Where Are People Trying to Go and Where Are They Looking to Stay?

If you are in the travel industry, you absolutely need to check out Kayak Trends (if you haven’t already)! This amazing (and free to use) site helps you find out where are people trying to go and where are they looking to stay! It gives you a great insight into the current travel trends based on the city you’re interested in. Once you find the data for your city, analyze it, and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

Here is the data that Kayak Trends display:

-          How popular is the city in the searches during the current week

-          The graph of the search volume for last 3, 6, and 12 months

-          List of most searched hotels in particular city

-          Who wants to visit that city (from which city they are from)

-          Where do people from your city want to go to

-          Hottest hotels for the week

For example, let’s say you are in Miami (can be any city). When you type in the search box Miami, you will see something like this:

Here is how you can use each piece of information to your benefit:

The graph: If you see that there are many people searching for your city comparing to 2 months ago yet your sales are still poor, you need to take a hard look into your operations.

Where are people looking to go: This is especially helpful if you have locations in more than one city.

Who wants to visit your city: This is extremely helpful for marketing purposes. Based on this info, you can adjust your marketing strategy to target the travelers in those cities (change your social media marketing strategy – it is fast and easy to do; PPC; banner ads etc.)

Most searched hotels in your city & Hottest hotels for the week: Are you featured? Are you on the top of the list? If so, congratulations! Are you on the list at all – if so, on which rank? Did your rank improve or worsen comparing to 3,6, 12 months ago? Are the competitors from your hotel class on the list? Learn from those who rank high – they sure are doing something right! Analyze this very carefully, as this can give you a great insight.

Last piece of advice – look at this site regularly. It may be a good idea  to make this part of your monthly/quarterly reports. Remember to really ANALYZE the results: it is one thing to be looking and another to be really seeing. The insights are useless unless you analyze them carefully and are not afraid to modify the strategy. As Niccolo Machiavelli once said, “Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”

Planning Facebook Contest? Use Binkd!

In my recent article about Facebook contests  I have discussed some tips on how to run the successful Facebook contest. One of the things mentioned was that Facebook rules PROHIBIT running the contests directly on Facebook. Yes, this means no trivia, no “click like it”, no picture contests, no anything related to contests DIRECTLY on Facebook. However, you CAN run the contest through a 3rd party application (special tab you install on your Facebook page).

How do you do that? The easiest way is to go with the solution designed by one of the companies that specializes in online promotions. There are tons of firms that offer Facebook contest apps (Wildfire, Woobox, Promoboxx to name some of my favorites), but they are often fairly expensive, especially if you want to run a contest that requires the users to like your Facebook page before they can enter. As I mentioned in my previous post, making users (and those who vote for them if it is a voting-based contest) like your page before they can participate is extremely important, because it is the best way to increase your Facebook fan base. Some basic (cheap or free) versions of the apps will allow you to run the contest BUT will require you to upgrade to much more expensive version if you want this functionality enabled. This is why I love, love Binkd. You don’t have to pay a penny for this function and you can run all kinds of contests (picture voting, text voting, sweepstakes & more). The free version will let you run 1 contest at the time for 21 days. If you want to run more contests at the time or for longer period, the upgrade is under $10.

It is relatively new, so there are still few issues, but Binkd is very good at responding and fixes everything in 24 hours.

Give it a try and let me know your thoughts!

Top 10 Tips on Doing Facebook Contests

So you have a Facebook fan page… but how do you get fans? How do you increase the fan interaction? One of the best ways to do that is running the Facebook contest. But how to run it so it is effective? I ran quite a number of Facebook contests with huge success (even 97% growth in fan base in 2 weeks!), so I dare to say that I do know what I am talking about.. I wrote this article as a guest blogger on Ruhani Rabin’s Tech & Lifestyle site last month and already got a very nice feedback (20 comments, 128 tweets & 36 Facebook shares). Hope you enjoy it as well!  

http://www.ruhanirabin.com/top-tips-facebook-contests/

Hotels, Promote Your Social Media Accounts!

