Pinterest

Chanters Lodge and Social Media

Inspiration
Yesterday I received this query on the Chanters Lodge Facebook page “Quick question: Is it possible to book two single rooms online and then pay on arrival at Chanters?” There followed an exchange of messages on Facebook which culminated in the following remark from the Guest: “Just booked a night’s stay in Livingstone through Chanters Lodge, Livingstone. Very prompt & efficient communication. A Zambian business using social media well. Kudos.” To which I replied: “We give discounts for bookings through Facebook and for Zambians and Zambian residents. It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s good value for money – Chanters Lodge, Livingstone.” We do not have an online booking system at the lodge, but pride ourselves on replying to booking enquiries within 24 hours – and usually much quicker than that, we have two internet service providers ensuring that we are very seldom totally offline – African internet is not great!

Here’s a general resume of our social media activity and the role it plays in our business:

Facebook
We have 734 likes on our Chanters Lodge Facebook page – I haven’t ‘gone chasing’ for a while but I will! I have 1885 ‘friends’ on my own Facebook page – we post pretty much daily on both pages – the whole idea is to market the lodge, but subtly without direct ads like ‘come and stay at Chanters Lodge’. We prefer to post pictures of Victoria Falls, talk about activities in which our Guests are involved, and post updates on our local radio show. As mentioned, we love to get reservations through Facebook and give discounts! One of the reasons we are so active on Facebook is that it is a very popular medium in Zambia and we would love to have more Zambian business.

Twitter
We have had a Twitter account (@livilodge) for a number of years and follow about 8000 accounts. We have a similar number of followers ranging from friends and family and pop music lovers, through Arsenal supporters, Zambian account holders and people involved with hotels and travel. I love Twitter – it’s a major source of immediate news apart from which you can find yourself talking to people all over the world about common interests. We have had plenty of reservation enquiries from Twitter resulting in confirmed bookings and once again we offer discounts for Twitter reservations. Why? Because we hope it will encourage people to book through this medium. It’s short, quick and immediate and it is, for a small lodge, another means of marketing. Most of our Twitter bookings have come from people in the travel trade or Zambians and we offer discounts to both groups anyway

Pinterest
Pinterest is relatively new but we have had a page (Richard Chanters) for about a year following a recommendation from a Guest. We have boards for the lodge, Victoria Falls, Zambia, family and the Zambezi as well as Africa and Random pictures. I have found it very useful when Guests ask for pictures of the lodge to be able to refer them to Pinterest – meaning the pictures of the lodge which appear on our website are supplemented on Pinterest. For example we recently pinned pictures of the bedroom renovations in progress at the lodge – photos we would not normally post on our web site as it is a work in progress. There are also photos of staff on that board. On Pinterest we have 198 followers and are following about 250 sites. I often upload photos from Pinterest to post on Facebook if the photos are beautiful or more often funny!

Blog
We have been blogging since 2006 – at one time we posted every day but these days usually two or three times a week depending on available material and time to write. These days our weekly radio show forms the centre piece of the blog. We write up the show with a photo of the Guests, reporting the subjects discussed on the programme and the music played – it makes a nice record for the Guests of their appearance on the show as well as keeping blog readers informed. The blog covers a multitude of other issues often involved with the hotel and travel business as well as some funnies. One of the presenters of our radio show, Kaufela, also provides material for the blog writing about Zambian musicians and the local music scene. Thanks to Edward Chanter our blog uploads straight on to our main website.

TripAdvisor
We estimate that some 80% of our accommodation enquiries are a result of potential Guests reading some of our more than 250 Trip Advisor reviews, mostly, but not all good. Once again the advice to ‘get on Trip Advisor’ came from a Guest. We are proud of the certificates of excellence awarded from that site in recent years. We respond to each and every review written in English and encourage Guests to write reviews on departure. Once again thanks to Edward, reviews upload unedited straight on to our lodge website.

Other
We post on to LinkedIn and Google+

17
FEB

0

accommodation, blog, Chanters, facebook, Pinterest, Socialmedia, Twitter

SEO

Great piece this from Mr. Larry Mogelonsky – CHA on Hotel Interactive on the importance of SEO. Though some dispute the importance, it is worth taking note!

“It never ceases to amaze me as to how many unsolicited emails my clients get from companies promising to do wonders for a hotel’s web site in terms of search engine optimization. Usually, these missives are well written in an onerous tone that has GM’s questioning their web site, their web agency, their director of marketing and usually all of the above. What’s a GM to do? Just how important is SEO, and can a “specialist” company really help? Above all, is there any value to the whole exercise in terms of true revenue generation?

First, some notes. This article focuses on Google, which at this current time processes roughly two-thirds of all search activity. For those who purchase Google Ad Words, these appear as sponsored links on the right hand side or top of the page and are not influenced by SEO tactics. Positioning your product in this arena, combined with SEO is called Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, and is a whole other discussion.

