“Booby Mom” was Both Shocking and Awesome: Can Provocative Content Improve Print’s Prospects?

Did I have a problem with now-infamous boobsucking TIME cover? Not at all, but I was somewhat surprised by the brouhaha that surrounded the image of the “booby Mom” whose 3-year old was photographed standing on a chair suckling her boobies.  Does that sound so pornographic or rude? You’d think so based on the throngs of readers (and media outlets) who commented on the controversial cover, considering it pornographic. Really people? I was a lot more troubled by what was going inside TIME Magazine and the article about attachment parenting than the cover. Truly troubled.

But back to the image… “Booby Mom” has spawned an avalanche of coverage and launched much discussion, not just about “attachment parenting,” the actual subject of the TIME cover story, but about the ways in which magazines (like all print media), have taken massive hard-copy readership hits can use thoughtful, provocative content and social-media relationships with readers to boost revenues. A TIME spokeswoman told the New York Times that the cover helped that issue become the magazine’s best-seller so far this year and doubled the subscription rates for that week. Says a lot about the so-called disgust about a breastfeeding mom on the cover, right?

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that since around 2003-2004 newspaper and magazine circulation numbers have plunged as a result of the internet revolution. This got me thinking, as someone who pitches stories to media outlets for a living, about how print media can use provocation and button-pushing to help bolster their other ongoing efforts to slow the slide. Of course, a lot of the time provocative content gets shelved on the recommendation of the bean-counters who are afraid of offending anyone who might possibly buy a copy of the paper, or better yet, a subscription.

Let’s Face it, Bare Skin Sells… Is That So Bad?

And yet it is the most controversial messages that generate the most visceral reaction. Let’s face it, they are the messages that lead to water-cooler talk, arguments and coveted mindshare of brands.  If you’re old enough you’ll probably remember Demi Moore’s naked and very pregnant Vanity Fair cover in 1991.  The “decency police” went berserk denouncing the cover as obscene and generally gross. But like TIME’s “Booby Mom” cover, the Demi Moore cover is one of Vanity Fair’s best-remembered  and most imitated ad nauseam by celebrity women with a bun in the oven.

And then there was the The New Yorker, whose editorial staff must have been sweating (and likely second-guessing themselves) on the eve of the publication’s 2008 cover lampooning Fox News’ take on Barack and Michelle Obama’s onstage “fist bump” as a “terrorist fist jab,” bracing for the storm of criticism that followed.  That happens in lots of industries:  fear of offense and of reduced revenue discouraging unconventional or “risky” views.

Fear is contagious and all too soon there is nobody left who is willing to voice an idea that could be seen as too “out there.”

I’ve seen this with numerous clients I’ve dealt with throughout my career. It’s understandable, especially in the tetchy economic climate we’ve been living in for the past several years. And, when necessary, it’s been my role to poke, prod and nudge a nervous client to take a risk that ends up paying off. As someone whose business is to improve clients’ business, I know it’s important to encourage “outside the box” ideas because that’s where innovation comes from. When we push ourselves beyond our comfort zones we often end up succeeding way beyond our own expectations.

So kudos to TIME Magazine. Kudos to the “booby Mom” Jamie Grumet. And kudos to the other half of TIME readers who could stomach a 3-year-old nursing from his mother’s breast.

Of course, if we didn’t have that brouhaha in the first place, maybe I wouldn’t have written this piece to begin with. And that’s exactly my point.

Forget ‘Unfriended,’ Try ‘Unjobbed’ A Facebook and Twitter Posting Refresher. STOP OVERSHARING!

Every time I write a blog post like this I mutter to myself, “this will be the last time I’ll need to reinforce this message.” But each time I’m reminded of our collective short memories.

Whether it’s a cruise ship disaster off the Italian coast that generates a frigid corporate response, a “communications guru” for Groupon that tries to quell investor concerns by saying “Every three months, Groupon is a different company,” (wtf?) or the recent demotion of a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue captain for bigoted comments he posted on Facebook regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting, people in positions of power – or anyone for that matter – fail to remember some simple communications truths when it comes to expressing thoughts and ideas in a public space.

And it’s especially true when that public space is Facebook and Twitter.

