Hotels and Restaurants on Facebook Graph Search – First Impressions and Tips
Having obtained early access to the beta of Facebook Graph search (currently only available to US English users), I immediately (of course) dived right in to see if I could replicate the funniest Facebook Graph searches that have been making their rounds on the web. While the feature certainly didn’t disappoint, it was also time to test out the more serious aspects of Graph Search for hotels, restaurants and all things local… the power of lasting social recommendations.
Just as Google has been trying hard to put a ‘social’ twist to all things search, Facebook has now put a ‘search’ twist to the social experience. From the standpoint of a local business like a hotel or restaurant, the most irritating thing about social platforms is that they do not offer referrals with any longevity… i.e. it’s not very easy to dig up the best Italian restaurants your friends have been to (or like) in the past few months, without racking your brains and doing some serious timeline stalking (doubt if anyone has the time or patience either). Most social platforms have been trying hard to fix this problem…FourSquare’s interface changes are a great example, with a renewed focus on local discovery and highlighting businesses and specials near you.
6 Hotel Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2013
As hotel operators and marketers face another fresh, promising new year ahead, many are watching the social media space closely to gauge the level of time, expertise and financial investment that will be required to make it all worthwhile. Having observed the space keenly so far, here are 6 quick (personal) social media predictions for the hotel industry in 2013:
Pinterest for Hoteliers – A Guide to Pinterest for Hotels, Resorts and Restaurants
Pinterest has been all the rage recently, with various news sites and brands sitting up and taking notice. Pinterest.com isn’t new, though…it was (Beta) launched in 2010 and rose to fame in 2011 when it was declared one of the 50 best websites of the year by TIME magazine. By the end of last year, it garnered a lot more attention as it made it to the Hitwise list of top 10 social networks, Techcrunch’s best new startup title and also gained a reputation for driving more referral traffic to online retailers than YouTube, Google+ or LinkedIN.
So what’s the big deal, you ask? And, what, pray tell…is it exactly?
What Digital Marketers Really Do
In the tradition of the most recent meme to hit the Interweb “What People Think I Do / What I Really Do” here’s a low-down on What Digital Marketers really do…enjoy.
Never heard of the meme? “What People Think I Do / What I Really Do” is a series of images / pictures illustrating a variety of preconceptions associated with various professions or areas of expertise. Learn more about the meme here.
Future of Display Advertising – Is the Hotel Industry Ready?
Google recently presented their vision for how display advertising is likely to evolve by 2015…these seven predictions are something all marketers worth their salt absolutely MUST be informed and aware about.
To summarize, here are the broad predictions:
- 50% of ad campaigns will include video ads bought on a cost-per-view basis
- 50% of ads will be bought using this real-time bidding technology to tailor experiences for different viewers
- Smartphones / mobile is going be the number one screen for digital brands to engage users
- There will be at least five metrics that advertisers will regard as more important than the “click”
- 75% of web ads will be “social” in nature i.e. Ads will be shared, discussed, subscribed to and recommended
- Rich media formats enable great creativity and interaction – these will grow from 6% of display ad impressions to 50%, especially for brand building campaigns
- Digital display advertising is going to grow to a $50 billion industry
Hotel Social Media Articles and the Diffusion of Innovation
It’s interesting to see how the buzz around social media and related developments has gradually grown over the past two years in the hotel industry. In 2008 social media was still considered a fad and made the odd appearance here and there in hospitality news media…now in 2010 you hardly find any hotel news publication, hotel blog or newsletter worth their salt without the token social media piece.
Looking at the wide variety of hotel social media articles, however, it appears very clear that the technology adoption curve (or diffusion of innovation) is alive and well. Every hospitality blogger and hotel news company is talking about social media…but the articles (and authors) clearly follow the curve. I thought it’d be fun to list some of the types of social media articles and blogs currently making the rounds atop the diffusion of innovation curve…here goes:
Case Studies and ROI – TripAdvisor Business Listings
A recent blog post and case study shared by Mirai, on TripAdvisor’s Business Listings option introduced earlier this year. Many hotels have jumped onboard and many others have held off till better information is available about the Return on Investment on these (often pricey) listings.
TripAdvisor Business Listing – not for everyone
On May 6th 2010 in its press release Tripadvisor announced that over 12 000 hotels around the world had subscribed to its Business Listings service and added their urls, emails and telephone numbers. Five months after the launch Paris has taken the leader position wih 13% slice of the total listings with urls, followed by Rome, Florence and Venice.
It looks like a great business for Tripadvisor! According to cautious estimates, the above numbers can mean at least 5 million euros in revenue generated by the new feature. But is it really worth for a hotelier to pay from 400 up to 10 000 Euros per year? Since TripAdvisor launched the service we have received many enquiries from numerous hoteliers, keen to boost their direct sales by placing a link, asking whether it pays off. We decided to check it.
Rethinking Hotel Guest Satisfaction and Hotel Website Analytics
I want to share two very simple but powerful ideas that could radically transform the way the hotel industry utilizes measures like the hotel guest satisfaction index, web analytics, etc.
The link between Facebook, Organ Donation and Boiling Frogs
Now that I have your attention with my intriguing post title, allow me to explain just what I mean… and boiling frogs and organ donation do indeed feature in this little blog post!
All the recent furore over Facebook privacy has shown no signs of abating…and for good reason. Privacy, after all, is a sensitive and important issue. Or is it?
There’s no doubt that Facebook has made a startling entrance in the online world and taken over our browsers and mobile screens rather quickly. Official stats from Facebook claim that 400 million users currently use the service and almost half log on every day. Globally it appears that people now spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook…an enviable record for any platform.
The amount of information shared on the site has also grown in leaps and bounds. Users typically share a substantial amount of personal information, photos and information on personal preferences. Choices of who we connect and communicate with also give away loads of behavioural information (in fact, Mark Zuckerberg claims he can predict a relationship breakup in advance of it actually happening, plus who you may end up with next, with a 33% accuracy based on this data alone).
Matt McKeon recently put together a great graphic that illustrates the amount of data that is now publicly available via your typical Facebook account. Check out where we stand in April 2010 in the graphic below…and visit the site to compare how things have changed since 2005.
Hotel Internet Marketing by 2013 – Are we on Track?
I came across a piece I’d written about 17-18 months ago on the future of hotel internet marketing. The article talked about 5 broad tech trends that I thought would radically alter the way we approached digital / internet marketing for hotels back at the end of 2008. I thought it’d be fun to take a re-look at the article and see how far we’ve actually come in the last year or more and if those predictions still hold water… here goes:
1. Choice is king.
The clear winners of the online distribution race will be suppliers and 3rd parties that provide the most choice to the customer. “Experience building” will become key to the looking and booking process online. This will mean that successful suppliers (hotels) will have to break down elements of their inventory like rooms, dining, sports, spa and supporting services into individual units that can be booked and packaged both internally and externally. The more elements you provide to what I like to call the “Experience Engine”, the better the choice available to customers to personalize and tailor their experiences. This creation of experience units will also allow tourism industry suppliers to collaborate more effectively online, as well as spur the evolution of 3rd party providers who provide superior experience engines, taking destination marketing to a whole new level.
