The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Bordeaux are in. Below you will find a list of the top ten hotels in Bordeaux, according to client feedback online.

Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings aggregate guest reviews from the world’s leading review sites and online travel agencies into a single index, making them an industry-standard benchmark for online guest satisfaction.

Table: The Top 10 Hotels in Bordeaux

Click here to download the Bordeaux Top Hotel Rankings report




Questions about these rankings? See our FAQ for answers.
We will be publishing Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for more cities across the world over the next few months, so check back to see which hotels make it into the top ten.

About the Global Review Index ™ Top Hotel Rankings
Originally piloted in 2011, these B2B rankings are calculated based on guest reviews from more than one hundred of the most relevant review sites and online travel agencies (OTA) and evaluate reviews for 3, 4 and 5 star hotels over the course of a 12-month period. The ranking are based on the Global Review Index ™ (GRI), a proprietary algorithm developed by ReviewPro in conjunction with leading hotel industry experts. It enables hotels to know their current quality score, track their performance over time and compare their online reputation to their competitors or to other hotels within their chain with a single index. Currently, the Global Review Index ™ is being used both as a key internal metric and to establish online reputation objectives for thousands of hotels around the world. Please see our FAQ for more information.

About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry. We aggregate hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 70 countries, including some of the most recognized hotel brands in the world, rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include Alila Hotels & Resorts, the Cavendish London, Citizen M Hotels, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, Epoque Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels, Hotusa Hotels, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Melià Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, Occidental Hotels & Resorts, the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the Roger Smith Hotel and Swiss-Belhotel International.

Visit http://www.reviewpro.com for more information.

Contact
press@reviewpro.com
+34 93 452 0069
http://www.reviewpro.com

The post The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Bordeaux appeared first on ReviewPro.

The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Glasgow are in. Below you will find a list of the top ten hotels in Glasgow, according to client feedback online.

Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings aggregate guest reviews from the world’s leading review sites and online travel agencies into a single index, making them an industry-standard benchmark for online guest satisfaction.

Table: The Top 10 Hotels in Glasgow

Click here to download the Glasgow Top Hotel Rankings report




Questions about these rankings? See our FAQ for answers.
We will be publishing Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for more cities across the world over the next few months, so check back to see which hotels make it into the top ten.

About the Global Review Index ™ Top Hotel Rankings
Originally piloted in 2011, these B2B rankings are calculated based on guest reviews from more than one hundred of the most relevant review sites and online travel agencies (OTA) and evaluate reviews for 3, 4 and 5 star hotels over the course of a 12-month period. The ranking are based on the Global Review Index ™ (GRI), a proprietary algorithm developed by ReviewPro in conjunction with leading hotel industry experts. It enables hotels to know their current quality score, track their performance over time and compare their online reputation to their competitors or to other hotels within their chain with a single index. Currently, the Global Review Index ™ is being used both as a key internal metric and to establish online reputation objectives for thousands of hotels around the world. Please see our FAQ for more information.

About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry. We aggregate hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 70 countries, including some of the most recognized hotel brands in the world, rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include Alila Hotels & Resorts, the Cavendish London, Citizen M Hotels, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, Epoque Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels, Hotusa Hotels, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Melià Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, Occidental Hotels & Resorts, the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the Roger Smith Hotel and Swiss-Belhotel International.

Visit http://www.reviewpro.com for more information.

Contact
press@reviewpro.com
+34 93 452 0069
http://www.reviewpro.com

The post The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Glasgow appeared first on ReviewPro.

The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Lyon are in. Below you will find a list of the top ten hotels in Lyon, according to client feedback online.

Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings aggregate guest reviews from the world’s leading review sites and online travel agencies into a single index, making them an industry-standard benchmark for online guest satisfaction.

Table: The Top 10 Hotels in Lyon

Click here to download the Lyon Top Hotel Rankings report




Questions about these rankings? See our FAQ for answers.
We will be publishing Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for more cities across the world over the next few months, so check back to see which hotels make it into the top ten.