But before I dig deeper into the recent Wall Street Journal article that inspired this post, let’s set down a few definitions and lay the groundwork for some ideas. People tend to take a schizoid approach to their handling of social media. Many consider Facebook and Twitter one part public forum to voice concerns and express joy over life’s great events and its trivialities, and part personal-echo chamber-cum-sounding-board. In other words, they use it as their personal diary – either through lengthy posts or 140-characters.

Readers, the time has come to seriously reconsider that approach.

Last week, Gene Morphis, the Chief Financial Officer at Francesca’s Holdings Corp., a Houston-based women’s clothing company, was fired after a series of what were deemed offensive postings. While it’s unclear if the article’s pull quote from Morphis’ Twitter page was Francesca’s final straw, it read:

“Dinner w/Board tonite. Used to be fun. Now one must be on guard every second.”

When it came to his job security, he wasn’t kidding. Morphis should have been on guard – and kept his opinions a lot more guarded and certainly to himself.

A Generation of Oversharers

Of course, privacy settings can to some extent ensure that Facebook and Twitter remain private mediums, meant to be within narrow circles of approved friends. But regardless, they are not or should not be viewed strictly as digital diaries. Dictionary.com defines “diary” as the following: “a daily record, usually private, especially of the writer’s own experiences, observations, feeling, attitudes, etc.” When it comes to the web, the phrase “usually private” could afford to lose one term.

Morphis had been the company’s CFO since October 2010. And for two years he really raked in the dough, earning $1.2 million in 2010 and $565,720 in 2011, according to the article. Why the half million drop is another story.  But earnings figures like that suggest that paychecks – even large ones – are no guarantee that a person is irreplaceable.

Social Media Ettitequte Lesson # 24: Don’t S@#! In Your Own Nest

The incident also serves as a reminder to PR professionals that as much as we help manage a company’s public message, it is not our responsibility to be everywhere and anywhere without a filter. Besides, policing people’s Facebook and Twitter accounts would be an invasion of privacy – even if social media has proven itself anything but private.

The lesson: People need the self-control and discipline to police themselves. So keep writing Facebook posts, keep Tweeting to your heart’s content, but be mindful of what you say. We may suffer from collectively truncated memories these days, but in the age of wireless information overload, news about sinking ships, racist commentary, and the musings of paranoid executives gets around pretty fast.

Speaking of short-term memory lapses, a quick check on Morphis’ Facebook page shows that as of Friday May 18, his employment status still reads: “Cfo · Oct 2010 to present · Houston, Texas.”

Didn’t he get the memo?

The rest of us sure did.

Your Brain on Facebook and Why Blogging is Going by the Wayside

Our ADD culture now shuns corporate blogging, favoring less time-consuming Facebook postings and that’s a shame. Paralysis by no analysis.

At 138 characters, the above opening to this piece would work as an effective tweet. It would also work as a brief Facebook shout out. Talk about the irony in blogging about how corporate blogging is going by the wayside.

Last month, USA Today reported that businesses who blog fell to 37% in 2011, down from 50% in 2010. The reason most commonly given for the blog blackout: blogging takes too much effort and (it does, I should know!), it’s not where customers are – they’re on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

So to answer my own question that frames this blog post – Facebook and Twitter aren’t killing bloggers.

Our need for instant gratification, insane levels of information overloaded, and our anywhere and everywhere mobile connected lifestyle is.

It’s incredulous to think of blogging as an antiquated medium already. But at the speed at which technology changes these days, it’s easy to see the blog as barely a step above traditional email. Just another thing to read, to add to the burdensome pile of daily to-dos…

Like I said, blogging does take effort. More than just aggregating other’s works or simply “curating,” successful blogging takes aggregation one step further, providing analysis and commentary – two functions that come right from the world of traditional print media. To a large extent, blogging takes the best of old school media and combines it with the zero production costs of web publishing and the ethic of instant and transparent content updating.

Does that mean every company should blog? No. It doesn’t. But for the ones that do, modern blogging should be viewed as an essential compliment to the faster and shorter paced world of Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Consider these mediums as “headline grabbers,” or teasers – ways to hook and link your audience back to your company’s website.

