In the era of smartphones, social media, and instant connectivity, the digital age has transformed the way we live, work, and interact. With the rapid increase or growth of online platforms, individuals and businesses alike are constantly under the scrutiny of a global audience. In this landscape, the concept of online reputation management (ORM) has become paramount. ORM is a strategic necessity for navigating the complexities of the digital realm and enhancing the value of customer relationships. 


Understanding Online Reputation Management:


Online reputation management is the practice of crafting and maintaining a positive image for individuals, businesses, and brands on the internet. It involves monitoring, analysing, and influencing online information about an entity to shape public perception. In the digital age, where information spreads rapidly and lingers indefinitely, a tarnished online reputation can have severe consequences.

The Impact of Online Reputation:


1. First Impressions Matter:

 In the digital age, first impressions are often formed online. Whether it’s a potential employer, client, or customer, people are likely to search for information about individuals or businesses before making decisions. A positive online reputation creates trust and credibility.


2. Search Engine Influence:
Search engines often prioritise content based on relevance and user engagement. A positive first impression, such as a well-optimised and informative website or positive reviews, can contribute to higher search engine rankings, making it more likely for users to find and trust the entity.


3. Trust Building:
Trust is a cornerstone of a positive online reputation which can be earned by establishing a trustworthy and credible first impression that can foster a sense of reliability and encourage users to engage further.


4. Swift Decision-Making:
Online users tend to make quick judgments based on the initial information they come across. A positive first impression can capture their attention and encourage them to explore further, while a negative one may lead them to disengage immediately.

5. Consumer Trust and Loyalty:

- Consumers today are more cultivated than ever as they rely on online reviews, testimonials, and social media to make informed decisions. A strong online reputation builds trust and fosters customer loyalty, driving business growth and potential.


6. Brand Image and Credibility:
Trust and loyalty contribute to building a positive brand image and credibility. When consumers trust a brand, they are more likely to view it as reliable, honest, and capable of delivering quality products or services.


7. Social Media Impact:
Social media platforms amplify the impact of both positive and negative experiences. Trustworthy and loyal customers may share their positive experiences on social media, helping to enhance a brand’s online reputation. On the other hand, negative experiences can quickly spread and harm a brand’s image.



8. Search Engine Ranking:
Search engines consider user reviews and overall sentiment in determining search rankings. Positive reviews and a strong online reputation can improve a business’s visibility in search engine results, attracting more potential customers.



9. Crisis Management:
With the speed at which information travels online, a crisis can escalate quickly. Effective online reputation management includes proactive measures to mitigate potential damage and a strategic response plan in case of a crisis.


Speed of Information Spread:

Information, whether accurate or not, can spread rapidly online that can cause a crisis within minutes, reaching a global audience which could be challenging to recover from. Certain precaution should be taken at all costs to avoid the possibility of any negative information being spread out. Therefore, Effective crisis management allows for a swift response to control the narrative and mitigate the impact on reputation.



Competitive Advantage:

Effectively managing a crisis online can become a competitive advantage. Companies that handle crises transparently and responsibly may enhance their reputation in the long term, differentiating themselves positively from competitors.



Vulnerability to Viral Content:

Viral content has the power to shape public opinion. A crisis can become magnified if negative information goes viral. Crisis management helps in addressing and managing the content flow to prevent the situation from escalating any further.

Components of Effective Online Reputation Management:

1. Social Media Presence:

Active engagement on social media platforms is crucial. ORM involves maintaining a consistent and positive presence, responding promptly to comments and reviews, and addressing customer concerns transparently.

2. Content Strategy:

Creating and promoting positive, relevant, and high-quality content is key to shaping online perception. This can include blog posts, press releases, and multimedia content that reinforces a positive narrative.

3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):


• ORM and SEO go hand in hand. Optimising content for search engines ensuring that positive information ranks higher, reducing negative content lower in search results.


4. Monitoring and Analysis:


• Regular monitoring of online mentions, reviews, and social media conversations is essential. Tools and analytics help in tracking sentiment, identifying trends, and addressing issues before they escalate or occur. 


5. Building Online Assets:


• Developing a strong online presence through websites, blogs, and social media profiles creates a foundation for a positive digital image. Consistency in branding and messaging across platforms is crucial that positively earns audience credibility.

Conclusion:


In the digital age, where information is accessible at the click of a button in every possible aspect, managing one’s online reputation is not just a luxury but a necessity to take it to the next level. Online reputation management is a continuous and strategic effort that requires vigilance, responsiveness, and a commitment to building and maintaining a positive digital presence as it’s always evolving. 


Whether you are an individual, a small business, or a multinational corporation, understanding and investing in Online Reputation Management is a proactive step toward success in the interconnected world of the internet and essential to reach the targeted global attraction.

