] Among small lodging properties it has been common to refer to TripAdvisor(“TA”) as “the 600 pound gorilla.” While this term recognizes the enormous influence of the review site with prospective guests, it is not usually intended as a compliment. Instead it is meant critically, implying some measure of unfair treatment by TripAdvisor (B&B’s have historically been difficult to find on the site) and sometimes by reviewers (differences of opinion, sometimes remarkably so, can be readily seen by scanning the reviews of many properties).

One of the most popular posts on About the Inn over the years has been a post on how to add a booking form to your Facebook page. However, this has frustrated many, as it requires a bit of cut-and-paste code, and only works for some booking engines. Finally, Facebook has made a move in the right direction, adding a booking button for everyone! Our friends over at Acorn Internet Serviceshave a blog post with step-by-step instructionsand screenshots.

It’s the classic conundrum, isn’t it? We know we need to market to raise awareness of our brand, or to simply be found by those searching for lodging in your area. But resources are very limited, so you need to get the maximum return on limited marketing resources. Time and Money Then there is social media. You have a Facebook page and you post frequently and interact with guests (if anyone ever responds!

Earlier today Mike Blumenthalposted on his Local Search blogabout the latest changes to Google+ Local Business pages and Google+ Pages (I know, half the problem is that they named them so similarly!). After sharing Mike’s Google+ post about the Google announcement, there have been a few questions about what, if anything, innkeepers need to do next. What has been the status quo? There has been a long series of changes, big and small, in Google’s listings for Local Businesses – name changes, function changes, merging pages, and more.

Most innkeepers seem to have an awareness of a need to present a consistent marketing message. They want their website to appear uniform from page-to-page. They want their blog to look like their website – even if it is hosted separately. They want the style of their newsletters or their booking engine to match the style of their website. Going a bit farther, maybe they even want their Facebook page, Google+ page, or other social media pages to resemble their website theme.

We received word over the weekend that a very, very, dear friend, colleague, innkeeper, and wonderful person had passed away on Friday. She was a very private person, despite being an outgoing, warm and cheerful innkeeper. She and her husband made everyone feel at home in their lovely Select Registry B&B, where the rooms are comfortable, home-made cookies were always available, and breakfast was always delicious. Because she was so private, she asked that people not be told when, very unexpectedly, she was diagnosed with a rare and fast-acting cancer.

Just over 2 years ago we posted instructions for creating a booking form app for Facebook. That method used Facebook’s FBML app as its base. Of course, as some readers have noticed, Facebook later discontinued the FBML app (existing apps based on it continue to work, but no new apps are permitted to use it), so it is time (past time, some might say) to update the steps using newer methods that Facebook allows (at least as of this writing!

Transitioning from our recent posts on measuring social impact with Google Analytics and Using Google Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels, we presented a webinar for the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII) discussing ways to measure the results of using social media, and tools to help make the best use of your time. The presentation is below, with general commentary (not a transcript) below. What is our objective? Without defining a goal for social media, we can’t really tell if it is of any value.

A month ago Google’s Analytics blog announcednew social media reports in Google Analytics. Last week they discussed how to use them, and analytics experts have been posting similar articles ever since. If you’re thinking this is the same “Social” report that measured “Engagement” and similar items (under the Audience tab in the new Google Analytics), it is not. This is an entirely new section, located under the Traffic Sources section, and has far more information (and more useful information) than the Social reports in the Audience section.

Mainstream news and social media blogs have been filled with articles on Facebook’s new Timeline for Brands (available now, but mandatory by the end of March, 2012). So why another article? This post is designed to provide a simple guide to the steps you need to take to get ready, and to do a good job of it, without getting bogged down with all the “nice to have” extras, or full feature lists, that others have reviewed.

We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about Pinterestlately, but surprisingly little of it comes from within the Innkeeping community. I say it is surprising, because Pinterest seems almost as if it was made for innkeepers – it is easy to use (we jumped in for our Freeport Maine B&B, and were happily pinning awayin minutes), plentiful graphics grab the attention of the visitor, and it is so addictive that users stay connected for a long time.

This week’s post is a guest post from David Mitchell. David is the founder of webmarketing4hoteliers.com– a website dedicated to B&B owners and Inn Keepers serious about ‘getting more beds filled’ and ‘making more money’ through effective marketing on the internet. For those seeking ‘how to’ information on QR codes, you may want to look at our article on getting started with QR codes. B&B marketing can be quite a challenge as the competition is always tight no matter what star rating a B&B has or in what country it’s located.

Closing the circle in this series on the process guests use to book lodging properties is what WIHP Hotel Marketingcalls the Second Moment of Truth – the arrival of the guest at your property. We have already discussed the four-step booking decision process, how the guest becomes aware of your property (the Discovery or Stimulus step), how guests make the decision to visit your website (the Zero Moment of Truth), and the process of deciding to book with your property (the First Moment of Truth).

This is the fourth article in a series examining how B&B guests proceed through the decision process for booking a stay. Based largely on research from WIHP Hotel Marketing, the first article describes the four-step process for booking, the second describes how a guest discovers your property, and the third examines how to provide information to get the guest to your website. This article discusses how to get the conversion – to capture the booking – once the guest has come to your site.