Considering that ThinkInk is among the 37% of companies that maintains their blog as both commentary and reaction to the ever-changing world of communications, our bias is unavoidable. And I’ll readily concede that blogging, tweeting and Facebook posting can all exist as un-tethered mediums, serving their own benefits. In fact, with brevity as the backdrop to this blog post, the 138-character opener served as an effective way to condense, trim and consolidate my thoughts, making for clean, crisp writing.

But sometimes, even in our mobile-enable, digital-frenzied world, people need to sit down, read a long newspaper article (in whatever medium) digest complicated, thought-provoking material and let the revelations that those works generate percolate and permeate their neurons.

Corporate blogging is hard work. So is going to the gym.

Brains, like our bodies, need constant workouts for them to remain in top shape and a steady diet of only social media probably isn’t the best for either.

Now was this 466-word article so damn hard to read?

Slow-Jamming Prez Is Height Of Cool

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily on 05/03/2012.

The first American president to appear on television was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Speaking at the opening of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, he declared the event “open to all mankind.” But for all Roosevelt’s TV-friendly oratory, it wasn’t until 1960 with the election of John F. Kennedy, historians argue, that television fully matured. Used with expert precision, Kennedy became our first “TV president.”

The same technological evolution can be seen with former president Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton may have been the first president to send an email, but it is Barack Obama, with his social media-savvy Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, that have allowed him to take top honors as the nation’s first “multimedia president.”

Too Cool for School? Not This Prez

It’s that media/tech-savvy distinction that allows Obama to connect with young voters –- better than even the saxophone-playing-Clinton once did. Obama’s presidential “cool” allows him license to use Kennedy’s favorite communications medium in new ways too. On April 24, Obama was the guest-in-chief on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” — where he joined the host in a bit called “Slow-Jam the News,” where current events are put to a relaxed R&B beat.

But humor was only part of Obama’s continuing call to cool. His presence was a superb lesson in public relations.

Obama took the opportunity to connect with Fallon’s college-aged and 20-something viewers to address an issue that is central to their futures -– student loans and mounting debt. The five-minute opener (with nearly 5 million YouTube views when I wrote this post) featured a smiling and hand-waving president who morphed into mocking seriousness. With a bluesy backbeat, the chief jammer began:

“On July 1st of this year the interest rates on Stafford student loans — the same loans that many of you use to help pay for college — are set to double,” he said. …“What we said [to congress] is simple. Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.”

The camera returned to a smile-suppressing Fallon, where he delivered the follow-up line in a raspy, deep voice. “Ooooh yeah. You should listen to the president.”

Public Relations 101: Stay On Message

With performances like that, who needs costly political ads or even stump speeches? Obama chose the student loan topic deliberately. Hours before the live taping, Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney began backpedaling when it came to his opinions on the “student loan crisis,” first tacitly endorsing the July 1 deadline and then breaking with Republican colleagues to support the president’s call to keep student loan interest rates in check.

Perhaps the Romney campaign would like to blame it on the leap year.

On February 29, at a campaign stop in Ohio, Romney answered a question from a law student that illuminated his position regarding student loans and the need for market forces — not public handouts — to determine the fair cost of financial aid.

“The right course for America is for businesses and universities and colleges to compete, and for us to make sure that we provide loans to the extent we possibly can at an interest rate that doesn’t have the taxpayers having to subsidize people who want to go to school,” he said.

That’s an opinion that speaks to the Republican base. But throw in his campaign advisor Eric Fehrnstrom’s Etch a Sketch comment about being able to rewrite political narratives once the general election gets underway and you’re left with a politician edging toward a John Kerry-style flip-flopper.

We still have a long horse race ahead in the game of presidential politics. But Obama’s smooth, humorous and televised quasi-Romney dig will continue to serve him well. Not only does the president rely on a host of media outlets to disseminate his message, he’s skilled at shifting his tone throughout events.

Obama understands that shifting tone is different than shifting message. We’ll have to wait and see if Romney has been properly schooled and if Obama can remember his own lessons come fall.

But for now, I’ll still agree with the Roots rapper Black Thought, who at the end of President Obama’s slow jam session called him the “POTUS (President of the United States) with the mostest.”

Indeed.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Marketing Daily on 05/03/2012.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Close Mouth-Mitt… PR Lessons Learned From a Crumbled Cookie?

Pop icon and singer Britney Spears’ second album may have been called “Oops!…I Did It Again” but it seems the 12 year-old phrase is getting a new lease of life in Republican hopeful Mitt Romney’s continuing saga of campaign trail gaffes.