The post Navigating the Digital Landscape: The Crucial Role of Online Reputation Management
 appeared first on GuestFlip.

Your guests are speaking. They are sharing their voice online about their experience in your property. Find the most raving reviews that make you and your team proud, and publish them. Where, you may ask? Well first of all, you could include some of the best reviews from happy guests in your website to convince other travelers to book direct. Reviews and photos from happy customers act as social proof and are trusted by internet users when they are considering booking with you. If you are worried about improving your online reviews and getting better scores, GuestFlip’s hotel review management tool can point you in the right direction.

You could also share positive reviews on your social media such as Facebook & Instagram. Make sure to create a nice visuals, as they perform a lot better. For Instagram try to make photos that aren’t text heavy. You can find a good balance by combining high quality pictures from your hotel with quotes from reviews. An example of that would be sharing a nice image of your pool, accompanied by a quote from a positive review on TripAdvisor.

#2 Use creative photography to spark travelers’ imagination

One of the best ways to tell your hotel’s story is through creative photography that manages to capture the essence of the experience. A photo of a cocktail next to the pool is not just that. It tells a story to the guest. And each picture should promote your hotel’s unique aspects. Your goal should be to excite & inspire new guests. Make them imagine staying and enjoying your hotel. And remember, the best picture is the one that manages to sell more, not the most artistic per se.

#3 Share moments on social media

Stay connected with your online fans by sharing moments on social media. New or even previous guests should feel like they’re missing out by not being there. Are you having a special event? Or is there a VIP guest who’s visiting your property? Make sure to upload captivating images so that any previous or new guest will feel at least slightly jealous for not being there. This creates a FOMO – Fear of Missing Out – which can be a great driver in getting new buyers.

#4 Uncover your unique positioning

In order to tell your hotel’s story efficiently you need to know and promote your strong points. The things that make your property stand out from the rest. Do you have a unique pool, or a location that’s unrivaled? Make sure to include this information in all your social media and OTA listings.
Are you unsure about the things that differentiate you? By using GuestFlip’s hotel review management software you can compare your property with your competition. This way you can see where you stand out and use this information to drive your hotel’s sales.

#5 Keep a consistent brand voice across media

Create your own unique way of speaking to your online family, to your guests. Ideally, you should keep a consistent voice on all your media. This way guests can get to know you. They can relate more. And this will translate to increased loyalty across your properties.

By using all these tips and keeping a consistent brand voice for your hotel across all channels, you will be able to get more from your hotel’s online presence.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

If you’d like to do more with less and kickstart your Hotel Reputation Management, book a demo with us.

The post 5 ways to tell your hotel’s story and build your online presence appeared first on GuestFlip.

1. Increasing your direct bookings from Instagram

We see more and more hotels focusing on creating engaging visual content to reach more people through Instagram. Instagram is home to more than 500 million users so by reaching more people on the platform you can create awareness for your brand, increase your follower count and drive traffic to your site to get more direct bookings. In order to get direct bookings through Instagram you need to do 3 things effectively:

• Increase your follower count & overall reach
• Drive traffic from Instagram to your website and convert them
• Measure and optimize this cycle

How to increase your hotel’s follower count

Getting more followers for your hotel is not always an easy task. It involves creating content, engaging with your audience and finding ways to reach new people. But just reaching new people is not enough. It’s important to create a targeted audience that is interested in your property and engages with your content. What do you think is more valuable? Having 1.000 loyal followers who like your content or 10.000 followers who are somewhat indifferent? The answer is quite obvious, it’s better to have a targeted audience and build from there.

There are several ways to increase your hotel’s follower count on Instagram, and this is something that we will analyse even more in further articles. But two of the key things to get more followers for your hotel are to create quality content and to engage with your guests, which are both briefly explained below.

How to produce quality content for your hotel’s Instagram

I understand that it’s tough to create quality content for your Instagram page that your guests will enjoy. It’s hard to find ideas and to capture & edit nice pictures. But it’s also the only way to highlight the amazing things that stand out in your property and get people to engage with your content. In order to find ideas for new engaging content you have to look no further than what your own guests are posting. Monitor what guests post on your location, hashtags and mentions and take note of the most performing content to get new post ideas.

You can then either ask your guests for the right to post their content (User-generated content) to your own page if the quality is good and the image contains something that you would like to highlight in your own page. This way you can get free content without having to go through the whole process of capturing and editing new images. The more impressive thing is that multiple studies have shown that user-generated content performs better than branded content, so it’s important to include UGC in your Instagram content strategy.

Of course, it also makes sense to produce your own content so that you promote anything that you’d like to but make sure to monitor what works well on a large scale so that you can capture an image at a great spot, find the perfect color combination and use the right hashtags to reach a larger audience.