Are your hotel’s social media accounts promoted at the front desk, on room keys or feedback cards? Does your hotel’s website and blog have easily noticeable and clickable Facebook & Twitter logos?  

Surprisingly, most hotels fail to display their social media accounts correctly online and offline. Hard-to-find or nonexistent Facebook and Twitter logos on the website OR at the property are a norm.  I call this paradox “hide and seek”, because hotels basically hide the fact that they have social media accounts and make their customers dig this information up. 

Why is it such a big problem?? If you make it hard on your customers to find you on social media, most of them simply won’t. Therefore, you lose an access to your most valuable fans and followers. I say most valuable, because the guests who have stayed at your hotel before already established an emotional connection with you, so they are more likely to interact with your brand on-line than a person who has never visited your property. Now the best social media accounts have one thing in common – they show high level of fan engagement. This being said, you NEED your guests to find you on Facebook, Twitter etc.

In short, when you play ‘hide and seek’, your fan & follower base is slow to grow and level of engagement on your social media accounts is poor. You can also express what happens in a simple equation: lost connection = lost feedback = lost chance to build trust & loyalty = lost future business. Lesson to take from this? Make it easy – as easy as possible. Display it clearly everywhere you can think of (with reason, of course) – at the minimum, all the places on my checklist below.

Finally, let’s find out if your hotel is playing ‘hide and seek’ by going through my checklist!

If ANY answer to the questions below would be “NO”, your hotel is ‘guilty’:

-         Does your hotel have Facebook & Twitter logos on at least the main page of the website?

-         Does your website have the Facebook & Twitter plug-ins integrated?

-         Is FB & Twitter part of the e-mail signatures of your employees?

-         Do your e-newsletters contain links to your social media accounts?

-         If you have a blog, is your blog linked to your Facebook, Twitter etc.?

-         Do you promote your social media accounts at the property? I.e. Do your room keys, in-room  TV, front desk, feedback cards, receipts show the address to your Facebook, Twitter etc.?

Whether your hotel plays ‘hide and seek’ consciously or unconsciously, I urge you to change it -  stop hindering your social media strategy. When you decided to enter social media space, you took a unique opportunity to connect with your past, current and potential customers. Make it easy for them to find you and you will see an amazing progress in quality as well as quantity of your audience on social media.

Connect with me!

www.linkedin.com/in/luciehys 

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic 

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic 

Top 5 Ways Hotels Can Find and Reach Luxury Consumers Through Social Media

 Luxury hotels are all over Facebook and Twitter these days. The mere existence on social media channels is, of course, not enough. Successful social media campaign is underlined by a sound strategy, part of which is finding and reaching the target market (in this case the luxury segment).

Here are the top 5 ways on how to find & reach the luxury consumers on social media:

 

#1: Twitter Lists Rule!

 If you are one of those people who think Twitter doesn’t make sense, think twice. Twitter is the easiest social media platform for finding & reaching the travelers who love luxury. Thanks to Twitter directories like twellow (www.twellow.com), twibes (www.twibes.com) or listorious (www.listorious.com), you can search through many relevant tags, users & Twitter lists in seconds. Just type in luxury travel, luxury etc. to find a relevant list and then follow every user from that list (I now see some people disapprovingly shaking their heads, but following others is the fastest way to let Twitter users know that you exist on Twitter!). Those who follow you back give you a chance to establish a relationship – please notice I do not say sell to them. Talk to them, engage, have fun & they will love you and come to you next time they travel your way.

 

#2: World Meets on Facebook Fan Pages

  

There are plenty of luxury loving fans worldwide who breathe Facebook & travel. The best way to find them is to use Facebook search on your profile’s homepage. When you search for the relevant keywords (luxury, travel, luxury travel, luxury hotels etc.)., the results will contain people, groups, apps etc., but what you really want to focus on are Facebook fan pages. Become a fan of the relevant page that has a lot of people from your target market.  By doing so, you will be able to tag the other fan pages in your Facebook posts (by using @ + start typing the name of the fan page you want to tag), which will make your Facebook page appear on the fan page that you tagged. Yes, you can write straight on the wall of these fan pages (without tagging), but such method is often viewed as a spam, so most people will ignore it plus you are risking being reported for spamming.