Yes, oops he did it again! But at least his latest remark helps underscore some base public relations principals and makes for good blog post fodder.  Thank you Mr Romney.

The latest tongue-tie comes out of the Bethel Park community, a southern suburb of Pittsburgh, where at a recent a campaign rally/picnic, Romney hinted that the event’s sub-par cookies were coming from a 7-Eleven chain bakery. His humorous, though mildly condescending tone suggested local bakers bake better, more “authentic tasting cookies.”

Anyone following the story (which went viral as CookieGate) knows that Romney’s comments were a not-so-subtle nod to Republican Party basics: espousing the vitality and vibrancy of small business.

But that’s not how the cookie crumbled for “open-mouth-insert-foot-close-mouth-Mitt.” His jibe to the quality of 7-Eleven baked goods backfired in several ways:

1)      The offending cookies were made by a 57-year-old local bakery, which had been hired for the event.

2)      7-Eleven is not a bakery, a remark that has again sparked concern that Romney is out of touch with everyday Americans, who, while they make struggle through the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner, know exactly what their “local” 7-Eleven offers.

For Romney, this latest gaffe, like his Etch A Sketch comment a month ago, can’t easily be shaken off.

It also reinforces that effective public relations isn’t just about writing press releases – far from it. In fact we are constantly reminding clients that press release generation is in some ways, the least critical part of what we do. Managing a client’s message – in print, online, in person on Twitter and Facebook, and everywhere else their name and their brand are promoted.

Hindsight is, after all, 20/20, but isn’t it possible that a particularly on-the-ball communications whiz could have anticipated that their boss would try to inspire the small town business spark knowing that cookies would be served at the event? And if so, Romney could have turned that info into his advantage instead of spoiled dough.

By now, “CookieGate,” a week old and it’s entirely possible the Romney campaign will find humor after al. 7-Eleven’s PR team has already done that while the bakery is cashing in on its Internet notoriety by offering a “CookieGate” special: buy a dozen, get a half-dozen free.

Kudos….eerrrr…..cookies to them!

Considering that Romney gaffes are nearing bakers dozen regularity, it’s likely he’ll have plenty of time to improve his PR game before the big PR game heats up this fall.  And then we can talk about how the cookie crumbled.

Say Goodbye to the Chance Encounter: Because Pretty Soon They’ll Be None Left

Ambient sound…ambient lighting…ambient social networking….ambient what?!?!?

Aaaannnd screech goes my mental brakes. As a PR professional and one who’s in the business of crafting quality wordplay, I’ve come across many expressions and turns of phrase (excluding the one I’ve just employed and the one I’m about to use) that cause me to do a double take. But here’s a few really obscure inside-industry ones, just for laughs: “Monetizing the purchase continuum,” (five points to anyone who knows what that means), “Technologizing,” – a term that Microsoft Word underscores in bright no-idea-what-that-is red, or does anyone know the “Importance of having enough bandwidth to update ones content management system?” I sure as hell don’t.

So with these beauties (unfortunately) already in my verbal toolbox, the term “ambient social networking” had me on one hand annoyed – here we go with an other pointless phrase, but on the other hand, more than mildly intrigued.

Last week, CNN, in its article “The Scariest Tech Trend of 2012?,” chose “ambient social networking” as the scariest. For the uninformed, “ambient social networking” is the continuous broadcasting of an individual’s location via their smartphones. While older social media apps required you to “check in” in order to activate their location discovery function, a new breed of apps in 2012 will always be on in the background, hence the “ambient” terminology. Instead, you’ll have to remember they’re on in the first place in order to turn off or pause their friend-finding abilities. Some of the apps to look out for include: Sonar, Glancee, Ban.jo, and Highlig.ht, according to the article.

While technologies such as this raise important privacy issues, the development of ambient social networking shouldn’t come as too much a surprise either, and really might not be deserving of the “Scariest Tech Trend” title. Rather, for all the lip service given to concerns over privacy and hyper information sharing, a growing body of data suggests otherwise. Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way we Work and Live, rightly points out in his newest book that history is filled with examples of ground breaking communication advances –from Gutenberg’s press to the camera – that in their own time, in their own way, threatened to upset the prevailing social order, raising similar privacy fears in their wake.

