A Quick Word about Social Media
There seems to be a trend among Marketing Experts to persuade hotels that they are losing large amounts of business if they are not 'Leveraging Social Media'.
We are open to persuasion on this topic, but we would say.
A. Hotels should have the 'basics' right before worrying about Social Media, ie Have a regular E Mail Campaign, be practising Demand Management, Using Online Travel Agents etc etc.
B. Social Media is a so called 'Deep Media' ie Not a one-off marketing advertisement, but rather an opportunity to build a like-minded community. In recent discussions one hotel customer expressed an interest in Social Media so long as no one could post derrogatory messages about them. This is to completely misunderstand what Social Media is all about.
Some of our hotels would have ready made 'communities' for Social Media, ie Food-Led Hotels, Equestrian Providers, Spoa Hotels. etc
We will revisit this theme in the future, but one of the more common Social Media websites is Twitter, we would see this as a good start for 'experimenters' as it is easy to set up and use.
Get yourself an account and start 'following accubook' at http://www.twitter.com/
Here are a couple of examples of 'Hotel Based' Twitter Accounts;
www.twitter.com/gotrekking
http://villarose.net/Article_Listings.aspx?tscategory_id=51&category_name=Twitter
Looking For Video?
Although many of our customers will be weary of us telling them that website design is not as important as they think (compared with other factors including content, product and information etc), we do believe the various figures that are banded about how so called 'rich media' (Videos and High Quality Photography etc) drastically improve the amount of people who land on a website and then book (conversion).
Video is often too expensive and too 'staged' for most people, but we were impressed by the value offered by these self created videos. In essence you upload the pictures, add the text you want 'voice-overed' and they send you back something like this.
http://www.webromtv.com/engine/PlayBack.aspx?Webrom=webroms/LIVEVideoetteService/hotels/shire_hotels
/cottons/cottons_example.xml&Scene=hotel_video
Prices quoted were 50€ Per Month, which seemed reasonable;. They are currently offering a special deal for orders before end of May. Contact seamus@webromtv.com (and let us know the results).
Some Online Marketing Resources
If you want to improve your knowledge of Online Marketing these three websites offer useful E Zines that you could sign upto.
http://www.highrankings.com/newsletter/subscription.php
http://www.hotelmarketing.com/
http://www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook
Reseller Training Day
AccuBook is having a Reseller Training Day on Wednesday May 13th for Web Designers and people working in the Accommodation Sector who might want to utilise the AccuBook Booking Engine and Channel Management Solution. VIEW DETAILS HERE
Previous Technical Bulletins
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