 

#3: Think Competitors! 

 

Social media (especially Twitter) give you an easy access to your competitors’ clients – existing and potential. You can find out who they are, reach out to them, and ultimately turn them into your clients. Though Facebook will allow you to see the list of all people who are fans of your competitors, reaching out to them is very difficult. Therefore, focus on your competitors’ Twitter accounts instead. It is generally 2 steps process: find your competitors’ Twitter accounts (if they have one) & follow all their followers. The chances are many will follow you back since you offer similar services, which means a chance for you to interact with them, show them your value, and hopefully ’steal’ the business from your competitors.

 

#4: Luxury Twitter Users! 

 

Find the Twitter users who tweet about luxury, travel or both (especially the influential ones) in Twitter directories (more in my point #1), follow them, interact with them, follow their followers, follow who they follow.  My faves include for example @LuxeTiffany (hotel inspector who is all about luxury travel:
http://twitter.com/luxetiffany
),  @LuxurHolidays (tourism guide to the luxury traveler that provides a comprehensive list of the best luxury hotels of the world:
http://twitter.com/luxurholidays
) or @LuxurySociety (informing the world’s leading luxury professionals:
http://twitter.com/luxurysociety
). For more see
http://listorious.com/tags/luxury
. 

 

#5: Blogs!

 

There are many blogs focusing on luxury consumers. You can find the popular ones easily by putting luxury travel blogs, luxury hotels blogs, luxury travel blogs etc. into Google or you can use blog directories (i.e. www.technorati.com).  Important part is to participate, which includes commenting on blog posts, getting featured in a blog post, or use paid ads if you want to splurge a little . Most often it will be the choice #1 – commenting on blog posts, in which case you need to make sure that your comments are relevant and that they include the link to your site. Some of the popular blogs you should know about are Vagablond (
http://www.vagablond.com
), journeyPod (
http://journeyPod.com/
) or Luxique (
http://www.luxique.com/blog/
).

 No matter what you do, remember that the value is not in your selling, but your sharing [quote by @Iconic88]. 

Feel free to add to my list in the comments and best of luck!

Let’s Connect!

www.linkedin.com/in/luciehys 

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic 

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic 

 

 

How Twitter Can Benefit Your Hotel & Why Facebook Doesn’t Cut It!

There are many social media channels the hotels can use, but by far the most commonly used platforms are Twitter and Facebook. In most cases, hotels (mistakenly) put greater emphasis on Facebook and neglect Twitter. Very often hotels that have Facebook account don’t have a presence on Twitter, and if they do, the effort they put in Twitter is not anywhere close to the effort that’s made on Facebook.  

 After working on hotel social media campaigns day by day for a while, I can honestly tell you that it is a big mistake. Twitter and Facebook each have their own personalities and each platform brings completely different benefits to the table.

 

First Date on Twitter – Get Serious on Facebook!

To better understand each platform, let’s use the situation that we all are familiar with – personal relationships. Typically, before you let someone in your life, you want to know that they are worth it. You watch them, talk to them, test them out so to speak. Twitter lets consumers do just that. Once you get to know the person better and you want to have them in your life, you will want to deepen the ties between you, which is where Facebook comes in.

Consequently, if you want to make more people familiar with your brand, gain new customers or connect with people who are more private in nature, rely on your hotel’s Twitter account.

However, to engage and build a loyal relationship with your clients, use your Facebook account.

 As you can see, both platforms have completely different functions, so if you were to ask me which one your hotel should use, I would have to insist on both!

In this post, I will explain in greater detail why Twitter is not a waste of your resources and go over the biggest benefits Twitter can give you that Facebook cannot. 

Mysterious Twitter 

I say mysterious, because to most Twitter newcomers, Twitter is a confusing mess that doesn’t make sense. When I first encountered Twitter, I thought exactly the same thing. However, as I have seen people booking the hotels after interacting on Twitter and all the traffic Twitter brought to the hotels’ websites, I got to realize that Twitter was a very powerful marketing tool with advantages no other marketing channel had. 

