Earlier this week, I had the privilege of catching Cirque du Soleil’s IRIS, a journey through the world of cinema, followed by a Q&A afterward with some of the creative staff and performers.

The Los Angeles theater production presents an imaginary journey through the evolution of cinema – from the foundations of the art form to the bustle of the soundstage – through optical effects and film genres.

IRIS transposes into a language of dance and acrobatics displaying all of cinema’s splendor, inventiveness and, above all, its sense of wonder. It conjures up a place between motion and picture, light and sound, that shifts constantly between reality and make-believe, to explore the limitless possibilities of cinema.

By combining dance, acrobatics, live video, film footage and interactive projections, the show illustrates both the mechanics of cinema and its extraordinary power to deceive the eye.

Needless to say, IRIS defies being visually stunning and thoroughly entertaining. The company does a fantastic job of keeping the audience engaged, whether it be through physical obstacles or intentionally silly humor. The stunts are phenomenal and I can’t imagine the amount of strength, balance, coordination and other physical capacities that go into mastering them.

The artists arrived in Los Angeles in April, and rehearsed on a daily basis, oftentimes from 9am-10pm, for three months through the show’s soft opening in July. It’s been in the planning stages for three years. There are actors as young as 17 in the show’s 12 acts, which include aerial performers, film strips, comedy bits, trampoline sketches, contortionists, etc.

The film strip act was honestly one of my favorites. The timing is impeccable and it evolves from an already-awesome display to a film strip then ties in actual film in the background, interacting with the live performers. There is no way I can attempt to do it justice in words, but it’s a major trip to watch.

 The show evolved from the cinematic theme and the acrobatic skeleton, then the incorporation of those two things together.

It features over 350 props all created specifically for this production, many of which are animated and remote controlled, and many of which serve actual purposes in the show in addition to their aesthetic value. Nothing is off a shelf — everything was specifically designed. Similarly, over 200 costumes from 1000 sketches were also created.

The music was composed by Danny Elfman, whom noted this project was different from assigning tunes to film since, for a movie, he gets to put music to a finished product, whereas here, it’s never really a finished product; it’s constantly evolving. Live musicians performed music in conjunction with recorded tracks, aligning with each segment.

IRIS was created exclusively for the Kodak Theater and will remain a resident production, Kodak’s only in addition to the Academy Awards. (This means the show will only be performed in this location; it will not travel like other Cirque shows.)

Proudly presented by Sun Life Financial, IRIS was written and directed by French stage and film director, artistic director, dancer and choreographer Philippe Decouflé.

Tickets can be purchased online, or visit IRIS by Cirque du Soleil on Facebook, Cirque du Soleil on Twitter, and #Iris for additional information, clips, tidbits and more.

The post A Live Journey Through The World of Cinema appeared first on Social Hospitality.

In the digital marketing age, many hotel executives are finding themselves needing to be in constant communication with other properties, the eMarketing company that manages their website and/or social media, etc. There are many platforms through which to hold a face-time meeting, but one company that’s stepping up their game is MeetingBurner.

MeetingBurner is a fast, free way to hold online meetings and webinars. They want to build a community of online meeting fanatics who want to change the world by making meeting easier, faster, and more efficient.

Some of features (optional) of meeting burner include:

• Skype integration
• Full-screen mode
• Recording meetings
• Advanced setting adjustments
• Exporting participant lists
• Connection infrastructure
• Text message reminders
• Improved sharing privacy
• Meeting temperature analytics (including participation, real-time feedback and analytics data)

The post Online Meetings Made Easy appeared first on Social Hospitality.

Some YouTube stats:

• It is the second biggest search engine after Google
• Every minute, there is 48 hours of video uploaded
• Videos get about 3 billion views a month
• It is owned by Google, so the content is always indexed by Google

Why use it?

• It provides traffic:  If potential customers can’t find you, then they can’t do business with you. Videos uploaded to your YouTube account get indexed by Google and, if they are relevant to a specific search query, are served on the results page.
• Exposure for your business: Videos provide exposure for your business and provide insight to your personality. People like to do business with other people, and this lets them see the faces behind the brands.
• Not everyone is doing it: Even though there is so much content being uploaded regularly, many businesses are still not taking advantage of this opportunity. Why? Many seem hesitant to go in front of a camera, or they don’t know how to take advantage of the platform.

Why do people go on YouTube?

