choice of name important, but it’s necessary to register that name for every site that you use. So, I’m skribeproductions on twitter, skribeproductions on skype, and skribe Forti in Second Life. In fact I’m usually skribe or skribeproductions at just about every social networking site that I use (and even a few that I don’t). The skribe name has become so aligned with me that not only was I known as skribe amongst my rl friends, but my wife was – for a brief time – only known as MrsSkribe. It’s damning, I know, but it does demonstrate how important social networking site naming can be.

When you’re doing business over the web – without any face-to-face interaction – your name carries far more weight than it does in the real world. It is for some the great leveller. Use it to your best advantage.

Plonking down an island and putting your logo on it, however, is not the end product. Virtual worlds are only another weapon in your marketing arsenal. Much like your corporate web page they need dynamic content to ensure consumers return regularly for updates. Unfortunately, the ABC Island is like a bad web page from the mid-nineties complete with blink tags and animated gifs. The island has become unusable for many of its consumers due to the introduction of many superfluous scripts, that cause all but the latest and most powerful computers to lag and even crash. What a way to annoy your visitors: crash their computer.

And then there’s the content. Just as with a web page, virtual worlds need to give consumers a reason to visit. Repeatedly. The ABC Island’s strange attractor was not the 50+ years of award-winning broadcasting content. It wasn’t the chance to meet and give feedback to the multitude of stars and programme creators. It wasn’t even an exhibition of great new talent, for which the ABC has a long and cherished history. It was a sandbox. A place where Second Life residents can come and build their own content.

That may sound like a very democratic and innovative idea, but unfortunately it has intrinsic problems. Allowing any resident to build is like allowing anybody to post comments on your web page. Yes, you will get feedback. But you will also get LOTS of spam. Griefers they are called in Second Life. Anti-social idiots that enjoy disrupting others with noisy and bothersome scripts. It’s a security nightmare, annoys consumers and hurts your corporate brand.

Much of the ABC’s problems could be fixed easily. A show of leadership. The development of a concise and clear plan with obtainable goals. The ABC currently seems to lack both of these with much of the driving force over the last year coming not from the paid staff but from the small group of loyal volunteers (and even they are beginning to show the strain).

Virtual worlds are not hard. They are just like every other facet of your marketing engine. They require an achievable plan, great content and strong promotion. Do that and you will see massive returns. Fail and you’re only wasting money.

1. Be Original

Have you ever seen a really great movie and then six months later seen advertising for another completely unrelated movie with a similar plot? And usually starring the unknown siblings of the stars from the first movie? Well viral videos can be like that. Don’t copy other viral videos and hope to ride on their coat tails to success. It probably won’t work.

When Bowiechick waxed lyrical about Logitech webcams the idea of a vlog as a viral selling tool was new and original. Now its passé and overused.

Also don’t make a traditional commercial. Most traditional commercials are not viral because they are not interesting. They’re a selling tool usually without any story or artistic method beside the fact that they are a commercial.

2. Incite Wonder

I remember studying comedy in my high school English class and being told the one thing that all comedy must have is incongruity. Good viral videos are similar. They must surprise the viewer. It doesn’t matter whether it is a ROFL gag or a how the f*** did they do that moment of slow-motion magnificence.

A viral video must incite enough interest to not only cause the viewer to remember it fondly, but also prompt them to pass it onto their friends and associates. Realise you’re creating a bite-sized chunk of sheer-joy entertainment, not a piece of marketing.

3. Touch an Emotion

Want to know why reality television is so popular? It’s all about the characters. Great stories are always about great characters and that means they must elicit an emotional response. Even if you hate the format that is an emotional response. When it comes to your viral video it must generate a similar vehement ‘gut’ reaction. Dare to express an opinion or rebut an idea. Touch upon prejudices . Expose hypocrisies.

If you can make the viewer laugh, cry or scream then that’s a good start. If you can manage all three then you’re on a sure winner.

4. Make a Series

If can do it once, you can do it again, and again. Each time you spread the net further and further, exposing new consumers to your brand.

Think outside the box. Create a powerful story and interesting characters. Make it artistic. Even arty is okay. You may not even need to mention your brand at all. Subtlety is the key.