What’s more, a recent study by McCann Truth Central, a subsidiary of McCann World Group, a global communications company, found that while 84% of people feel they have some or a total right to privacy, it also found that 71% are willing to share their shopping data online, 86% agree that there are major benefits in allowing that sharing, and less than half (49%), seek direct control of which parts of their personal data they share. In other words, in today’s internet-savvy world, privacy is no longer getting the top billing it once enjoyed.

So is ambient social networking likely to take over the world, turning us all into text-addicted and smartphone-suckered losers? I don’t think so. And maybe the chance encounter really will be in jeopardy before too long. But just think how many times a day, week, month, year etc. you find yourself saying something like, “I can’t imagine how people lived without a cell phone or the mobile internet.” Remember too, that for the bulk of the people making such exclamations, they’ve still spent the majority of their lives without that ability.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly we all adapt?

Seen in this light, the scariest tech trend of 2012 – and the years that follow – would be if something like ambient social networking didn’t come to pass. Neat communications expressions aside, we’ll have to see what other “scary” tech trends CNN comes up with next. As for me, I’ll be technologizing my bandwidth for future developments.

Groupon’s Dodgy Deal: Can a PR Blitz and Site Overhaul Save the Company From Itself?

When it comes to Groupon, the daily deals digital Mecca, my, my, how the dot com angels have fallen.

Even as a public relations professional who’s seen and navigated her fair share of client missteps, I’m a bit gobsmacked by how a company that less than two years ago snagged the front cover of Forbes magazine with the eye-catching title “Meet The Fastest Growing Company Ever,” has managed to have its PR rug so skillfully pulled out from under them. What’s especially noteworthy is that Groupon’s recent rotten deal has been entirely self-made.

For readers who aren’t up on the latest Groupon happenings, the company has for the past several months, endured a barrage of PR setbacks, helping re-write the company’s until-now spotless public narrative. Here’s the errrr…..deal: In 2011 the Chicago-based company was roundly sacked following a Super Bowl XLV (45) ad that appeared to mock the decades’ long Tibet-China conflict. A few months later, and just ahead of Groupon’s November initial public offering (IPO), the company that had since its founding been branded based on its hyperactive growth, had to slice its reported revenue in half due to questionable accounting practices. Tsk tsk tsk.

Even the company’s opening stock price, fittingly perhaps, came in at a bargain $20 compared to an earlier valuation that said the couponing site was worth $30 billion. Re-tweaked fuzzy math brought that value down to $12 billion.

And while the company’s NASDAQ stock as of this writing is hovering near its opening price, only down .2 percent, and they’ve managed to start the new year with no additional public relations faux pas – that is if you exclude their announcement last week of a 2011 fourth quarter loss of $9.8 million – a sense of Wild West mentality combined with deck-of-cards-like fragility (some would say Ponzi scheme) continues to deal the company a PR blow.

To be sure, Andrew Mason, Groupon’s 31-year-old CEO, isn’t going down without a fight. In the effort to build back its image as a leader in the online deal-a-day world where coupons attract customers to once-hidden brick and mortar establishments and where everyone wins, the company announced this week major revisions to its website. Among the changes includes adding “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” capabilities so that Groupon users can help the site be more selective when doling out its latest offerings. And in another striking move, Groupon announced the hiring of public relations veteran Paul Taaffe to better manage the company’s image. His arrival comes after only a two-month stewardship by Brad Williams, formerly of EBay Inc.

Whether or not Taaffe, 50, paired with Mason,31, is the right combination of relative youth and relative years remains to be seen. But the fact that his arrival comes after his predecessor barely had time to break in his desk chair’s seat cushion, more than even erroneous math or disgruntled business owners crying foul over the supposed Groupon “deal,” is the best indication yet, that Groupon might be sick. Very sick.

As PR professionals we are tasked with helping keep our client’s message on track, being consistent and accurate with the media, and when calamity strikes, honest and up front about our mistakes. But that hard work should always be predicated on a company that gets its facts and its story straight –before it goes public. To do anything less is like having one hand tied behind your back during a boxing match. Or if you’re a lawyer, having your client reveal a critical detail that could alter a defense only moments before opening arguments. That type of handicap serves no one.