• To get entertained: They look for videos that entertain and help them pass their time.
• To get educated: They go there to look for content on a topic they want to learn about.
• To socialize: They go there to see what others are doing, and then they share their content, leave comments, and like or dislike videos.

What should you figure out first?

• Identify who your viewer is: Knowing your audience is critical because it will lead to better content for them. You cannot make a video for everyone; it has to be tailored to your audience.
• How can you offer value to your viewer: Once you know who your audience is, decide on how you are going to deliver value. For a restaurant, this could mean recording the Chef making a popular dish in the restaurant, so that views can make it at home. The possibilities are endless.

So, how do you leverage this platform to drive traffic to your site?

1. YouTube keyword tool: Most people know there is a keyword tool for Google search, but what most people don’t know is that there is one for YouTube as well. This tools tells you what search terms are popular specifically on YouTube.
2. Category tags and description: Once you know what people are searching, this will give you keywords to optimize your own video descriptions and tags. When uploading a video, fill in all the information completely. The description is the text that appears below the video, telling them what the video is about.
3. Provide a link: Add the URL of your site to the description of your video. Don’t forget to add http:// in front of the address as that will make the link clickable. Always make it easy for a visitor to click.
4. Keyword in header/title: Always include a main keyword in the header/title of the video and keep it towards the beginning.
5. Annotations: This option provides the opportunity to include a “call to action” within a video. A great example would be asking a visitor to click on a link or subscribe to your channel.
6. Closed caption: This option allows users to upload a .txt file of the transcribed video in addition to the video itself. Why transcribe it? Because this text is indexed by Google. If you are looking for an easy way to get videos transcribed, check out speechpad.com (or give it an intern).
7.  Video response: This is another way of adding authority to a video. If someone responds to a video, it is subsequently given more credibility due to the fact someone took the time to record something and post a response. This is also a great way of driving traffic: add a response to an already-popular video so that it appears below the original video as a response (which provides great visibility).
8. Embed the video on your site: Take the video from YouTube and embed it on your site. Make sure to add a little explanation about what the video is about. Great cross-promotion.

YouTube will only continue to grow and Google is investing so heavily into it, they also just launched a partner program for original content, a clear indication of the importance of this platform..

—

This guest post was contributed by Raj Rajan. He writes about revenue management strategies, hotel internet marketing, hotel reputation management, and hotel technology at RethinkHotels.com.

The post How to Increase Website Traffic Using YouTube appeared first on Social Hospitality.

A teaser trailer for the upcoming film, Lincoln, appeared today online, two days before the official trailer will be debuted during a Google+ hangout: www.lincolnmoviehangout.com

Lincoln is a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office.

In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery.

With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

The film’s director, Steven Spielberg, along with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Robert Todd Lincoln in the movie, will premiere the full-length trailer on Thursday, making this the first movie to have its trailer debut via social media.

Though this teaser is under a minute long, it provides some brief insight to the aura of film, featuring plenty of Civil War footage and an extended look at Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln.

It also contains a powerful voice over from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

If you want to be one of the lucky fans to join the Google hangout, Google is requesting the following:

-Let them know how you can be contacted: http://goo.gl/ApTvq.
-Upload a short video to your YouTube channel with the #lincolnhangout tag explaining who you are, why you are interested in “Lincoln” and what you would like to ask Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt
-Reshare the G+ event

Google Play will reach out to you if you’ve been selected to join the #lincolnhangout!

The post Lincoln Trailer to Premiere via Google+ Hangout appeared first on Social Hospitality.

The 2014 Santos Tour Down Under will be held in Adelaide and regional South Australia from January 19-26. The week-long race brings top professional cycling teams to compete in the capital city of Adelaide, as well as iconic regions of South Australia, and proudly remains the only UCI WorldTour race in the Southern Hemisphere.

Photo credit: Santos Tour Down Under/Graham Watson; Riders pave the way through South Australia in the annual Santos Tour Down Under race

The annual cycling festival is embraced by locals and thousands of interstate and international visitors who gather in South Australia to watch their favorite riders in action. As the first race on the world cycling calendar each year, the Santos Tour Down Under attracts top professionals eager to make their mark.

The six-stage race takes place in several unique regions surrounding the capital city of Adelaide, recently named one of the world’s “Top 10 Cities to Visit in 2014” by Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel” 2014 guide.

The race also features new routes for the cyclists, taking in some of the state’s most stunning landscapes. They will travel nearly 500 miles during the competition, passing through many of the attractions South Australia is known for: lush vineyards, sparkling beaches, charming towns, rolling hills and natural bushland.

