I wrote a post last week about the importance of ensuring that your hotel is receiving frequent reviews. In that post I explained that the TripAdvisor Popularity Index algorithm takes into account the amount of new reviews being generated, in addition to the score, so hotels that want to rank higher need to have recent, good reviews. I also explained the danger of having bad reviews fester on your hotel's front page on OTAs or [...]

Today Facebook announced that it has acquired nextstop, a service that allows users to browse and create their own local guides and recommendations. There is speculation that Facebook is only interested in acquiring the team (which hails from Google) and doesn’t care about the user-generated content that it has amassed. It is common knowledge that Facebook is preparing to launch location services to compete with Foursquare and Gowalla so many think this team would do [...]

The other day a client expressed his frustration with Priceline reviews. He is in the habit of using reviews to address operational issues and he was frustrated that Priceline didn't allow him to publicly respond to reviews or follow up with reviewers for more information. He said, "What good is it for me to read a review that states a bed is lumpy if I can't fix the problem because I don't know what room [...]

 As brands look to identify and reach key influencers, a key trend is developing that takes into account a person’s influence among his/her peers. Just look at Twitter to see why influence is important.  First, most brands follow more people than they can realistically keep up with. Second, the Twittersphere is so active that it’s virtually impossible to manually gauge author influence and the relative impact of individual tweets. Enter Twitter ”Clout” (aka influence). Twitter [...]

Last week's Wall Street Journal article about hotels monitoring Twitter to the delight of guests got a lot of buzz. Granted, I work for a technology company in Silicon Valley and the vast majority of the people I work with have already embraced social media and developed strategies for monitoring their brands and engaging with customers, but is there really anything controversial about brands adopting new ways to improve their service levels? This morning ehotelier.com [...]