About the Global Review Index ™ Top Hotel Rankings
Originally piloted in 2011, these B2B rankings are calculated based on guest reviews from more than one hundred of the most relevant review sites and online travel agencies (OTA) and evaluate reviews for 3, 4 and 5 star hotels over the course of a 12-month period. The ranking are based on the Global Review Index ™ (GRI), a proprietary algorithm developed by ReviewPro in conjunction with leading hotel industry experts. It enables hotels to know their current quality score, track their performance over time and compare their online reputation to their competitors or to other hotels within their chain with a single index. Currently, the Global Review Index ™ is being used both as a key internal metric and to establish online reputation objectives for thousands of hotels around the world. Please see our FAQ for more information.

About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry. We aggregate hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 70 countries, including some of the most recognized hotel brands in the world, rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include Alila Hotels & Resorts, the Cavendish London, Citizen M Hotels, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, Epoque Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels, Hotusa Hotels, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Melià Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, Occidental Hotels & Resorts, the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the Roger Smith Hotel and Swiss-Belhotel International.

Visit http://www.reviewpro.com for more information.

Contact
press@reviewpro.com
+34 93 452 0069
http://www.reviewpro.com

The post The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Lyon appeared first on ReviewPro.

The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Liverpool are in. Below you will find a list of the top ten hotels in Liverpool, according to client feedback online.

Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings aggregate guest reviews from the world’s leading review sites and online travel agencies into a single index, making them an industry-standard benchmark for online guest satisfaction.

Table: The Top 10 Hotels in Liverpool

Click here to download the Liverpool Top Hotel Rankings report




Questions about these rankings? See our FAQ for answers.
We will be publishing Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for more cities across the world over the next few months, so check back to see which hotels make it into the top ten.

About the Global Review Index ™ Top Hotel Rankings
Originally piloted in 2011, these B2B rankings are calculated based on guest reviews from more than one hundred of the most relevant review sites and online travel agencies (OTA) and evaluate reviews for 3, 4 and 5 star hotels over the course of a 12-month period. The ranking are based on the Global Review Index ™ (GRI), a proprietary algorithm developed by ReviewPro in conjunction with leading hotel industry experts. It enables hotels to know their current quality score, track their performance over time and compare their online reputation to their competitors or to other hotels within their chain with a single index. Currently, the Global Review Index ™ is being used both as a key internal metric and to establish online reputation objectives for thousands of hotels around the world. Please see our FAQ for more information.

About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry. We aggregate hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 70 countries, including some of the most recognized hotel brands in the world, rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include Alila Hotels & Resorts, the Cavendish London, Citizen M Hotels, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, Epoque Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels, Hotusa Hotels, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Melià Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, Occidental Hotels & Resorts, the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the Roger Smith Hotel and Swiss-Belhotel International.

Visit http://www.reviewpro.com for more information.

Contact
press@reviewpro.com
+34 93 452 0069
http://www.reviewpro.com

The post The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Liverpool appeared first on ReviewPro.

In case you haven’t already seen links to them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+, here is our hand-picked selection of recommended readings this week:

Hotels Aim to Attract Foodies Traveling on Business
Farm-to-Hotel Dining
By Martha C. White

Hotels look to Social Media to Increase Revenue
Social media’s influence on hotels set to increase
By Travolution

What Hoteliers don’t want you to know
By Jacob Tomsky

10 Hotel Secrets from Behind the Front Desk.

Want more followers? Then learn how to use content marketing in a flexible way.
20 Tips On How To Use Content Marketing Creatively
By Gary Fox

Don’t get lost in the SEO mis-information minefield
Back to basics with hotel search engine optimisation
By Special Nodes

The post Online Reputation and Social Media Management for Hotels: Recommended Readings of the week – May 17th appeared first on ReviewPro.