Visitors to South Australia can organize their own “tour down under” that incorporates scenic cycling trails located in various wine regions, including the heart of the Barossa—Australia’s most famous wine region—which links the major towns of Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston that offer panoramic views and world-renowned winemakers in between.

The Santos Tour Down under has its dedicated Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages for official updates and, during the event, will be the go-to source for real-time updates:

• Tour Down Under on Facebook
• Tour Down Under on Twitter
  
• Tour Down Under on YouTube

One quirky bit of activity that the STDU team has done via social media is to track what’s called the #PuppetPeloton – a fun promotional gag that can be seen traveling around Australia in 2013. By sending the STDU social media team picture of Puppet Peloton in action, using the hashtag #puppetpeloton, they can win some prizes. You can see more about this on their respective social media channels already:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Follow the tour this January and let us know what you think!

The post How Australia’s Biggest Cycling Event is Leveraging Social Media appeared first on Social Hospitality.

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) announced the next evolution of its Holiday Inn® brand’s Change Your View platform, Journey to Extraordinary.

This new initiative celebrates the inspiring journeys of Holiday Inn’s guests by inviting them to share their unique stories via the brand’s first digitally-led, multimedia hotel marketing campaign.

This campaign brings the iconic Holiday Inn brand to life in an authentic and tangible way, while reintroducing it and providing a new scope to guests, whether they are checking-in for the very first time or they’re a loyal visitor.

“For more than 62 years, the Holiday Inn brand has played a pivotal role in helping to enable the extraordinary journeys of millions of guests who come through our doors,” said Maurice Cooper, vice president, Holiday Inn Brand, Americas.

While they may find themselves traveling different roads in life, there is always a Holiday Inn hotel to meet the needs of our guests and help them move forward on their journey. Each of our guests have a unique connection to the brand and their own story to tell, which the Journey to Extraordinary campaign creatively celebrates, while hopefully inspiring fresh ones along the way.

To leverage Journey to Extraordinary, Holiday Inn has partnered with Tumblr, Nonfiction Unlimited, International New York Times,Mashable, and MBAs Across America (MBAxAmerica) to tell captivating stories that help bring the Journey to Extraordinary campaign to life.

One such story is that of Rick who spends his time across various east-coast states. A new empty-nester, Rick is a pilot, turned construction worker, turned writer. He refers to Holiday Inn as his “home away from home.” Stories such as these certainly add an intimate touch.

The post Journey to Extraordinary with Holiday Inn’s First Digital Campaign appeared first on Social Hospitality.

At the beginning of September, Ritz Carlton introduced a social film series: A Ritz-Carlton Reserve Adventure.

Each day on their social media channels, they featured a clip from the new social film series, leading up to a full reveal of the entire film.

The story is centered on a woman named Alice and her travel adventures. The social media posts were written from the traveler Alice’s perspective and focused on her thoughts and discoveries as she traveled to Ritz-Carlton Reserve resorts in exclusive destinations around the world.

“We have the most engaged audience of Ritz-Carlton fans and followers across social media channels that any brand could ever wish for. Therefore, it is a pleasure to have created something truly unique and tailored for this valuable group” said Ed French, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for The Ritz-Carlton.

“At a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, the service philosophy has been carefully crafted to help individual guests unlock the secrets of individual places. It is a philosophy that successfully reveals the personality of each unique location to create unforgettable experiences. The video series has been designed to take our social media audience on a journey around these beautiful destinations.”

Travelers are encouraged to share their travel memories by using the hashtag: #RCMemories. In July, the global luxury hotel company began showcasing the other side of the stories by providing a social environment for guests to share their favorite Ritz-Carlton vacation memories.

Ritz Carlton will feature a selection of user photos on Instagram and on the ‘Your Memories’ section of their website.

The post Ritz Carlton Debuts First Social Film Series appeared first on Social Hospitality.

The 2012 Market Metrix Hospitality Index found that location was the most important factor for travelers when deciding on a hotel to stay in. It’s easy for ad executives to write on a brochure or webpage that their property is located in sunny Phoenix to attract travelers from the Midwest and Northeast during the winter months. But showing time-lapsed video of a desert sunrise or kids playing in an outdoor pool on Christmas Day would close the deal instantly.

A 2013 survey by video advertising firm BrightRoll found that 75 percent of marketing executives believe online video marketing is more or equally effective than television advertising. 91 percent said the same of video compared to display ads. Despite these results, only $4.14 billion was spend producing and disseminating online video ads in 2013, while television marketing racked in $66 billion, according to an analysis by eMarketer.