Engage with your guests

Guests who post their pictures of your hotel publicly will be happy to hear from you in a comment. This is a process commonly known in the marketing space as Community Management. It’s important to engage with the customers who post pictures of your property in order to improve loyalty, get e-word-of-mouth followers for your own instagram page and show your appreciation for guests who post content that promotes your hotel.

By commenting on your guest’s posts, you’re likely to get new followers from their follower list who may be your future guests as their friend’s image acts as social proof that your hotel is a great place to be in. In order for your comment to be seen by as many people as possible, it’s important to engage with content as quickly as possible. Remember to keep your comments short and maintain a very friendly and positive tone. Most of the times, posting an emoji that’s relevant to the image posted or a short thank you message is more than enough.

Measuring total reach

As in anything else in the marketing space, it’s important to measure and analyse your instagram marketing efforts so that you can find ways to improve and reach even more people. You should keep track of the total number of posts that mention or contain your property, so that you know how much content is generated by users. As a byproduct, you should also measure engagement on your own posts but also your guests’ posts so that you can identify great content and to measure how much other people enjoy the visuals from your property. When reaching a more advanced level you can also track user sentiment in comments across all content so that you can have more qualitative data regarding your content which allows you to hone your instagram marketing strategy even more.

Converting instagram fans to bookings

There’s only one place on Instagram where you can drive traffic to your own booking engine and that’s the bio link on top of your profile. In order to convert your instagram following to bookings your site needs to be mobile optimized. If your site is not mobile-optimized, then much of your hard-earned traffic will go to waste. On special occasions such as promotions, you can create posts and drive traffic to specific landing pages, just be sure to update the bio link.

Verified profiles (blue-tick) with more than 10.000 followers, can add calls-to-action (CTAs) to their instagram stories and redirect users who swipe up from stories to specific links. Reaching this milestone will help you convert more of your instagram followers to newsletter subscribers or guests.

2. Designing Mobile-First Experiences

Most users in 2019 use their mobile phones for just about anything, from bank transactions to booking their travels.  With so many travelers using their handheld devices to book their stay, it’s no longer an option to offer a subpar experience for mobile users.

Converting customers in a mobile-first world

In order to convert your website’s visitors to guests in a mobile-first world, your website needs to be easy-to-use and highlight your best content. You need to have a responsive website that adjusts to your user’s device size, ideally it should work great in smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. A lot of times, a responsive website is just a narrowed-down version of the full width website which is not a great strategy. You should work closely with the company or employees who maintain your website and work on a design that highlights your best content on all screen sizes.

Offering a seamless and integrated booking experience

The same rules that apply to your website in terms of usability and highlighting your most converting content apply to your booking engine as well. So at a minimum, your booking engine should also be mobile-friendly. If you want to take it a step further and improve your conversion rates, you can also look at booking engines that offer a seamless and integrated booking experience. What does that mean? It means that your users are not redirected to a separate page to complete their booking. Instead, they can select rooms, dates and complete every step of the checkout process within the website while maintaining a consistent experience.

You can take a look at Liquid by Bookwize as an example of an integrated booking experience

3. Adapting to Voice search

Multiple studies show that voice search will amount for 50% of Google searches in 2020 and as smart speakers and digital assistants are growing this is projected to increase even further.  What does that change for you? It means that you need to adapt in terms of SEO to rank better for queries using voice search.

Ranking for long-tailed searches

Voice searches tend to be more conversational and are usually longer than typical searches. This means that while a user would type “pet-friendly hotel London”, when using voice search they’re more likely to use a more natural and vocal way of searching, like “which hotel is closest to manchester airport”.  In order to rank for queries like these, the content in your website needs to respond to these questions.

In order to experiment with more questions and vocal search I recommend trying a tool called AnswerThePublic

Optimizing your hotel website for voice search is not just a trend, it’s necessary to start preparing. As voice recognition algorithms are constantly improving and voice assistants are used more you will need to adapt to stay ahead of your competition.

Final thoughts

As we all know, it’s hard to compete with OTAs and their huge marketing budgets. Investing and monetizing the media that you own such as your website and social media pages needs to be a core part of your direct bookings strategy. Luckily, creating authentic content, engaging with your guests and winning their hearts is something you have a lot of control over and it will reward you by improving brand awareness and loyalty.

About GuestFlip

With GuestFlip you can view all your reviews in one dashboard and use our automated response builder to create personalized responses in a matter of seconds.

Closely monitor your competition using our competitive intelligence tool and set goals to improve your overall ratings. Rapidly react and engage with your guests in a fraction of the time.

The post Hotel Digital Marketing: 3 strategies to increase your direct bookings in 2019 appeared first on GuestFlip.