In case you haven’t already seen links to them on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+, here is our hand-picked selection of recommended readings this week:

Consumer, Context and Content
3 keys to Activating an Audience with Smarter Content
By Ben Straley

The Truth is in the Numbers: 2013 is Undoubtedly the Year of Three Screens in Hospitality
Delivering a customized and user-friendly experience across three screens
By Max Starkov



Social media has opened up a whole new world of opportunities to engage with our customers like never before, bringing greater risks.
What to Do When Customers Trash Your Brand Online
By Jim Joseph


Social media has had a disruptive effect on the travel industry and hotels are struggling to accommodate it. Where should you channel limited resources, and what kind of results can you expect?
Free Seminars in London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and Madrid!
By Edwina Dendler

Why do Hotels Sell Non-Refundable Rates?
Are Guests Willing to Pay for Cancellations?
By Jean-Pierre van der Rest and Bjorn Arenoe

The post Online Reputation and Social Media Management for Hotels: Recommended Readings of the week – May 10th appeared first on ReviewPro.

Social Media and Web Marketing for Hotels:
Driving Higher Guest Satisfaction and Revenue

Social media has had a disruptive effect on the travel industry, and hotels are struggling to accommodate it. Where should you channel limited resources, and what kind of results can you expect?

In this free seminar brought to you by ReviewPro and WIHP, hotel marketing experts from North America and Europe will show you how to prioritize resources, measure results, and drive higher guest satisfaction and revenue.

Topics include:

• The Trend: How social media has transformed traveller behaviour and why online reputation management has become a critical function for hotels.
• Web Marketing: The role of social media, OTAs and your website in the traveller’s path to booking decisions.
• Online Reputation Management: How to monitor, respond to and generate reviews and use online feedback to optimize guest satisfaction and revenue.
• Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, online travel agencies and review portals: where to focus resources and what results to expect.
• The Tools: The latest technology for managing and tracking results in web marketing and reputation management.
• Q+A Panel Session: Your chance to ask the experts.

Who should attend?
This invitation-only seminar is for hotel executives, owners, directors and managers of sales, marketing, revenue and eCommerce, and any individuals responsible for social media and hotel marketing.


Space is limited – Request your seat today

Headline Speakers:

Daniel Edward Craig, Founder, Reknown

Based in Vancouver, Daniel is a former hotel general manager and a leading expert in social media and online reputation management in the hotel industry. His articles are published worldwide, and he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, including TripAdvisor Master Classes across North America. Visit www.reknown.com for more info.

Martin Soler
Martin is the VP Marketing and Sales of WIHP (World Independent Hotels Promotion) an experienced marketing professional since 1995 with an education in PR and print advertising. Martin has been a hotel general manager for several years before joining WIHP and specialising in online hotel marketing.

Speakers and Sponsors
ReviewPro enables hoteliers to increase guest satisfaction and online revenue by more effectively managing their online reputation and presence in leading social media sites. The company provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and reporting needed to help hotel professionals more effectively manage their organization. ReviewPro aggregates hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in 35+ languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms.

WIHP is an online marketing agency for hotels focused on high return on investment campaigns. Through extensive technology development, tracking and big data analysis WIHP has become a leader in the field of online marketing for hotels by providing hotels with the tools and marketing strategies that drive direct bookings. Working with hundreds of hotels in Europe and around the world WIHP has a unique global view of hotel booking trends and paths and adapts marketing campaigns to generate the most bookings at the best possible price. ) Visit www.wihphotel.com for more information.

The post Free Seminars in London, Paris, Rome, Barcelona and Madrid! appeared first on ReviewPro.

New York – March 7th – ReviewPro, the online reputation and social media management market leader for the hospitality industry, announced today that it has entered a partnership agreement with TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site. This agreement means that ReviewPro becomes a certified partner of TripAdvisor, allowing the company to gain official access to traveller reviews, ratings and Popularity Index rankings of properties from around the world.