Hotels can use YouTube to both increase sales and market their brand to nearly one billion unique users who visit the video sharing platform every month. Here are three tips for marketing executives starting their YouTube campaigns from scratch.

Video Tours

Hospitality marketing firm Lodging Interactive found in a survey earlier this year that prospective customers are 67 percent more likely to book a room after viewing a virtual tour. But DJ Vallauri, president of the company, said in a press release that video saturation means marketing executives must create compelling, entertaining and informative content to make their productions stand out and turn prospects into paying customers.

One way to capture the full attention of viewers is using 360-degree panoramic shots. These types of videos used to require expensive equipment and hours of editing. But today they can be filmed from smartphone cameras with simple attachments or an app. These wide-angled views are shot from the middle of the room and circle around showing everything from the bed to the bathroom entrance.

The basic concept for creating panoramic videos is taking several overlapping shots and splicing them together. You could also hire a freelance videographer from a site like Elance or Odesk if you’re not comfortable shooting the footage yourself.

Keywords & Titles

A great video production will be useless if prospective customers cannot find it. Of course all finished productions will be embedded on your website. But customers visiting your city in the coming weeks may simply take to YouTube and search for tours of rooms by location. That is why keywords are so important.

Use Google Keyword Planner to determine how you should title videos. This tool compiles historical data to determine the effectiveness of certain words when queried in search engines. Additional tags should include the city and state, along with your brand name, street and zip code.

Make your video descriptions as detailed as possible. If the video shows a suite as opposed to a single room, make sure that is clearly articulated. Talk about room service, media options, and shuttle service as necessary. The description should also include links to your website and social media channels, along with a phone number to call directly. Reply to comments left by customers as necessary, particularly negative ones. This shows your hotel cares what customers think and will only increase the chances that leads actually book a room.

Just In Case

YouTube is reliable and powered by the Internet’s most influential search engine, Google. But all of your work should still be backed up and ready for re-publishing in the event your channel is interrupted for whatever reason. Use a cloud backup service to make your files accessible to the entire team at a moments notice. Upload your finished videos to other platforms as well like Flickr and Veoh to maximize search engine optimization.

Cisco estimates that nearly 80 percent of all Internet traffic will be in the form of video by 2018. It behooves business-savvy hoteliers to incorporate video into their overall marketing campaigns sooner rather than later.

The post 3 Tips for Using YouTube for Hospitality Marketing appeared first on Social Hospitality.

Video marketing was once something that was seen as the reserve of bigger brands and companies with big marketing budgets, but thanks to the runaway growth of ever more affordable tech and hardware and the continuing growth of platforms like YouTube, it is now possible for any sized company to create a professional looking video and to share that video to a potentially massive audience.

Web Domination

In a 2013 report published by Digiday, 50 percent of all mobile traffic relates to video content, and a recent study by Invodo suggests that by 2017, a staggering 74% per cent of all web traffic (not just mobile) will be video. Video content is not just useful as a promotional tool, it is a huge catalyst for e-commerce – especially if you can use it to reach mobile and tablet users who are increasingly using these devices to shop online.

Although many companies are slow on the uptake, for many consumers video is actually the preferred method for consuming information and has been for some time. Online video is no longer just something that people watch to pass the time.

The engagement of video speaks for itself. Around 65% of web users actually sit and watch at least three-quarters of each video that they open. Compare that to the drop off rates for text and it’s not hard to see why, in January of 2013, 51.9% of marketing professionals surveyed told eMarketer that video was the content type with the best ROI.

Getting People to Watch Your Videos

Getting people to watch your videos is easier than you might think. Simply using the word “video” in the subject lines of your email marketing messages can improve their open rate and CTR significantly, and over time will reduce the unsubscribe rate too. Adding video content to Facebook and sharing it on Twitter is also an easy way to build engagement.

Why do you care about this engagement? Well, video content is more memorable than text or image content. With 73% of consumers more likely to make a purchase after watching a video and 96% finding it helpful when making purchasing decisions, people who watch a video are far more likely to recall not just your brand, but also your message. Depending on your industry, you may need several contacts with a prospect to convert them to a customer, but video content gives you a significant advantage over your competitors in terms of purchasing funnel.

Tips for Making Great Video Content

Although anyone can make a video, small and medium-sized businesses are starting to learn the importance of investing in it. In 2014, online video advertising spending grew to $5.7 billion in America, up from $4.1 billion the year before.