  

3 Main Ways How Twitter Can Benefit Your Hotel & Why Facebook Doesn’t Cut It: 

 #1: The Easiest Way to Take Over Your Competitor’s Customers! 

There is nothing easier than looking up your competitors’ Twitter account and contacting/following their fans (or followers as they are called on Twitter).  Since you offer similar services to your competitors, the chances are most of their followers will be interested in what you have to offer, so they will follow you back. When they do, you have a shot to show what your hotel is about and if you are good enough, they may decide to go with you, not your competitor next time they need a hotel. 

Facebook doesn’t have such capability. You can look at the list of fans of your competitors, but good luck trying to connect with them.  

#2: The Easiest Way to Go Viral!   

Twitter is much more viral in nature than Facebook. Let’s illustrate it on example. Sheraton Maui recently sent out a message on Twitter: “Win a free trip to Hawaii!! Check out the Starwood Hawaii & SONY ‘Share Your Aloha’ photo contest here:
http://bit.ly/atbAxV
”  Since the account has about 2,000 followers, it means that 2,000 people could have potentially read this message. Let’s say 2 of Sheraton’s followers who each have 50,000 followers liked it and retweeted this message (meaning sent it to their followers). All of the sudden, we have additional 100,000 people who could have possibly read this message. Even though Facebook has a share button that allows fans to repost the brand’s message on the wall, it doesn’t happen all that often. Additionally, not many people on Facebook have 50,000 friends, so the impact of reposting on Facebook is way lower than on Twitter. Consequently, Twitter is generally much more effective in creating the buzz, getting the message across, and driving the traffic to your website, blog etc. than Facebook is! 

#3: The Easiest Way to Find & Reach New Customers 

Finding and reaching your target audience is a key to any sound marketing strategy. Twitter is the best tool out of all social media channels to precisely find the people you are looking for. You can look at thousands of Twitter lists that are relevant to your company as well as search the Twitter directories like Wefollow or Twellow for keywords. So for example, if you represent Hilton Chicago and your goals is to attract locals to eat at your restaurant, you could follow the people from the lists like “Chicago”, “Chicago-foodies”, “Chicago-hospitality” etc.  You could also find people on Twitter who tweet about food from Chicago area, look at the lists they are on, and follow their followers.  

One important principle to remember: if you want to be followed, follow others!  By following others, you are reaching out to them and letting them know you exist and want to connect. 

Even though you can find potential clients on Facebook via themed fan pages and groups, it is less precise and much more cumbersome. More importantly, reaching out to the people who are not fans of your brand yet is not an option on Facebook. 

There are more benefits to Twitter that I could go into (and feel free to point them out in comments), but those I mentioned above should be enough for you to realize that your hotel needs a SOLID Twitter presence! So if your hotel does not, I urge you to change that! 

  

Let’s Connect! 

www.linkedin.com/in/luciehys 

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic 

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic 

Social Media & Hotels: Top 5 Blunders

 Social media together with the hospitality industry CAN make a  great pair. Too bad very few hotels actually know   how to  make that happen. Instead, the hotels’ social media   strategies are full of mistakes, which results in countless number of missed opportunities… Here are the top 5 mistakes that most hotels’ social media accounts contain: 

  #1: No proper signage at the property

 Many hotels that have social media presence either hide it in an offline   world on purpose or do so unintentionally. The hotel may have a Twitter and Facebook account, yet when you are staying at the hotel, you would never know. Does it make any sense? No, but it often is the case. Having signs at the front desk, on the flyers, newsletters, feedback cards, receipts etc. would go a long way when it comes to encouraging the existing customers to join the hotels’ social media world. Without the signs, the hotels make the customers dig deep, which is something very few will do.