There’s no denying Groupon’s had a tough year. And while it may be easy to say “what’s 365 days in the course of a life?” Groupon, much like its leader, is still very young, having just celebrated its third birthday. But if you’re three years old and already a third of your life has been troubled with a mixed marketing message, what does that suggest going forward?

Taaffe’s got a rocky road ahead of him, for sure.

Good press or bad press aside, Groupon and its thousands of employees and millions of dedicated users aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. But taming the daily deal beast just doesn’t seem like a job anyone should embrace and revamping a website is just not enough. Public Relations leaders can only craft a message so far. Too much spin and a message – and a company – can spin out of control.

Let’s see what happens next.   

Staking a Claim in Mobile Travel: Not Just Popular, Pragmatic and Profitable

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of TravelInkd’, originally appeared on Hotel Executive on 1/18/12. 

Mobile a Must: Pragmatic trumps popular

If 2011 for hotel owners was all about learning from and joining the mobile masses simply because it was the “in” thing to do for our tech-savvy patrons, 2012 is rapidly shaping up to be the year where mobile becomes a must. In other words, the mobile marketing landscape has rapidly matured and the training wheels are coming off. This coming of age can mean only one thing: The time for hotels to launch their mobile presence is now. Not after the post-holidays’ travel slow down, and not in the run-up to Valentines Day or the season’s first spring breakers.

Right now.

From Training Wheels to Two-Wheeler: Mobile Matures

As with other trends in the hotel industry, it is customers who are driving mobile’s niche-to-need changes. Today’s on-the-go traveler expects to be connected wherever they are throughout their trip experience and that connectivity is expanding at a staggering rate. Earlier this year, more than half of all mobile phone sales (56%) were smartphones, and the total number of US smartphone owners jumped to 82.2 million people this summer – that is 35% percent of the 234 million Americans who use mobile devices 13 and up. Think about that statistic for a few moments…

Even a lighthearted (but with serious implications) October 2010 survey by Mashable highlights just how connected consumers have become. When asked what they would give up to keep their mobile phones for a week:

• 70% said they would give up alcohol;
• 63% said goodbye to chocolate;
• And a combined 63% said they would consider doing without their toothbrush, shoes, or computers.

Considering those (rather shocking) expectations, it’s critical that hotels deliver. Hotels, as with other businesses, must go where their customers are going. Why? For one thing, the booking window, once a lengthy time frame where travelers corresponded with travel agents, business travel managers, and the like, has now shrunk considerably. Smartphones can literally book travel itineraries, price hunt, and check-in to a given hotel – assuming it has a sophisticated mobile platform.

But it’s more than just smartphone adoption rates. A recent survey by Greystripe, a mobile marketing company, found that 47% of iPad users who were considered frequent travelers (defined as a person who traveled at least twice a year) booked hotels via their mobile device, and were the most common mobile platform to do so, beating out both iPhone users and Android phones, the study found. So when I talk about the mobile channel, I am talking about tablets too.

And not to be outdone, TripAdvisor, a travel website and now travel app provider, announced in November a collection of 20 free Mobile City Guide apps (for 20 cities) that, in addition to point-by-point directions and general tourist information, includes hotel reviews. Some of the most downloaded cities include: Beijing, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and New York. If potential customers are relying on the these mobile apps to determine their booking choice, (even if they’re not booking through the app directly) it’s important hoteliers and their staffs get on board too, monitoring reviewer activity and having a system in place that incentivizes its customers to use said apps and write positive reviews, assuming they’ve had a superior experience.

Facebook, too, both in its mobile and desktop iterations, is becoming a vital space for digital commentary on travelers’ hotel experiences, which ultimately drive bookings and revenue. Some 30% of travelers who booked their hotel online said they would use the social networking site (as well as Twitter and LinkedIn) to comment on their hotel and trip. The study, by Milestone, a hotel marketing company, also showed that each social message posted by a guest drove five to six unique visitors to a hotel website.

Whether it’s apps, mobile websites, social media, or even the implementation of mobile phone-based digital room keys, (Open Ways, a mobile-based access management and security company, announced its launching of “Mobile Key 4 All,” a software and hardware solution) where hotel guests simply point or swipe their phone through a type of digital reader, all three outlets fall into the mobile sphere.