Despite the obvious benefits in terms of ROI, video was cited by 49.8% of marketers as the hardest content to create according to eMarketer. It’s why investment in growing a joined up and well structured video marketing strategy is essential. Professionally produced videos that have been optimized for e-commerce consistently outperforms user-generated videos by 30%, generating a 24.7% lift compared with 18.7% for the user-generated content, according to Comscore.

But despite the challenges, it’s important to remember that the best video content is often simple, concise, and engaging and it needn’t be expensive running your own do-it yourself YouTube video marketing campaign.

Try to keep your videos short enough that they can be watched by a mobile user in a typical viewing session. Make sure that your videos entertain and inform before they sell. Focus on showing the user why the products or services you are talking about are so exciting and worry about selling later.

It’s essential that the audio is clear and that the lighting is good. You can use tools such as the free video stabilization feature that YouTube added to its video editor in 2014, to tidy up a lot of problems with your videos.

Sometimes, the best sales content is content that is aimed at existing product owners. If you offer a series of tutorials that show people how to get the most out of a particular product, then there is a chance that someone who has not yet bought that product will watch it, thinking of it as a kind of review.

This is especially true with technology-related products – people will want to see the product in action and a how-to video is a great way to find out how versatile the latest gadgets really are. You could even convert your old text guides to video. This may not only help to increase traffic, but also boost your brand in the mind of consumers.

Attracting new potential customers to your business website is only half the battle. Keeping them engaged once they get there is key to building your brand and converting sales, and video is undoubtedly proved the best way to do this.

—

This article was contributed by Jon Mowat who used to make documentaries for the BBC. Now, he can be found running video production and marketing company, Hurricane Media, based in Bristol, England. You can follow Hurricane on Google+ or Facebook. Or check out some of the videos they’ve created on their YouTube Channel.

The post The Future of Content Marketing is Video appeared first on Social Hospitality.

It’s difficult to recall a world without YouTube, but the video giant is coming up on just 10 years old this February 14th.

This month’s YouTube anniversary is mostso based on its conception. The domain was created in February 2005, although the first video wasn’t uploaded until April, and the site didn’t officially launch until December.

By the first month, the site had amassed 3 million visitors, followed by 38 million at the end of the first year.

The team at One Productions, a video production company based in Dublin, Ireland, put together this infographic highlighting YouTube’s growth and maturation throughout the years.

The post YouTube Celebrates 10th Anniversary appeared first on Social Hospitality.

The holiday season is fast approaching and it’s never too soon to get a leg up on holiday marketing.

Who can forget the WestJet Christmas Surprise video that surpassed all expectations and went viral on social media two years ago?

With the constant expansion of social platforms and capacities, the ways in which hospitality marketers can integrate social into their holiday campaigns continues to expand.

Here are a few ideas to get ahead with holiday marketing for this year:

Cover Local Holiday Events

Many hotels and restaurants host a variety of seasonal events. If not, their destinations certainly do. Whether you’re a restaurant, bar, or destination marketing organization, highlighting local holiday events is a great idea.

If you’re a hotel, you need to draw people to your destination in order for them to book rooms at your property, so create a page on your website to showcase all that your region has to offer.

It can be as simple as compiling research from other local websites. For example, The Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica, CA, created a holiday page focusing on area happenings in November and December.

While the hotel themselves may not have anything happening on-site (aside from décor), they reside in an area featuring an array of holiday activities like tree lighting ceremonies, holiday pop-up shops, holiday walks/runs, and more.

From here, it’s easy to re-purpose these events and this content into social media posts. Select a photo from one of the events and share it on Pinterest, with a link back to your holiday page. Have staff members attend some of the local events and share photos to Instagram in-real time. The possibilities are endless!

Optimize On-Site Décor

If you decorate your establishment, it’s worth it to bring in a professional photographer to capture high-resolution images that can be recycled every year on social media.

Although it’s also a good idea to capture spontaneous photos for Instagram and the like, having a set of high-quality photos to be able to use every year makes planning for each year less stressful, plus they provide guaranteed social engagement if they’re elegant.

A perfect example of a resort that does this well is The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, VA. Each year, they host an array of Christmas activities and erect an enormous tree in their lobby.

Even though they get new photos each year, they’re able to use past ones to promote the event and stimulate excitement. Notice how the image above has over 200 likes and 60 shares.