                                                                          #2: Doubtful or non-existing widgets on the hotel’s website

 Many hotels with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. accounts don’t link them properly to their website. The widgets (small icons) are either not there or hard to notice. Check out Four Seasons Hotel in Prague [
http://www.fourseasons.com/prague/
] – guess for larger font you have to pay extra Even worse, some hotels don’t even link their social media accounts to the website at all. Talking about hindering your social media strategy…

 #3: Let’s copy all other marketing materials

 When you look at Four Seasons (http://twitter.com/fourseasons) for example, all you see are the stiff updates made out of everything you can learn from the website or printed marketing materials. Whoever runs this account doesn’t realize what my Twitter friend, @iconic88, once tweeted: “The power of Twitter is in your sharing, not your selling.” The social media channels are unlike any other marketing channels and have their distinctive advantages, like first-hand contact with existing & potential customers, so copying other marketing messages should be a secondary factor.

                                                                                                      #4: Forgetting all the fun

 Social media is all about having fun and interacting with others, regardless of whether the Twitter account represents the individual or the company. However, most hotels on Twitter tend to put on a serious business face and tweet stiff messages that don’t spark any interest. Look at Soho Grand Hotel (
http://twitter.com/sohograndhotel
) – these tweets make me want to go back to sleep. There is no interaction, no retweets, just a boring monologue. Exception? Absolutely not.  

#5: Collecting dust

    For some strange reason, those who handle social media accounts of the hotels  tend to think that setting up an account is enough to get results. Big  mistake.   Regular updates are important. Going into the account at least once every other day is a must for all hotel social media marketers. Hear it, Lancaster Arts Hotel(
http://twitter.com/ARTSHOTEL
)?

There are many more to cover, but these are the most famous ones I encounter in my line of business. You can apply these principles on other businesses on Twitter, not just hotels, of course. Bottom line – social media is about socializing, no matter what kind of account you are running.

Feel free to connect with me!

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic

Top 5 Social Media Tweeple Who Should Have Own Blog

All I want for Christmas is… for these top 5 Twitter stars to start blogging! They all are so interesting that 140-characters is way too little to get enough of them!

                        @LXLEE (
http://twitter.com/LXLEE
)

“Lovelee” social media star whose Twitter stream is full of great quotes, tech & social media tweets. He is a master conversationalist (and I heard a shopohalic too – shh) ! Alex, skip the shopping & start blogging!

                  @Sung_H_Lee (
http://twitter.com/sung_h_lee
)

Smart, Sweet, Social media savyy – “lovelee” Sung! He has one of the most inspiring Twitter streams you can find on Twitter! His blog would be a great social media, tech, health mix. Sung, think about it!

@abdulmuhammad (
http://twitter.com/abdulmuhammad
) 

Unbelievably talented & innovative social media mover and shaker in a real life – would be really, really great if we all could get some more of him in the virtual one . 

                 @TrendyDC (
http://twitter.com/TrendyDC
)

Lifting tweeple’s spirits day by day with her inspiring quotes & social media tweets. Never enough of bloggers with such a positive attitude who would supply Smiles & Stress-relief & Social media info in one package!

                     @thinkingfox (
http://twitter.com/thinkingfox
)

I am positive Rob’s blogs would be a nice European flavor addition to the social media “blogosphere”. Gotta put your iPhone to a good use – it is called blogging Might use @Mashable’s advice on how to turn your iPhone into a Blogging Machine: http://ht.ly/260ug

What is Wrong with Twitter??? Top 5 Issues

Don’t get me wrong – I do love Twitter. But as with any other objects we love, they have their faults. Here are the top 5 biggest everyday problems of Twitter I see and I would love to see disappear!!!

#1: Perfectly imperfect Twitter search

It compares to the feeling of winning a lottery when you actually do find what you are looking for via Twitter search box. I do get majorly put off by “Stop running script?” and finding only half of the relevant results, if that. Thanks goodness for Twitter directories!

#2: I follow them, but do they follow me???

Don’t we have the right to know who is our real friend, Twitter?? Twitter doesn’t mind letting you know if you follow someone or not, but dare you if you want to know if the person follows you! There is a green check mark with “following” attached that indicates you are following someone – that simple. But you would have to dig real deep to learn if the person follows you. I really don’t have time or desire to go through all the followers to find that out.