This collaboration gives ReviewPro clients the ability to monitor TripAdvisor reviews in more than 20 languages. ReviewPro, an international leader in online reputation management analytics, allows both independent hotels and large chains to track and compare their online guest satisfaction performance on TripAdvisor alongside user generated content from hundreds of other online travel agencies and social media platforms.

According to RJ Friedlander, CEO of ReviewPro, “Given the role TripAdvisor has played in changing the consumer travel planning process, we are excited to enter into a partnership with TripAdvisor. This partnership will provide hotel managers and executives, as well as hotel management companies, with unparalleled analytics for understanding what their customers are saying on TripAdvisor and to leverage our easy to use, but powerful tools to increase guest satisfaction”.

“There is a direct relationship between the rankings of our hotels on TripAdvisor and our financial performance,” said Adele Gutman, Vice President Sales, Marketing & Revenue at the Library Hotel Collection, whose hotels occupy 4 of the top 10 positions on TripAdvisor in New York City. “ReviewPro’s analysis and customer intelligence is helpful to continually improve our service, operations and product. The tool makes it easy to track and analyze feedback from our guests that speak a multitude of languages and share their experiences on TripAdvisor and other social media sites.”

About TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site*, enabling travelers to plan and have the perfect trip. TripAdvisor offers trusted advice from real travelers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with more than 200 million unique monthly visitors**, and over 100 million reviews and opinions. The sites operate in 30 countries worldwide, including China under daodao.com. TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

*Source: comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, January 2013
**Source: Google Analytics, worldwide data, March 2013

©2013 TripAdvisor, Inc. All rights reserved. 

SOURCE TripAdvisor

About ReviewPro

ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry, aggregating hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. One of Wired Magazine’s hottest startups of 2012, and winner of PhoCusWright’s Travel Innovation Summit as the emerging technology most likely to change the industry, ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 80 countries rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include the citizenM Hotels, Library Hotel Collection, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels Group, Louvre Hotels Group, Meliá Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, and Swiss-Belhotel International. Visit www.reviewpro.com for more information.

The post TripAdvisor and ReviewPro Partner to Provide A Better Review Management Solution appeared first on ReviewPro.

The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Rome are in. Below you will find a list of the top ten hotels in Rome, according to client feedback online.

Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings aggregate guest reviews from the world’s leading review sites and online travel agencies into a single index, making them an industry-standard benchmark for online guest satisfaction.

Table: The Top 10 Hotels in Rome

Click here to download the Rome Top Hotel Rankings report




Questions about these rankings? See our FAQ for answers.
We will be publishing Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for more cities across the world over the next few months, so check back to see which hotels make it into the top ten.

About the Global Review Index ™ Top Hotel Rankings
Originally piloted in 2011, these B2B rankings are calculated based on guest reviews from more than one hundred of the most relevant review sites and online travel agencies (OTA) and evaluate reviews for 3, 4 and 5 star hotels over the course of a 12-month period. The ranking are based on the Global Review Index ™ (GRI), a proprietary algorithm developed by ReviewPro in conjunction with leading hotel industry experts. It enables hotels to know their current quality score, track their performance over time and compare their online reputation to their competitors or to other hotels within their chain with a single index. Currently, the Global Review Index ™ is being used both as a key internal metric and to establish online reputation objectives for thousands of hotels around the world. Please see our FAQ for more information.

About ReviewPro
ReviewPro is the leading international provider of online reputation and social media management solutions to the hotel industry. We aggregate hundreds of millions of social media mentions, in over 35 languages, from hundreds of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), review websites and social media platforms. ReviewPro provides the analysis, customer intelligence, competitive benchmarking and automated reporting needed to help hoteliers more effectively manage across their organizations. Thousands of hotels in more than 70 countries, including some of the most recognized hotel brands in the world, rely on ReviewPro to better understand and improve guest satisfaction and to profit from the social web. Clients include Alila Hotels & Resorts, the Cavendish London, Citizen M Hotels, Concorde Hotels & Resorts, Corinthia Hotels, Epoque Hotels, 1895 Historic Hotels, Hotusa Hotels, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, Louvre Hotels Group, Melià Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, Occidental Hotels & Resorts, the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, the Roger Smith Hotel and Swiss-Belhotel International.

