With over nine out of ten of people selecting a hotel now consulting user reviews prior to booking, manage a hotel's online reputation has become essential. Based on multiple years experience helping hotels develop and implement their social media strategies, this article outlines how hotels can maximize the benefit they can gain from online review sites, offering practical tips and techniques to help maintain and enhance their online reputation. READ MORE

Social media is evolving. Given how pervasive it now is for any and all hotel marketing efforts, we must change how we utilize these channels for the best results. Namely, we must recognize that social media are advertising vehicles, but with very different calls to action over other, more traditional platforms. Once you understand the passive nature by which social advertising functions, the tactics you employ will be clear as will the path to long-term success. Moreover, knowing that social media works as an advertising vector will hopefully reinvigorate your prospects in using traditional mediums to this end. READ MORE

Social Media starts at the beginning of the consumer buying process. It is imperative to building brand awareness, generating leads, and also retaining customers. Social Media platforms are used as an opportunity to engage with these users and assist in the decision-making process, given that the content is valuable and relevant. As the consumer continues learning about the brand and product through social media, this exposure results in assisted conversions, generating indirect revenue. After experiencing the product, the customer continues engaging with social media, building a sense of loyalty that turns them into a repeat customer. Through a process of trial and error, Paramount Hospitality Management Company (PHM) has learned what engages their fans, and what doesn't. With a portfolio of three different hotels that have their own individual style and demographic, we have learned that the engagement received on Social Media is not only based on a specific audience, but the specific content you are sharing. Here are 6 key-elements of engaging content that have proved to be successful in the hospitality industry. READ MORE

Hotel marketing executives should now start viewing social media as a distribution outlet for owned media rather than a stand alone marketing strategy as social media giant Facebook makes you pay more for renting on their own real estate. READ MORE

Marketing and Customer service are constantly evolving in the digital age and hoteliers need to evolve with it. Marketing continues to be “anticipating the wants and needs of customers and doing it at a profit” but also doing it with a digital mindset and with digital tools. The definition of customer service has changed from just providing excellent service to being able to react to customer needs through digital communication. At R.A. Rauch & Associates (RAR), we have three main tools that help drive our marketing and customer service: READ MORE

Words and photographs can only do so much to showcase what a hotel has to offer, but it is no longer the only tool out there. The advancement of technology has brought the virtual tour, but it is not the virtual tour you may have seen five to ten years ago. You now have the ability to create a virtual open house that potential guests can visit from anywhere at any time on any device. Discover the hottest form of social marketing: virtual tour photography. READ MORE

Hotels should take notice of the emergence of "Bleisure" travelers-executives looking to mix both business and leisure during their travel experience. This growing demographic is demonstrating distinct buying behaviors that should cause hotels to update their marketing strategies. Many Bleisure travelers are shifting their focus to services similar to Airbnb® that provide access to accommodations that feel more like a "home away from home." Their buying behaviors alone signal that major changes coming to the hotel industry. Now's the time to invest in this growing demographic-but first hotels must understand their behaviors and travel habits, who they are and how they think and, most importantly, what it is they need. READ MORE

What's the first thing we do when meeting someone new? We ask them questions in an effort to hear their story: Where are you from? What kind of work do you do? Do you have kids? What we're trying to do, more than just to pass the time - is we're looking for a way to connect to that person. Stories make life interesting, but they are also useful because they give people a way to relate. Humans love storytelling, which creates a big opportunity for hotel brands and their properties. And now that social media is maturing from just a friendly addition to your marketing plan to a necessary component of your overall strategy, its role is more vital than ever. READ MORE

Hotels exist within a broad ecosystem, interacting with external entities such as government organizations, star rating systems, destination marketing organizations, academic institutions, research and advisory firms, and owners and investors - to including internal functions and technologies in the areas of guest services and operations, HR and staffing, sales, marketing, loyalty and distribution and revenue strategy. This ecosystem has always been very interconnected, but now these connections are accelerating and deepening for a number of reasons - from consumers' use of mobile and social technologies, to the Internet of Things, to technology companies sharing data more freely through APIs. As the capacity for connections increases, we will continue to see that these connections create value. The hotels and brands that recognize this will make further interconnectivity a priority for their technology programs, and this interconnectivity will ultimately give them the edge through efficiency and innovation. Competitive advantage rarely comes from one technology or department or program - but instead assembling a collection of the best tools, technologies and data sets - and making them all work together seamlessly. READ MORE

Sometimes I can't help but worry - is the hotel salesperson becoming obsolete? When I started out in the hotel business in the mid 80's, Sales was the job everyone wanted. Sales Managers got free dry-cleaning, worked Monday through Friday, spent their time taking clients out to lunch, and were even allowed to drink wine (with clients only!). It looked like a great life, and as a front desk clerk working the 3-11 every Friday and Saturday night, dressed in a polyester uniform while checking guests in and out for eight hours daily, it was definitely a job I aspired to have. READ MORE

The truth is that good public relations and social media come from the same place: relevant, insightful and actionable content. What does that really mean though? Simply put, both are about talking WITH people, not at them. Think about the best conversations you've had in your life. Chances are that you were talking with someone that listened to you and also offered something worth your time. It was likely about something that mattered to you, that you were curious about, or that benefited you in some way. You probably learned something from the conversation, whether about the topic itself, the people influencing the topic, or the person with whom you were having the conversation. READ MORE

I've worked in social media for almost a decade, and from the beginning I've watched many debates about which discipline social media belongs to. Interactive Marketing? Advertising? Customer Service? Public Relations? Social platforms were built by techies for techies, so perhaps developers own social media. Here's the reality: No one discipline owns social media. The platforms and the code were released to the people and it is the people, who mixed the web and added their own flavors, so in the end it is the people who own social media. That said, if you have to pick one business discipline, for most people, Public Relations seems to be the obvious answer. READ MORE

Social media is a multi-faceted and sometimes confusing marketing channel, especially when it comes to how it can be applied to hotels. In this article, I'll cover the history of social media, how it's evolved, how fits into the world of hospitality and the best things hoteliers can do to take advantage. READ MORE

We are living in a world of exponential data growth. Recent research from IBM claims that 90% of all data created since the dawn of humanity have been created in the past few years. Think about that for a minute… In the digital space, the volume and speed of data generation is so great it has created a multitude of challenges for businesses around the globe. How can your marketing efforts keep up? READ MORE

Is your property ranking okay, but not tops, for critical hotel search keywords? Learn how to optimize hotel search keywords to boost your visibility, traffic and bookings. Is your property ranking in key search results just below the positions you really need to be in? Are you in position five for that key search term your prospective guests use often? If so, you know you're missing more than half the revenues you could be earning from that search phrase. But how do you identify which search phrase to pursue, and how to do you get it to rank two to three positions higher? READ MORE

They're as ubiquitous as Boomers, and they're on the road. The Millennial cohort, now as large a segment of the U.S. population as the Baby Boom, is the fastest-growing travel segment, according to American Express Business Insights, and Millennials will soon comprise the majority of travelers worldwide. While Millennials are like everyone else in a lot of ways, there are some strong differences in their affinities and desires that make it imperative that hoteliers change their ways. Understanding how to please this group of more than 1.7 billion members is critical to the hospitality industry. READ MORE