Why is SEO important?
If a person is looking for a hotel in a foreign city, doing a Google search is the easiest way to find accommodations. Surely every GM knows that this is not the only approach that a potential guest would undertake in their quest to find the perfect spot to rest their weary legs. But it’s typically the first. Other resources include travel agents, OTAs, Facebook, other social media, other travel sites, hotel chain sites and association sites such as Preferred, SLH, or Leading.

With so many methods to find your hotel, being in first place for a broad Google search is far from being the panacea to your occupancy challenges. In fact, it may be almost insignificant depending upon how relevant new customer search is to your marketing strategy. Certainly, it cannot hurt to be in the top two or three as a matter of search results, but it is not Armageddon if you miss this spot.

The rationale here is simple: the more “optimized” your site is, the more relevant it is within the Google search algorithm, resulting in a higher placement for all posted results. But Google rankings cannot be fooled! Don’t think that hiring some third party sales company can take you from an eighth ranked page to a top three position in a matter of days or weeks. It doesn’t work that way. Moreover, Google is wary of some tactics that these proverbial snake oil salesmen utilize and likely has algorithms that negate such surreptitious tactics.

Take the Initiative Yourself
A basic optimization strategy is quite easy to do internally. Review your web site as you do your property, both strategically and tactically. Here is a typical checklist of what you should look for before seeking external help.

    A flawless site, with clear text and no internal errors
    Correct and accurate tags (title, keyword, page and headers)
    Optimized images with photo alt tags
    Fully linked and active blog
    Fully linked and active social media (primarily Facebook and Twitter, but don’t forget Google Plus and Pinterest)
    Your URL registered for at least 24 months before it expires
    Active RSS feed
    At least one data collection form
    Clear navigation structure of indexed pages with sitemap files
    A number of quality in-bound links

16
DEC

0

blog, facebook, Google+, internet, management, marketing, Pinterest, Twitter

Managing Through Social Media

I enjoyed this one from Mr. Larry Mogelonsky – CHA, on HotelInteractive for you hoteliers out there!

“Here’s a marketing creed that was scribed into textbooks well over 30 years ago, back when I was an MBA student: People connect with other people, and not necessarily with businesses. For a long time, this wasn’t exactly feasible. Even in the hospitality world where personality is king, managers meeting customers on a one-to-one basis wasn’t always in the cards.

Nowadays though, sites like Twitter and LinkedIn are paving the way for a resurgence of quality communication from management directly down to the consumer. But look closely at this practice: nothing has really changed. Even with the leaps and bounds of electronic messaging systems, people still crave that personal touch.

Hence the title. Whenever, or wherever, you can get your guests to ‘meet the managers,’ you’re not only giving your hotel a real face, but drastically enhancing client retention. With this in mind, social media presents both a challenge and opportunity to accomplish this task.

The challenge is that managers have to commit themselves to a role in the public eye, albeit even when reluctant. People are the new brand; no longer just the hotel logo and top brass. What managers say on their personal online accounts is now intrinsically linked to their respective properties, whether for good or for bad. Luckily, many have already found the opportunity within this trend, harnessing these new channels to build stronger personal connections and grow their businesses.

Obvious from the introduction, embracing social media is imperative for this process, but a first step should always involve a trip to HR to see whose job descriptions might curtail social media responsibilities. From there the answer is in the specifics, so let’s go through a few choice techniques I’ve seen work in recent years.

When it comes to LinkedIn, every manager should have an account and join your company group. Although the site is chiefly for professional networking, it will open your staff to a worldwide forum for business ideas, emerging trends and potential partnerships.

Twitter offers a host of options for building these bridges. For your generic company account, only one or two people should be tasked with posting material, giving them space to add some zest and initialize direct messages. Next, talk to your managers about their own profiles and how they would use the site to converse with guests. The idea here is to form person-to-person connections; something much harder to accomplish when a guest converses with a faceless corporate account.

The prospects are good for Facebook, too. You can easily design a tab to introduce each manager (with a picture) or even build a custom fan page for each department and link them all to the main page. Managers should also be active participants on the wall, commenting on what fans are saying as well as providing original insights.

Blogging is the fourth big one here. Most blog content management systems allow you to designate regular columns authored by specific staff members. You’d be surprised how far the phrase ‘By XX Manager’ goes when at the end of an entry. Or, you could even run a ‘Manager of the Month’ editorial to highlight your team’s characters and fun stories.

The online possibilities are aplenty; even including video which I did not previously discuss. But to me, however, they are just a launch pad. You still have to find ways to squeeze in some face-to-face time for maximal efficacy.