Visit http://www.reviewpro.com for more information.

Contact
press@reviewpro.com
+34 93 452 0069
http://www.reviewpro.com

The post The Global Review Index™ Top Hotel Rankings for Rome appeared first on ReviewPro.

Q: How to measure ROI on Social Media for hotel industry?
Q: How much should the social media investment be for a hotel?

Now this was a popular question. Above all social media is an awareness and engagement channel, and it’s difficult – though not impossible – to quantify results. The exception is reviews, which can be measured and benchmarked with the help of a reputation management tool like ReviewPro. Managing reviews is the number one priority because there’s a direct connection to guest satisfaction and revenue.

As for the amount of resources to invest, that will depend on the results you wish to achieve and the resources available. There’s no magic formula. Social media can be time-consuming, so it’s important to be disciplined and to not allow it to distract you from marketing activities that generate higher ROI.

See my recent article on Measuring ROI in Social Media. If you are a ReviewPro client the accompanying webinar is available via the Learning & Support Center.

Q: Which are the best ways to improve my ranking on TripAdvisor?
Another popular question! TripAdvisor doesn’t reveal all the ingredients that go into its popularity index algorithm, but there’s really no mystery here: quality experiences generate positive reviews and ratings.

TripAdvisor does disclose that three factors have the highest influence on rankings: quality, date (the more recent, the greater weight) and volume. So to improve ranking you must generate a steady volume of positive reviews and do it better than other hotels in your destination. How? By consistently exceeding expectations. No sweat, right?

See How to Generate More Reviews, Likes and Followers on the Social Web, the follow-up Q&A blog post, and, for ReviewPro clients, the accompanying webinar in the Learning & Support Center.

Q: Are customers using TripAdvisor as a price check tool as well as a review site? How important is it as a price check?

As I discussed in the webinar, TripAdvisor is getting such a huge volume of traffic and such a targeted audience hotels that aren’t paying for Business Listings (including the mobile option) might want to look again. A compelling Special Offer can drive a significant volume of direct bookings.

My feeling is that most people visit TripAdvisor to read reviews and use online travel agencies to compare pricing and features. A recent Cornell study of booking behavior on Travelocity found that visits to TripAdvisor increase in frequency closer to the time of booking. This suggests that many travelers narrow down choices on OTAs first and then check out reviews to make a final decision.

I’ve spoken to many hotels that have enjoyed strong direct bookings through TripAdvisor’s “Show Prices” cost-per-click program. It’s available to large brands direct or, for independents, through marketing agencies like ReviewPro partners WIHP and HeBS.

Q: How do I raise my rankings for searches in the city in which it’s located?
Now this is a big question and an area of expertise for digital marketing companies like WIHP. Raising search engine rankings takes time, expertise and a good product. In the webinar we discussed how maximizing visibility and online requires a combination of earned, owned and paid media.

Rather than compete on popular, expensive keywords like “Hotels in Paris”, which are dominated by OTAs and big brands, focus on long-tail phrases that play to your unique attributes and location, such as “boutique hotel Montmartre”.

Check out Trends in Hotel Marketing: Social Search, Utility Marketing and Converged Media. Digital marketing agency Buuteeq also has an excellent blog with all sorts of helpful advice on online marketing.

Q: Is having greater number of reviews better for SEO? Even if it is negative feedback, for example?