Our first post in this seriesprovided an overview of how guests find and book a lodging property, based on research from WIHP, a hotel marketing agency. The four step process assumes the future guest has selected a destination area and then proceeds through the steps of (1) discovery of a particular property, (2) seeking information about the property to see if it is a good prospect (the zero moment of truth), (3) the guest on your website (the first moment of truth), and (4) the guest at your property (the second moment of truth).

In our previous post we introduced the four step process (identified by WIHPa hotel marketing firm) of a guest finding, and staying at, a lodging property, then feeding the beginning of the cycle again by telling others. In this, and the next few posts, we will break down the components and see how you can more effectively help future guests find you. As a refresher, the four steps are Discovery or stimulus (where the guest learns of a hotel and gets interested) Zero moment of truth (the guest begins to research the hotel) First moment of truth (guest finds the hotel website and begins to determine if this is what they want), and Second moment of truth (guest arrives at the property and is either happy or disappointed – which will sometimes result in that reaction being shared) We’re going to focus on the first topic in this article: How does a prospective guest discover your lodging property?

A few of you may have noticed that we seem to have taken a bit of a hiatus over the past several weeks. In fact, our Freeport Maine Bed & Breakfast had a very busy summer, and there wasn’t much time for About the Inn writing. Now that our busy summer and fall foliage seasons are behind us, it appears things will be back on a more even keel, and we hope to be able to publish more regularly.

Perhaps you saw the articlesa couple of weeks ago, indicating that Google had officially announced that its Google Analytics product was now able to track social media interaction. As the linked article mentioned, this is a welcome addition to the built-in capability of the Google +1 button to track clicks. However, this bit of news was soon overshadowed by all the buzz surrounding the (as yet, despite being enormous, and frequently discussed) beta of Google+ – the new Google social platform.

Yesterday Google announced that the +1 button is now available for any website to use (just like a Facebook ‘Like’ button, or similar buttons). It raises two questions: Should you be using it? How do you use it? Both questions are easily answered – though most articles on the topic have not really dealt with them as much as emphasizing the “buzz” (no pun intended) or the absence of a “need” for another “Like” button.

Will your failed effort to repair your online reputation sink your business? Stories about bad (and occasionally good) reputation management efforts have become all too common. Still, businesses often don’t get it. You can run, but you can’t hide! You can’t avoid the impact to your reputation by staying away from social media – you just don’t know what’s being said about you (whether positive or negative). We all make mistakes, so the best thing to do is plan how to deal with them.

The Maine Innkeepers Association Educational Seminar for April, 2011, was held on April, 28, 2011, and the subject was Social Media – Beyond the Basics. We gave a brief presentation on Facebook: Beyond the Basics, emphasizing engagement and mentioning, to a lesser extent, optimization and measurement. Here is the video (transcript below): Transcript: Hello, this is Scott from AboutTheInn.com. This is a short presentation from on using Facebook, that’s beyond the basics from an event on Social Media put on by the Maine Innkeepers Association that was held on April 27, 2011.

Many B&B’s, small lodging properties, and other small businesses have taken advantage of Facebook to reach their clientele, and have made themselves look very professional doing so, with custom pages on their Facebook page. Most of these custom pages were built using Facebook’s FBML app, which was quite feasible for developers, but somewhat intimidating for the non-technical person. In early February Facebook announced that they would be eliminating the FBML apps on March 11, 2011 (though existing apps will not be removed, thank goodness!

Yet another Facebook change! After the “accidental” slip of Facebook pages a few weeks ago cause so much uproar (navigation moved to small text on the left side of pages, no more ability to designate the landing tab, etc.), we suspected that a major change to the appearance of pages was about to appear. Last night it did. Page admins will have received an email telling them about the wonderful new “features” and encouraging the admin to switch to the new layout now.

First some background – if you already know what this is about you can jump ahead to the how-to section. Many (perhaps most?) businesses these days have a Facebook page (once known as a fan page), where those interested can “Like” them, and interact with the business. Not too long ago Facebook added Place pages. These are not quite the same as Google’s Place pages, but have much in common with them.

Recently the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII)asked me to do a webinar on building a dashboard to aid in online reputation monitoring. I had read a really good article on the topica year or so ago, so put some of that information to good use, added a bit of my own, and created the presentation. The presentation (slightly adapted) is below. One note from the audio (which isn’t included) is that at the time of the presentation the TweetBeep.

What is Google Instant? Search results while you’re typing. Not the little drop-down thingie that anticipates what you’ll type, but actual results (complete with local map, for appropriate searches) that change as you type. See the screen shot below for an example. Notice that while the user has typed in “bed and” Google suggest has added “breakfast” and the search results are for the full term “bed and breakfast”. If you change the third word to bath, the results change.

In recent weeks others in the travel and tourism industry have been highly critical of review site TripAdvisor for various shortcomings in its administration of its online lodging reviews (and other reviews, as well). The concerns expressed are world-wide, not simply the complaints of a few, in a small part of the world. This post is an attempt to gather and synthesize the concerns, to try to identify the core problem, and to suggest improvement.

