Hotels are trying special rates for social media audiences. Good to customize your offer for the specific medium, like for Twitter!

So what’s all the hype about Wikipedia? Every middle schooler knows… if you want to reserach something– start with Wikipedia. You can add any topic to the site which has rapidly become the world’s online encyclopedia. Shoppers won’t really go to the site to research specific travel options, however it offers a great resource for unusual stay options… It features unique properties such as treehouse hotels, cave hotels, underwater hotels, snow hotels…. So if your hotel has a unique stay experience, load it up!! This is a free channel that also offers a great opportunity to boost search ranking with links back to your website.

Club Med is smart… before jumping 100% into social networking, they developed www.clubmedinsider.com with great opportunities for travelers to share tips, photos, videos and other information that future travelers might find valuable. Testing the concept, they are asking for feedback and even asking visitors to report bugs. Great use of your social network to test a concept!

Your online press releases can be one of the best tools for building content relevance for your website and linking.  Each press release should have keywords optimized or linked back to your website.  For example, key words like “luxury London hotel” should link directly back to your About Us page on your website.  Link hotel descriptions, target audiences, packages, etc.  The links will help your hotel rank higher on Google searches.

If you’re going to take the time to develop an online presence, make sure you let your audience know where they can find you.  The bigger your community list, the more expansive your network and the more options you give to potential “fans.” You’d be surprised how many people are on more than 3-4 social sites … enable them to interact with you from their preferred network.

Target customers will need you to hold their hands more firmly in the short term, even though your service quality has remained constant. Keep up communications so your guest relationship is strong when recovery kicks in. More on this from Harvard Business http://tinyurl.com/ca2u6m

If you have not discovered www.mashable.com, now is the time.  If like me, you are feeling behind in the hip world of social media, this site is for you. It is a great resource for how to, why to, and when to.  The information is the most current on the web by the most savvy social network gurus.  You can even connect via Twitter, Facebook, or anyother social site you want.

That is the question some forget to ask. Feeds are created to share information across the web but some have some small print. Feeds, including weather feeds, are offered with almost one click ease to include on our own websites but are we allowed to display this?

Frequently it requires us to evaluate if the site is commercial or not. Are our blogs commercial sites? Or, are our blogs on hotel sub-domains even considered separate sites? And if we want to have it on the hotel property site which weather feeds would you use?

Whatever web analytics package you are using, make sure it is set-up correctly to record numerous conversion metrics. 

Regularly review and more importantly act on the data and information that you receive from the reports to increase conversion, quality traffic and customer experience.  Doing this will increase the effectiveness of you website to maximize the potential for conversion that each visitor to the website has.  Learn to understand what the reports mean for you and your hotel and what actions should be taken as a result of the information gleamed.

Using such data can also allow you to evaluate the success of various Internet marketing efforts that you are carrying out.  Proactive analysis and action based on your web analytics can offer a real edge over your competitors.

Be Smart with the data, you could be upset that time spent on your website has gone down.  But if bookings have gone up, then the pathway to conversion could have been made easier which is a positive result.

Include a Guest Feedback area on your website that you “police”– guests will be far more trusting and willing to use your property if you are brave enough to include this.