Reviews now play a role in search results, although we don’t know exactly how or to what extent. Companies used to be able to trick search engines into thinking that any content showed importance and relevance, but search engines have gotten smarter, and sentiment is now part of algorithms. That means negative reviews are not likely to help rankings. And even if they fool algorithms, they won’t fool travelers.

That said, most reviews are housed on review sites like TripAdvisor, and even a widget on your website will not have SEO benefits for your site.

Q: We have four hotels in our group. Would it be better to have a separate Facebook page for each hotel or one for all of them?

I think it’s more effective to have a separate Facebook page for each property, in part because people connect more with individual properties and staff than with brands or hotel groups. There are also advantages for the new Graph Search and Nearby tools, as discussed in the webinar, because many features are location based. That said, administering four pages can be a lot of work. I would only do it if you have the time and resources to do it well.

Q: How to develop social media so that it becomes a team effort that is an extension of who we are in every respect?

An excellent question. It starts from the top, and requires buy-in from all staff. Check out For hotels, winning at the reputation management game means taking a team approach and the follow-up Q&A blog post. ReviewPro clients can access the accompanying webinar in the Learning & Support Center.

Q: Is Facebook becoming oversaturated with advertising and creating a negative perception?

There’s a lot of talk about “Facebook fatigue”, and yes, the advertising is annoying. Yet the network shows no signs of slowing down. Facebook is a public company now and needs to make money, and the greatest potential lies in advertising. Advertising is a reality of any “free” application, but it’s a fine balance between pleasing advertisers and turning off users. Unless a better option comes along, Facebook isn’t likely to disappear soon, and new features like Graph Search, Nearby and targeted advertising options make it much more relevant as a marketing tool for hotels.

Q: Your opinion for placing a booking button on Facebook page?

It won’t hurt to have a Facebook booking widget on Facebook, but don’t expect a lot of direct bookings. People don’t go to Facebook to shop, they go to socialize. That said, Facebook has been working hard to become more of a commercial vehicle for brands. Recently the company appointed a head of travel, Lee McCabe, a sign of the importance of the travel segment.

If you can get a booking widget installed and maintained at a reasonable cost, go for it. But also consider amplifying earned media efforts with paid media by advertising on Facebook. Sponsored Stories, Offers and Custom Audiences are three advertising options worth exploring for hotels.

Q: What are a hotel’s rights when it comes to replying to false guest reviews in order to correct hotel image and restore reputation?

Many reviews sites, including TripAdvisor, Google Places and many OTAs, allow hotels to post a management response and dispute a review. You’ll be required to provide proof and there’s no guarantee the review will be removed, so post a response to respectfully give your side of the situation too.

See ReviewPro’s Guide to Responding to Reviews as well as my article How to Respond to Challenging Reviews. If you’re a ReviewPro client, view the Responding to Reviews webinar via the Learning & Support Center.

Q: Why do you think users prefer mobile optimized booking engines over apps to make reservations? Is it because they don’t want to download and install an app just to book?

In a nutshell, I’d say yes, because the app experience is better than the mobile web experience. Apps are a closed, controlled environment, whereas much of the web is still designed for large desktop screens and therefor a frustrating experience on a smart phone or tablet.

But travelers don’t want to download an app to make a reservation, unless they’re a frequent guest or the app offers other features that save time and money. For this reason, our guest presenter, Vikram Singh of Evision Worldwide, says the priority for most hotels should be a mobile compatible site rather than an app.

Apps offered by OTAs, big brands and sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google Maps are popular because they allow travelers to easily compare features, reviews and rates among hotels. So a key part of managing your mobile presence, says Vikram, is to test multiple devices and to ensure content on popular third-party sites is optimized for mobile.

Special thanks to our expert panelist, Vikram Singh of Evision Worldwide, who can be found on the Words of Vikram blog.

Sign up for the ReviewPro blog to receive notifications of upcoming webinars.

The post Advanced Social Media & Online Reputation Management Webinar – Answers to Your Questions appeared first on ReviewPro.