They were able to re-use this photo numerous times in the same season, and each time, it proved effective in garnering social engagement.

Hold a Holiday Contest

Holding a holiday contest on social media is a great way to get your fans and followers buzzing. Trump International Beach Resort in Miami holds a holiday recipe contest each year where they ask users to submit their own original holiday recipe for the chance to win a family vacation.

There were various categories in which people could enter: best appetizer, best entrée, best side dish, and best dessert.

Trump Miami’s Executive Chef and his team selected 12 category winners that were featured at the resort’s annual brunch on December 25th, 2014.

The grand prize winner received a five-night stay in an ocean-room suite along with breakfast, massage, tour, and more.

This is a great holiday contest with a noteworthy prize. This type of contest is successful because of its appeals to users’ emotions – it asks for recipe that is likely linked to family tradition or memory.

Plus, having multiple categories allows for multiple smaller winners which is also beneficial (if there’s only a single winner, people may be less inclined to enter since they don’t feel they have a huge chance of winning) and the grand prize is substantial and also family oriented.

Take Advantage of Video

With video becoming more prominent on Facebook and Instagram in addition to the emergence of live-streaming apps like Meerkat and Periscope, utilizing video for holiday marketing can also be fruitful.

These videos can they be posted to YouTube, creating long-term social media benefits.

Maybe have your catering manager go behind the scenes at an on-property holiday lunch. Or feature your bartender making a signature holiday cocktail. Or your chef highlighting the recipe for one of his holiday masterpieces.

Last year, Le Relais de Venise Entrecote, a restaurant in New York City, created a custom video for the holiday season. Note how they discuss New York’s general happenings in their video’s bio!

What other ways have you seen hotels or restaurants optimize their holiday campaigns on social media?

This article was originally written for Maximize Social Business.

The post 4 Ways to Optimize Holiday Marketing on Social Media appeared first on Social Hospitality.

Hotels need networks. You have room for conventions, guests, and parties. But you won’t get those contracts if you don’t know how to network in the digital age.

Equip your marketing team with the best tools on the market so they can broadcast the excitement of everything you have to offer.

Bridging the gap between the online and offline audience can be tricky, but if you have the right tools in place, it’s not quite as difficult.

Here are a few examples of hardware and software your marketing team can utilize to enhance your social media presence.

Hardware

Large conventions are places for fun, games, competitions and more, and your team should capture all of it.

Nobody likes a camera shoved in their face, but someone on a smartphone is discreet. The iPhone 6S Plus has a stellar camera, as does the Samsung S6 Edge. Have part of your team take photos of the event for later use.

Tablets are wonderful tools for conducting surveys. Conduct a survey (check out the LoopSurvey app) to see how participants are enjoying the event.

Your social media team can have a small booth, or base of operations in the middle of the action.

With the information taken from these surveys, the media team can get a feel for what people like about the experience, and what the hotel can do better.

Not only that, but the media team can also focus marketing on the areas customers indicate need the most attention.

Laptops are no longer just laptops. 2-in-1 hybrids now dominate the shelves, and have saved both the tablet and laptop market simultaneously.

Consumers want a versatile machine, like a laptop, with the simplicity and interface of a tablet.

Enter Lenovo Yoga series. These 2-in-1s have strong construction, built with magnesium-alloy frames. Inside, Intel’s 5th Gen Core makes the devices powerful.

Not only do they run conventional, robust computer programs, they also are compatible with mobile apps and detachable from the keyboard, which makes them versatile machines.

Software

Social media platforms are varied and vast. Discuss company objectives and future goals that can be achieved through social media.

For instance:

• How many likes on your company’s Facebook page are desirable within the first quarter?
• How many Twitter followers?
• How many Instagram likes per picture are achievable and what a realistic goal to work toward?

While it’s easy to look at likes, followers and favorites to judge your social media progress and influence, there are in-depth tools that track what kinds of posts, tweets, and grams get the most attention.

Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, and AgoraPulse are all examples of dashboards that help your team keep track of the most popular content you’ve created, whether advertisements for the space your hotel provides, or pictures of convention-goers having a great time.

Each of these programs provide similar services such as post schedules, social media calendars and enable your team to post to all social media platforms from one simple dashboard.

However, the interface of each is different, and the nuts and bolts are nuanced and varied. Certain functionalities work best for different people, which is the reason there are so many programs.

Listen to your social media team about which they feel is the most appropriate for your online goals.

The post Social Media Hardware and Software Your Marketing Team Needs appeared first on Social Hospitality.

