Web 2.0 is no longer considered an ‘innovation’. It’s a standard. The internet is now a place for sharing and social interaction. The smartest businesses in the world are using this social interaction to their benefit - through blogs, streaming video, and online communities, where people come together to trade links, ideas, and information 24 hours a day. There’s a good chance that your hotel can benefit from marketing through social media.

Blogs have become one of the most effective ways to connect with internet users. A blog is a regularly updated web page where a writer or writers post articles for personal or business use. As a hotel, a blog is a way to keep your guests up to date on the latest happenings of your hotel or the hospitality industry. It is this informal setting that ‘conversational marketing’ occurs, and relationships are built with your public.

Here are some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your blog:

• Build relationships with other bloggers. Check for blogs similar to yours and try to connect with them, through direct email or comments on their blog posts. Doing so can open up a whole new venue of traffic to drive to your own blog.
• Spread your blog content in various ways. If you are using your blog to market your hotel, then you want your blog content to be viewed in every way possible. Two ways to do this are through an RSS subscription and an email alternative. An RSS subscription allows one-click subscribing to your blog, and the reader will then be notified of new posts through an RSS reader. An email alternative would email the latest posts to the reader.
• Offer valuable content on your blog. Your blog should not just be a thinly-veiled glorified advertisement, it should provide valuable, useful information that equips your reader with information about your hotel and/or destination.
• Don’t be the only one doing it. What about your employees? Why not train and encourage them to blog, either on your website or on a personal site - the first hand experience can be very beneficial to any company. For example in additional to you General manager blogging about your hotel, why not have your Concierge blog about upcoming events in your destination? Have a well respected Chef in the kitchen, share some of the Chef’s signature dish recipes in a blog.
• Measure your blog’s traffic. Pay attention to what your readers are reading most, and offer more content similar to it.
• Couple your blog content with your email newsletter. Crossover content brings greater exposure to both forms of online media, which your hotel can only benefit from.
• Podcast. Whether audio or video, experiment with podcasting. Start out once a week and gauge the response. In many cases, it can drive more traffic to a blog. We have our own podcast which we produce and distribute on a monthly basis.
• Add social bookmark links to your blog. Many social bookmarking sites and communities encourage users to share their favorite posts, articles, and pages with others. Offer them the opportunity to share yours.
• Tag your posts. Be organized. Make searching for information easier on your site. The more user-friendly it is, the more popular it will become.

While blogs continue to rise in influence and popularity, a well-produced or clever online video can spread like wildfire. While many businesses may not benefit from streaming video, there are plenty of products and services today that can generate a lot of business from it, including hotels. Here are some ways to do it:

• Provide an embeddable web version of your video. This is automatically done through the major video websites (i.e. YouTube, etc.). If hosting on your own, then you need to make sure that you can do this. For your video to pop up on other blogs or social networking sites, you need to give your viewer the ability to embed it onto their sites using an HTML code. Many video services offer ‘one-click’ sharing as well, to further ease the process.
• Stream live video. Depending on your needs and intentions, a live video stream may be useful if done correctly. Services such as uStream.tv and Mogulus can help you set this up.
• Use video to complement your text. Text on your web site and blog can only be helped with video. Experiment using video interviews or press releases (Chef, General Manager or Concierge….even past guest interviews). Augmenting your text with video gives your site a personal touch that viewers appreciate.
• Experiment with different lengths and formats. There is no magic formula to video success. You need to experiment a little. Try filming something humorous. Maybe do a long, informative piece. Either way, experimenting is how you find out what works the best.

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