#3: That infamous retweet button

People all over Twitter and blogosphere are complaining about Twitter’s retweet system – rightfully so. There is no way one can add a comment to the retweet on Twitter, plus it doesn’t show up in user’s personal stream, so many times people don’t even know when someone retweets their post. Consequence? Most people run away to Hootsuite and such where retweet is a pleasure, not a pain!

#4: Chit chat or not

I try to limit chit chats on Twitter, not because I would want to but because I know that having chit chats annoys a lot of people. Nobody wants bunch of how are yous, what is the weather kind of talk in their stream, but nobody want to tweet just news and links either. That is why a chat feature would have been nice!

#5 Twitter rules are a mess

I get it – every playground needs to have REASONABLE rules (reasonable being the keyword here). I especially ‘love’ the rule that having a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following is considered a spam (
http://bit.ly/TMZH
). So if you are one of the lucky ones who doesn’t get overlooked by @aplusk or @mashable, tell them to stop spamming okay?

I would also like to experience a day when “Over Capacity” warning doesn’t pop up on my screen, but I know it would be too much to ask for. For now, I would be perfectly happy if these 5 imperfections above would be fixed. Thanks!!!

Got anything to add? Please speak or hold your peace forever

Yours always,

Lucie

www.linkedin.com/in/luciehys

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic

What Businesses Should Jump on Twitter Train?

No matter what you sell, Twitter can help. In other words, if you own or run  the business, I would highly recommend that you learn how to tweet. Notice I am not saying establishing your Twitter account – that is not enough. In order to get results from Twitter, you need to know how to use it. Now, there are certain fields in which I would say tweeting your heart out is a must. If you are in one of the industries I named bellow and don’t have well-established presence on Twitter, you are saying “no” to a great deal of potential business, thus money.

 So, if your company operates in the following fields, make Twitter your best friend now, seriously!!!

 TECH related entities (computer & web specialists, electronic stores etc.)

• We finally arrived to the stage in which being a geek is a way to go (luckily for me, right?   Jokes aside, technology is the new black, so demand for toys and those who know what to do with them is bigger than ever. In other words, there are many people on Twitter who are looking for what you have to offer if you are all about tech.

 JOB related entities (employment agencies, job boards etc.)

• Many talented people, many people who lost their jobs, many people who want a better job: Twitter has it all. Especially in this economy, job is a precious commodity, so if that is what you can provide, you have the potential to be one of the most popular kids on the Twitter block .

 TRAVEL related entities (hotels, motels, B&B, car rentals, airlines etc.)

• Everybody travels, so everybody on Twitter can use your services. Considering that there are more than 75 million Twitter accounts, this means some serious business!

 FOOD related entities (restaurants, fast-food places, bakeries etc.)

• We all have to eat (especially here in the U.S. food is a religion), thus millions of people your business can feed!

 LOVE related entities (online dating services, marriage counselors, wedding planners, photographers etc.)

• Most people either have someone special or they look for someone special. Either way, all people need love in their lives, so there is audience of 75+ million people that you can make fall in love with you and your business!

 EVENT related entities (event promoters, nightclubs, bars, festivals etc.)

• People are social creatures, hence the success of social media. People come to Twitter to socialize, network, meet new people, connect, have fun – sounds just like the audience that would be likely to go out and have fun, right?

NEWS related entities (magazines, newspapers, TV stations etc.)

• There used to be the time when people woke up, picked up the newspaper and read it while eating breakfast or commuting to work. Today, most people begin their day with ogling their cell phones and laptops and many head to Twitter to stay on the top of things. Since anything big spreads virally on Twitter within seconds, Twitter has become the preferred news channel for many.

To sum things up, if you have a company, I recommend being active on Twitter, period. However, if you own or run the company that falls into the category I mentioned above, not being Twitter-savvy costs you a lot of money every day!! The opportunity cost that you are paying by not taking the full advantage of Twitter is huge. Do you have doubts? Connect with me and I will prove you wrong!     

Yours XOXO Lucie

www.linkedin.com/in/luciehys 

www.twitter.com/onlinefantastic

www.facebook.com/travelfantastic