Many businesses are stuck in the last century when it comes to marketing. This is especially true in the yoga retreat industry around the world.

New customers are the lifeline of any successful business, and the yoga industry is no different.

Yoga marketing is essential for retreats and studios to attract new clients and increase brand loyalty. By implementing proven marketing techniques, you can develop a competitive edge over 95% the competition who are still stuck.

The few doing well are employing unique ideas to attract customers from all over the world. Many implement cost-effective marketing strategies that generate measurable results.

With these ideas, the respective yoga businesses modernize their retreats and subsequently increase profits as a result.

As an example, The Power Living Retreat in Australia became the more preferable choice over India’s traditional yoga retreats because they kept up with the changing times.

Here are some of the specific ways progressive yoga retreats set themselves apart:

Brand via Email and Social Media

Most people who visit a website leave without doing anything (like buying, calling, or signing up for a newsletter). And once they are gone, you have lost your chance to market to them in the future, too.

To increase conversion rate, offer a free giveaway and add a clear call-to-action on your homepage, or provide a link to sign up for a free offer.

Employ a lead capture method such as asking for their contact information in return for the offer. As a yoga center, the free giveaway for sign-up could be a yoga or meditation training series.

Or it could be a free video that gives a short tour of your retreat. If they choose to sign up, you have just turned a visitor into a lead. Now you can start a dialogue with them over email.

The next step is to setup an auto-responder email sequence using pre-written emails that get sent at pre-determined intervals. These offer more value over time. Keep these emails text based, short, and chatty.

Use content that appeals to your target audience – something on the lines of: “It’s time to give yourself a break from your busy lifestyle” or “We would love to spoil you by giving you a treat you will remember.”

These are the type of emails we receive from our friends and colleagues and they feel more familiar and less “salesy.”

It often takes 7 points of contacts to build trust, so don’t just jump in and ask to be hired straight away. After 10 value emails, you could offer a time sensitive discount on your services.

Only do this when you feel they have received a lot of value from you and you have succeeded in building their trust.

Social media for yoga studios is also essential in creating an effective online presence. Incorporating offers into your social media messaging helps spread the word about what you offer and the value you provide.

If you’re not sure how to grow your email list with social media, there are numerous ways to do that also.

Introduce Freebies

People love freebies. Yogi surprise addresses the benefits they achieved through giving away the free e-book The Art of Self-Love as an incentive for signing up for their subscription box.

As a yoga retreat, you may be the only center giving away something to first timers. Even something brief or small can be enough for potential customers to understand the quality of your service and come back again.

Ask your customers what they expect from your retreat, and give them exactly that. Yoga Bowl is one yoga company offering free trials to their customers before providing their paid services.

As a retreat, you can employ the same technique and offer a 3-day free yoga session, or a 2-day free stay at your resort.

Effective Copywriting

Writing effective content is probably the most important of all internet marketing strategies.

Video scripts, blogs, emails, and direct mail marketing are all entail strategic copywriting.

Think of your typical prospect or customer and write as if you are talking to that one person over coffee. This makes the reader or viewer feel more involved.

Retreat Relax Release is an excellent example how yoga retreats can promote and represent themselves using unique content.

The customer is always thinking “what’s in it for me?” So tell them. Instead of using the word “we,” use the word “you” a lot. This helps them connect with your brand.

Market with Video

This is a marketing strategy that can have a striking difference to your business. Did you know YouTube gets over 5 billion daily views and is the third most-visited website on the internet?

80% of people will watch a website video, compared to 20 percent who prefer to read content on the same page.

Anyone who runs a yoga retreat business knows that they have plenty of exotic locations, awe-inspiring services, and features they can cover in videos.

You could create videos about yoga, meditation, detoxification, the scenic view, and many other services you offer.

People are 73% more likely to be attracted to what you have to offer after watching a video.

Make sure your video is above the fold so visitors do not have to scroll down to see it. Keep website videos short (around 90 seconds) and to-the-point.

Blue Spirit Costa Rica and Burren Yoga use great videos to attract customers.

These are just a few powerful marketing ideas to help boost your yoga retreat business.

When implemented carefully, these ideas will help you stand out from the crowd and win over new customers.

Author Bio: Alma Causey loves to discover the world around her. She likes to share her discoveries, experiences, and express herself through her blogs.

The post Namaste: How Yoga Retreats are Leveraging Digital Marketing appeared first on Social Hospitality.