Driving home the point, Ian Carrington, Google’s mobile advertising and sales director, made his opinions on the mobile revolution clear: “Mobile isn’t ‘the next big thing’ – it is already very much upon us,” he said. Or, staying closer to the hotel industry, consider what Tom O’Rourke, founder and CEO of O’Rourke Hospitality Marketing, had to say: “[Apps are] an opportunity through a mobile channel to connect with a guest before, during, and after his stay.” Enough said.

Airborne Perspective: What we can learn

Considering the close ties that the hotel and airline industries share, (one relies on a large share of their customers from the other for business) it’s incumbent on hoteliers to take a page from the recent past and consider their future.

It’s hard to over state the impact mobile communications has had on airlines, especially as it relates to ancillary revenues. Ancillary revenues, or ways in which airlines unbundle specific services and monetize and customize the traveler experience, has largely emerged in concert with the mobile platform. Today more than 2,000 aircraft crossing the world’s oceans and continents are Wi-Fi enabled. Innovations like this have helped airlines offset rising fuel costs and generally prosper in a still-challenging economic climate. Unlike the hotel industry, which has been slow to adopt mobile, most airlines have already established the basics: allowing for mobile check-in, 2D bar code boarding passes, and many have mobile booking capability. Going forward, industry analysts predict additional mobile services like being able to select premium seating, club access, or the pre-purchasing of meals. Further down the road, (or runway), airlines will consider adding location based services, which provide travelers with location sensitive advertisements and promotions, as well as monitoring social media for commentary on the entire travel experience. Finally, the burgeoning field of NFC, or Near Field Communications, is also seen as a significant game changer going forward, allowing travelers to simply swipe their NFC-enabled mobile devices and perform a host of activities like check-in, pay for goods, (mobile wallet), and even exchange vital travel information, like last-minute itinerary changes, with other travelers, family or friends. Imagine having that type of capability at the check-in desk?

The Mobile Concierge: Booking (and banking on) future success

Boarding passes aside, nearly every mobile avenue airlines are pursuing has relevancy for the hotel industry too. In a competitive marketplace where OTAs (online travel agencies) are vying for an increasing piece of the booking revenue pie, mobile can be a way for hoteliers to once again directly connect with their loyal, returning customers, and attract new ones as well. For all the industry’s booking efforts, (OTAs included) global occupancy rates remain at roughly 60 percent. In other words, there’s plenty more the industry can and should do to attract more guests. Mobile booking, mobile check-in and check-out, cardless key systems, even mobile hotel restaurant reservations, gift shop rewards points, and in-room food and media selections, are exactly the types of services travelers are beginning to expect. If many similar services are already being offered by airlines for travelers in transit, why should these mobile amenities end when they get off the plane?

They shouldn’t.

From work, to travel, to recreation, mobile and smart mobile devices are remaking every facet of our collective lives. And in so doing, the technology is reshaping the way in which hoteliers must interact with and connect with their customers. Before long, hotels that fail to adopt these changes will look like antiques and will be losing revenue and guests. There’s no need to discard the leather-bound guest book just yet. Just remember the rapidly maturing mobile landscape is where the majority of today’s travelers are looking to sign in next.

In every touch point of travel lifecycle, from booking to check-in and home again, mobile has become a must.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of TravelInkd’, originally appeared on Hotel Executive on 1/18/12. 

To Post or Not to Post

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of Thinkink, originally appeared on ehotelier on 11/22/11.

“Get it in writing.”

It’s a phrase one often hears when guarding against legal action. It’s also a physical affirmation of something positive or constructive. But when it comes to hoteliers, “getting it in writing” has a more nuanced meaning. 

Ever since the first hotels and temporary lodging facilities arose, hoteliers have had to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of their most valued resource: their customers – especially when it came to the delicate world of written feedback. 

But what was once relegated to a quaint leather-bound book on the corner of some concierge desk has expanded exponentially. First came widespread travel publications that would print with equal care both positive and negative reviews. Today, those efforts seem decidedly quaint as social media and the increasingly ubiquitous nature of mobile and smartphone technology allows current and former guests unparalleled commenting access – without the filter of a publisher. While it’s easy for hoteliers to remain skeptical over such unfettered open access, the benefits of “going social” for hoteliers far outweigh the risks.

