| By Julie Keyser-Squires, APR  ATLANTA, GA –
November 16, 2009 - When Chris Nassetta, president and
CEO
of Hilton Hotels Corporation, suggested
at the 2009 ALIS Hotel
Leader’s Outlook panel that the rebound would not be immediate because
“the
psychological impact was too great,” we agreed. Have
you been psychologically impacted over the past year?
I have. Businesses in our global industry are
in the wringer. The bright side is that
when a company goes through a wringer, what remains is the true value
in the business. I believe you
can still squeeze more
value from your public
relations and digital
marketing
dollars by following these four steps: Make
an
honest evaluation of the time plus digital marketing and public
relations resources
you have in-house - outsource the rest.
2. Develop high-value content. Export it consistently. With
the shrinking news hole and proliferation of social
media outlets, it is tempting to get caught up in the excitement of the
medium. In fact, the most important
marketing exercise
your company can undergo is a deep dive into your message.
What is your company’s true value-add? What is your
differentiator? What business problem does your company solve? Answer these questions first, simplify your
message and then consistently distribute it.
3. Search engine optimize everything. Search
is
the new homepage. After you research your company’s keywords,
sprinkle
them through every piece of writing and micro-writing you distribute.
Thanks to
@stacywms for her blog series on “How to Leverage Social Media for
Search
Engine Optimization:” http://ow.ly/BKW5
, which
explores SEO for each social media tactic. Take a look.
4. Embrace social media technology to save your time. Social media will hit a tipping
point of credibility and use in the hospitality
and
tourism industry in 2010 and will yield lucrative ROI strategies.
Get
started now, with one tactic at a time. Here is an effective
tutorial on
how to tap Twitter’s power in 30 minutes a day.
Twitter Power Strategy The below tactics assume you
already:
1.
Have a PR and marketing plan in place.
2.
Understand how twitter use fits into that
plan
and supports your business goals.
Build Your Technology Savvy Read with Tweetdeck. Post with HootSuite. -Lets
you tweet from multiple profiles (ex: @Juliesquires, @SoftscribeInc).
Post via your PDA with Tweetie on your iPhone, Twitterberry on
your Blackberry.-Ow.ly URL shortener gives analytics. Program your sources to provide as many interesting, relevant links as possible. Sources: Alltop.com: travel and
hotel
SmartBriefs StumbleUpon I also use GoogleReader to subscribe to select marketing blogs.
If
you follow everyone who follows you, you can use the Direct Message
(DM), which
is more efficient than email. Use www.twimailer.com to automate
follow
backs. Measure
Your Success.
Establish measurement goals before you start – increased followers, click throughs to landing page, search conversions. Measure with Radian6, ObjectiveMarketer, or your own homegrown approach that -Google/Yahoo
alerts
-PRWeb news
service metrics
-Inbound links
-Google analytics
for landing pages and
websites
-Coverage in
blogs, other websites,
publications
You could develop a similar
efficient strategy for each social media tactic that supports your
business
goals.  Julie Keyser-Squires, APR, is CEO of Softscribe Inc., a digital marketing + PR firm that applies SEO and social media to help clients increase sales. Give her a shout on twitter @Juliesquires; comment on her First Light business blog http://softscribe.wordpress.com/ or sign up for her free quarterly video email snack at www.marketingsnacks.com. |