As review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and others, supplemented by the more specifically-targeted sites like the bed and breakfast directory reviews, become so very important to small lodging properties, Google did not miss out, and began adding reviews from many of these sites on their “Place Page” (formerly Local Business Center) for the business reviewed. Google’s next step was to add the ability to review a property directly on the Place Page.

Not so many years ago, as the use of the internet technologies was maturing, there was a lot of talk about the leveling of the playing field, allowing the smaller businesses to compete with the larger. You don’t hear so much about that, these days. As businesses of all sizes have turned to internet marketing and social media to build relationships with customers and potential customers, the scales have reverted to the same imbalance as in traditional marketing.

Amid all the frenzy of keeping up with Twitter and Facebook and now Foursquare and YouTube and Blogging and sorting out which directories to list on, and responding to the never-ending flow of emails from directories telling you to hurry and post your latest specials for this month, your latest photos, your latest hot deals, your best recipes and oh, yes, did you remember that you actually have a business to run?

When you think about it, attempting to provide security in a medium (social media) where the objective is to share (at least to some degree) personal aspects of your life, doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that Mark Zukerberg of Facebook famously declared that privacy is dead. But is it? Should it be that way? Even with Facebook moving the goal posts every few weeks, and changing the way you control access to your data, and sometimes defaulting to very poor choices, you still have some opportunities to control what you share outside your circle of friends (real friends, I mean, not just Facebook “friends”).

As if you haven’t heard enough about getting started with Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and you need to claim your Google Place Page (formerly Local Business Center listing), here we go again, with more changes to the way we market our businesses. Those who are on Twitter will have noticed that the web pages for posting have recently shown a link asking if you want to add your location to your posts.

What holds you back from using social media (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, or others) to market your property? We’ve address some of the barriers in earlier posts (see, for example, What Good is Social Media?, or click the Social Media link in the tag cloud below right), but another barrier is time. One of the commonly asked questions is, “How much time do you spend on social media?” The answer is (and should be) different for different people.

We’re used to seeing Google link (in the so-called organic search engine results pages – SERPs) to our home page, and sometimes to other popular pages on our lodging web site. But wouldn’t it be great if they linked directly to your availability or booking page? Well, now you can have them do just that (though not from the SERPs – for that the page is on its own for establishing popularity)!

Last week Google announced that its Local Business Center pages would be called Place Pages, and that they had added several new features to them. Now they have followed that up with an announcement that Place Pages now have a mobile version, at least on Android phones (such as the Google G1, Motorola Droid, and several others) and iPhones. Before this announcement, smartphones with good web browsing abilities could see much of the standard Place Pages, so in that sense this isn’t an earth-shaking announcement.

Today Google announced its new “Google Places” program– which is a new name, and several new aspects, for its Local Business Center. While many things will remain the same, there are some important new additions being rolled out gradually. These could have quite an impact on businesses – especially smaller lodging properties. A few weeks ago Google signaled the beginning of this change, by calling the Local Business Center listing a Place Page.

This post describes a Facebook app that uses FBML, which is no longer permitted for new apps on Facebook. The updated post, using static iframes, is located here (posting June 5, 2012). Some innkeepers frequently question the value of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, as being too time-consuming, all entertainment, annoying, or simply not producing any return on the time invested. We recently came across an idea from a large hotel chain that many bed and breakfasts can put to work immediately.

A few weeks ago, at the Professional Association of Innkeepers International (PAII) annual conference in Austin, Texas, we did a presentation called Managing Your Online Reputation. If the ideas expressed there (guests posting video, reviews, photos, etc., on Facebook and other social media sites before even leaving the property) are not enough to motivate you to take some steps toward monitoring what is being said online about your business, perhaps this latest scam will.

First effort at liveblogging -coffee: check; power plug: check; table: sort of… This is the Thursday morning, March 11, “Challenge the Experts” session with PAII’s Executive Director Jay Karen, Eric Goldreyer (former owner of BedAndBreakfast.com), Carol Edmondson or Innkeeping Specialists, Tim Brady(introduced as internet guru) of 40 Putney Road B&B, and Ellen Grinsfelder of the Inn and Spa at Cedar Falls, moderated by Dave Hiler of Hiler Hospitality. First, we start with announcements and a story about a horse dying (it’s Texas).

Even as many B&B’s and small lodging properties are jumping on the social media bandwagon, experimenting with Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and many other social media avenues, a sizeable number of innkeepers are digging in their heels, figuratively at least, objecting that there is little evidence that participating in < put social media network here > actually provides real reservations. So, when all is said and done, is there any measurable return on investment (ROI) from social media?

A recurring concern that I hear from innkeepers is how to understand all the different online marketing opportunities, and how they can be used profitably. Though the conversation often starts with Facebook or Twitter, it also encompasses other social sites such as MySpace, Plurk, and many other communities. It also includes YouTube, Vimeo, and other video sites, WordPress, Blogger and other blogging sites, delicious, StumbleUpon and other bookmarking sites. The list can go on and on.