The logic behind this embrace is simple. The proverbial Pandora’s box has already been opened. Former and future guests alike are already posting their opinions on sites like Facebook and Twitter about their travel experience, beginning with the initial booking and following through all aspects of the travel cycle including: dreaming, researching, experiencing and sharing. In addition, user generated content sites like TripAdvisor, and online travel agencies like Expedia and Priceline, among many others, are similarly embracing user comments. If hoteliers are concerned about losing control of their messaging, the best way to track what’s being said about their hotel is by promoting a guest shift from private and independent site postings to include the more controlled public arena of a hotel website or its affiliated Facebook or Twitter page. 

Recognizing the inevitability of this trend, a growing number of hotels are already jumping on board. Earlier this month Marriott Hotels announced it would allow guests from several of its locations, (Marriott Marquis in New York and the Marriott Courtyard near Orlando, among others) to post comments about their stay regardless of the quality of their experience. The announcement follows a similar move by Starwood Hotels & Resorts that also began allowing their preferred customers the ability to post comments directly to their website. 

To be sure, hotels that choose this route require a firm commitment and necessary web-savvy staffing. In other words, it can’t be done half way. Whether or not Marriott’s open-access approach or Starwood’s more limited approach is best for online guest reviews remains to be seen. One thing is clear. Even if hotels fail to embrace online customer reviews, they are already being written on numerous personal and public sites. Growing smartphone penetration rates, (around 62% for young adults ages 24-35) suggests postings will be grow easier, more mobile, and more frequent. In time not only will reviews alone be important to future guests, but the transparency and openness of a hotel that allows such access may also be factored in a guest’s lodging decisions. This is similar to how some restaurant patrons choose their dining experience as much based on food quality as they do on whether the establishment offers free Wifi: an expected service.

So whether it’s via text, personal website, or a hotel’s own webpage, getting a customer’s review in writing has always been a component to the hotel-guest relationship. It’s time hotels welcomed the modern social media conversation by letting their guests joins theirs.  

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of Thinkink, originally appeared on ehotelier on 11/22/11.

Loyalty Linguistics and the Loss of Value?

You know what the beauty of having your own blog is? The ability to instantly publish your thoughts – especially when you have a bit of a bone to pick with the thoughts of others. Here goes:

Last week, blogger-author and Loyalty specialist Bill Hanifin sought to parse out and expand on a recent LinkedIn post regarding the contemporary challenges facing customer loyalty and loyalty programs in his own blog, HanifinLoyalty.com. The LinkedIn poster, Annich McIntosh, the managing editor of C&M Publications, a UK event managing and media marketing publication, asked her followers if they could come up with one word to describe those loyalty obstacles. Several respondents chimed in over a six-month period. Never one to sit on the sidelines of a public relations debate, (I love a challenge) I too, buzzed in, writing the word: VALUE. “Creating value, shaping value, (of the program and rewards/incentives being offered), proving the program is of value,” I wrote.

I was surprised, then, to find out from Hanifin’s follow-up that no other readers agreed with my word choice, VALUE. What gives?

In my professional opinion, ‘Value’ is the word that best encompasses what respondents were addressing in both Hanifin’s and McIntosh’s posts. Instead, the word most commonly chosen to address loyalty challenges was “relevance.” While relevance is no question a critical component to promoting and expanding loyalty programs, I view it as more of a result than an action. Loyalty programs, or incentives and promotions that attract repeat customers, are essential for a business’s success. But with all the fierce competition and background noise created by many channels these days, it’s in some ways easier than ever for customers to tune out than tune in. Value includes relevance. As for a sampling of the other terms: engagement, differentiation, creativity, and budget, when added up, they too, equal value. (For instance, allocating a sizeable loyalty budget is easy once the value of the program has been established).

But rather than expending all this effort on somewhat trivial mental exercises over which are the most effective umbrella terms, as PR professionals, for ourselves and for our clients, shouldn’t we be promoting value, and not just throwing around terms? Contrary to some opinions that loyalty programs “have mastered the art of enrollment,” I think there’s plenty more to be done – especially as it relates to the still-growing mobile universe and increasing smartphone adoption across all demographics.

When it comes to loyalty campaigns, creating value while ensuring relevance is a good way to start!