Mr. MacKenzie

Social Media & PR

How to Use the Social Web to Spread Information Through Stories

By Josiah MacKenzie, Founder, Gradigio Group

The social web changes the way people discover information and communicate. How can you take advantage of this new environment to raise the visibility of a brand or an idea?

In this article, we’re looking at where people go for knowledge - and how you can involve employees and guests as brand ambassadors to communicate the messages you need to share through stories. This is next-generation public relations: getting personalized, interesting material in front of the right people in a timely fashion.

Where people go for information today

Trends suggest increasing numbers of people go online first to plan their travel. Research conducted by Google and others indicate 70-90% of all travel purchases begin with a web search. And we know the travel planning process is often complex–with up to 12 different Internet research sessions happening before the actual purchase takes place.

Many consumers start off on a search engine to find answers. Hotel and travel companies that provide the most relevant and useful information - answers to the questions being typed every moment into search engines - are the companies that attract the most website traffic.

In addition to this “Google it first” mindset, people are increasingly turning to their social network to personalize recommendations. Advice and travel opinions are more valuable when they are created by friends and family who know what you look for in a travel experience.

Integration with platforms such as Facebook allow websites to the take a person’s social graph – all the people they know and interact with online – and use it as a filter for content. TripAdvisor, for example, allows their website visitors to ask advice from people who have visited a city in the past. If I’m going to be visiting Dubai next month, I have 14 friends that have been there and can become a source of personalized information for me.

So when people engage in travel planning today, they are increasingly expecting the right information at the right time. Think how you can put content into context. Strive to deliver a tailor-made experience for everyone who visits your website.

How to get in front of them through stories

Stories have long been the best way to connect with people. With the rise of social communications, stories tend to do very well online. It’s the antidote to mass-media advertising, and tends to encourage word-of-mouth referrals.

Stories become more meaningful when they come from people similar to the audience you are trying to reach. Instead of looking at a news release from the perspective of yourself as a hotel executive, think about the story behind the news release and why the casual traveler should care.

I receive dozens of irrelevant PR pitches every day, and most of them are incredibly boring. Of course, the vast majority are written for media and news organizations - and remember our whole purpose of direct-to-consumer PR is to appeal to the end consumer.

A well-crafted story can connect with anyone regardless of the publication. In developing your stories, aim for mainstream appeal.

Turning employees into ambassadors

Some of the most effective direct-to-consumer public relations campaigns I’ve seen used employees as ambassadors for the company. And these people can be anyone within your organization – from frontline hotel staff to the executive team. I mentioned earlier how direct-to-consumer PR works best when it is shared as a story. Stories work best when you include characters. Begin thinking how to feature employees as the stars of your story. Communicate your message through their eyes and using their words.

Take Domino’s Pizza for example. Early in 2009, they faced a major PR crisis when two employees filmed a video of themselves doing disgusting things with pizza. How did Domino’s respond? They created a campaign telling a story of how they re-built their pizza cooking process from scratch. “Oh Yes We Did” featured a short web documentary featuring a wide range of their staff. (You can see this at PizzaTurnaround.com) The campaign was honest and real, and helped them regain some credibility they had lost.

If you want your employees to be a natural part of your public relations efforts, you need to treat them well and empower them to speak on your behalf. If you’re not taking care of your staff, it’s unlikely they’ll be very motivated to tell their social media friends how great you are. Employee care is crucial for companies that want to fully engage with online communities. Make sure you run the type of organization that treats team members so well that they can’t wait to share your company story.

Secondly, you need to create an environment where employees are free to talk about your hotel in social media, and know the best way to do that. If too much management approval is needed to publish anything online, it can discourage people taking part in online conversations. Yet in most cases, it’s also not enough to simply empower people and let them do their own thing. Instead, provide guidelines and examples of what you expect. What does success look like?

This is a very large topic - and mostly outside the scope of this article - but I’d like you to think how to use the “employees as ambassadors” concept in your situation.

Turning guests into ambassadors

Guests can also become ambassadors and a core part of your direct-to-consumer PR strategy.

How? Get guests talking about your hotel - have them tell stories. This is perhaps the most effective yet rarely-used characteristics of great direct-to-consumer PR.

The reality is that guest storytelling happens online whether you’re involved or not. To keep these stories positive, you’ll need to develop a remarkable guest experience that people feel compelled to share with their friends. Then, you’ll need to support and encourage the guest in publishing their story.

This is a concept I refer to as “guestsourcing”–and it is effective for many of the same reasons that the employees-as-ambassadors concept works. It’s about sharing stories through the eyes of someone other than your PR and marketing department. And as I mentioned earlier, consumers tend to find guest stories much more credible. They’ll find it easier to trust a guest raving about their memorable experience than a copywriter who includes a lot of superlatives in a slick brochure.

The important thing to consider when you are using the “guests as ambassadors” concept is to make sure guests understand the narrative you are trying to share, have all the facts, and know where they can share their reviews about you online.

The majority of guests will simply post reviews to a site like TripAdvisor, but there are always the more prolific writers and bloggers that will create in-depth reviews of your property. Consider giving these new media writers special access–like you would for any other traditional media journalist. Provide fact sheets and additional support to help them in writing their stories. Proactively reaching out to and engaging travel bloggers is good for PR, and it’s good for overall web visibility.

The role of reputation management in direct-to-consumer PR

As you’ve probably picked up, I try to champion the idea of getting as many people involved in your direct-to-consumer PR initiatives as possible.

The final stage in this process is ensuring you have a reputation monitoring system to capture, analyze and respond to all of the social media and online mentions that will be created. While some interactions can be scripted - as can happen with the “employees as ambassadors” concept - much more online content will be outside of your direct control.

Regardless of the author, what you can control is how quickly you identify and respond to situations as they come up. Far too often online reputation management is seen as synonymous with crisis management. Instead, let’s begin thinking of online reviews as direct-to-consumer PR opportunities as well.

Make sure you have a system in place that can notify you when an online mention takes place, and gives you the ability to respond as needed. Your response to guest and customer reviews can be one of the most effective parts of your direct-to-consumer PR campaign.

Josiah MacKenzie is the founding owner and marketing brain of the Gradigio Group, a San Francisco-based collection of media properties catering to the hospitality industry around the globe. He also has roles in other ventures, with business interests in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia. Mr. Mackenzie has published over 100 articles, and has appeared in the Washington Post, MSNBC.com, and Entrepreneur magazine. His new book, The Savvy Hotelier's Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas, reveals over 1,000 of the most profitable marketing tactics used by hotels. Mr. MacKenzie can be contacted at 415-671-6235 or josiah@gradigio.com Extended Bio...

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