To start, personalized greeting letters should be in every room; the power of a handwritten note working its charm. Seeing managers in the lobby welcoming guests is another powerful statement, especially when it comes to a VIP arrival or a group coordinator. A sharp uniform can exacerbate their presence, too. Beyond that, you have to get creative.

Look to what your hotel offers and to where staff might interact with customers. If you run a golf resort, how about a tournament where guests are paired with managers? Perhaps a manager could greet and eat with patrons at the lobby bar. How about a follow-up phone call after a guest has left? Not only are these personal, but they’re great avenues for constructive feedback.

So, what I suggest is you sit down with your fellow managers and discuss your strategy for heightening interactions with guests; both online and face-to-face in a winning combination. Have a plan and stick to it. Sure, it’s a lot of effort, but the rewards are definitely worth it.”

Good advice in my opinion!

11
MAY

0

facebook, hotels, management, Pinterest, Socialmedia, Twitter

Pinterest For Hotels

Mr. Larry Mogelonsky – CHA on HotelInteractive has this to say about Pinterest for hotels. You can find me on Pinterest at richardchanters. I use the site to post photos of Victoria Falls, the lodge, Zambia, wildlife, family and then random stuff that gets my attention. I love it! Anyway here’s the piece:

“Late last year, I was made aware of one of the newest and most interesting social media sites – Pinterest – and I was far from alone in this regard. Pinterest now holds the record for crossing the coveted 10-million-unique-visitors-per-month statistic, completed in November 2011, the fastest stand-alone website to do so in the history of the Internet. In fact, Mashable.com recently cited Pinterest as the third most popular social network in the United States, right behind the family names of Facebook and Twitter with 104 million users.

With all this fever, Pinterest is next to impossible for hotels to ignore. But, as always with social media, will an investment of time and money into this new website actually bear fruit? Or, will it be yet another cantankerous divergence of much needed human resources?

Set to a clean, minimalist design, Pinterest is a type of online scrapbook where members can ‘Pin’ visual media to their profiles, organized under a series of ‘Pinboards’. From there, it works much like Facebook and Twitter whereby you can follow other users and their Pins will appear in your newsfeed, leaving room for you to like, comment or ‘Repin’. Easy to grasp, Pinterest works almost as a system of anonymous recommendations, helping you find and share ideas based on common preferences. As well, members can utilize the ‘Tastemakers’ page when browsing for more relevant Pins or Pinboards. Pinterest integrates with Facebook and Twitter via a seamless notification system and a mobile version is already available.

So, how can hotels use Pinterest? Due to its photo-centric design, this social network can act as a valuable tool to increase inbound traffic to your website or Facebook page. All pictures shared on Pinterest contain a click-through link back to the source – all the more reason to upkeep your website with high quality photography. Guestsourcing is also a possibility, allowing you to Repin material from other sources to your Pinboards. Think of it as ‘curb appeal’ for your property. You give users of the site a sneak peak of what’s in store for when they visit your website, and hopefully, for when they arrive onsite.

For starters, the website is not a place to advertise your brand, but rather to express a certain lifestyle by posting interesting photos, offering suggestions to other members and, as always, engaging your audience through comments, likes and Repins. The modus operandi of Pinterest is that content drives conversation. You need to have good and current visual content to get people to notice you and drive traffic to an external website of your choosing.

But the difficulty is that this has to occur on a continual basis in order to achieve a desirable efficacy. Suppose you’ve chosen to use Pinterest to highlight three unique aspects of your hotel (that is, via three different Pinboards) including Cuisine, Décor and Weddings. Not only does this mean more work for your PR Department (or for whoever manages your social media), but also for the other departments who generate the content. It takes time and consistency to add real value to your profile. This will require your chef, weddings specialists and other managers to work in tandem with your web gurus to produce the necessary photography or videos for Pinterest as well as write their external host pages, rich keyword descriptions and links between your main site and other networks.

In short, the time adds up, especially when compounded by all the other social media which may be deemed as requirements for business these days. Due to Pinterest’s visual nature, it requires a full effort, both in terms of strategizing how you will distinguish your brand through various Pinboards and in upkeep. In addition to all this, the lack of direct analytics makes it difficult to measure results over a brief period. Moreover, there hasn’t been any significant evidence to suggest that the heightened brand awareness from Pinterest has any immediate correlation with increased activity on booking engines.

These negatives aside, Pinterest can be a winner for you if your property has a distinctive character already in place and the photography to boot. So, take a minute and think in terms of furnishings, crafts, architecture, weddings, spas, food, golf, gardening and other popular hobby topics. If you can add to the conversation in any one of these areas on a continual basis, then perhaps Pinterest is worth your time. But it nonetheless requires a significant investment and if you treat it as a blanket marketing solution, then your efforts will be in vain.