A teaser trailer for the upcoming film, Lincoln, appeared today online, two days before the official trailer will be debuted during a Google+ hangout: www.lincolnmoviehangout.com

Lincoln is a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office.

In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery.

With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

The film’s director, Steven Spielberg, along with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Robert Todd Lincoln in the movie, will premiere the full-length trailer on Thursday, making this the first movie to have its trailer debut via social media.

Though this teaser is under a minute long, it provides some brief insight to the aura of film, featuring plenty of Civil War footage and an extended look at Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln.

It also contains a powerful voice over from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

If you want to be one of the lucky fans to join the Google hangout, Google is requesting the following:

-Let them know how you can be contacted: http://goo.gl/ApTvq.
-Upload a short video to your YouTube channel with the #lincolnhangout tag explaining who you are, why you are interested in “Lincoln” and what you would like to ask Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt
-Reshare the G+ event

Google Play will reach out to you if you’ve been selected to join the #lincolnhangout!

The post Lincoln Trailer to Premiere via Google+ Hangout appeared first on Social Hospitality.

The 2014 Santos Tour Down Under will be held in Adelaide and regional South Australia from January 19-26. The week-long race brings top professional cycling teams to compete in the capital city of Adelaide, as well as iconic regions of South Australia, and proudly remains the only UCI WorldTour race in the Southern Hemisphere.

The annual cycling festival is embraced by locals and thousands of interstate and international visitors who gather in South Australia to watch their favorite riders in action. As the first race on the world cycling calendar each year, the Santos Tour Down Under attracts top professionals eager to make their mark.

The six-stage race takes place in several unique regions surrounding the capital city of Adelaide, recently named one of the world’s “Top 10 Cities to Visit in 2014” by Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel” 2014 guide.

The race also features new routes for the cyclists, taking in some of the state’s most stunning landscapes. They will travel nearly 500 miles during the competition, passing through many of the attractions South Australia is known for: lush vineyards, sparkling beaches, charming towns, rolling hills and natural bushland.

Visitors to South Australia can organize their own “tour down under” that incorporates scenic cycling trails located in various wine regions, including the heart of the Barossa—Australia’s most famous wine region—which links the major towns of Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston that offer panoramic views and world-renowned winemakers in between.

The Santos Tour Down under has its dedicated Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages for official updates and, during the event, will be the go-to source for real-time updates:

• Tour Down Under on Facebook
• Tour Down Under on Twitter
  
• Tour Down Under on YouTube

One quirky bit of activity that the STDU team has done via social media is to track what’s called the #PuppetPeloton – a fun promotional gag that can be seen traveling around Australia in 2013. By sending the STDU social media team picture of Puppet Peloton in action, using the hashtag #puppetpeloton, they can win some prizes. You can see more about this on their respective social media channels already:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Follow the tour this January and let us know what you think!

The post How Australia’s Biggest Cycling Event is Leveraging Social Media appeared first on Social Hospitality.

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) announced the next evolution of its Holiday Inn® brand’s Change Your View platform, Journey to Extraordinary.

This new initiative celebrates the inspiring journeys of Holiday Inn’s guests by inviting them to share their unique stories via the brand’s first digitally-led, multimedia hotel marketing campaign.

This campaign brings the iconic Holiday Inn brand to life in an authentic and tangible way, while reintroducing it and providing a new scope to guests, whether they are checking-in for the very first time or they’re a loyal visitor.

“For more than 62 years, the Holiday Inn brand has played a pivotal role in helping to enable the extraordinary journeys of millions of guests who come through our doors,” said Maurice Cooper, vice president, Holiday Inn Brand, Americas.

While they may find themselves traveling different roads in life, there is always a Holiday Inn hotel to meet the needs of our guests and help them move forward on their journey. Each of our guests have a unique connection to the brand and their own story to tell, which the Journey to Extraordinary campaign creatively celebrates, while hopefully inspiring fresh ones along the way.

To leverage Journey to Extraordinary, Holiday Inn has partnered with Tumblr, Nonfiction Unlimited, International New York Times,Mashable, and MBAs Across America (MBAxAmerica) to tell captivating stories that help bring the Journey to Extraordinary campaign to life.

One such story is that of Rick who spends his time across various east-coast states. A new empty-nester, Rick is a pilot, turned construction worker, turned writer. He refers to Holiday Inn as his “home away from home.” Stories such as these certainly add an intimate touch.

The post Journey to Extraordinary with Holiday Inn’s First Digital Campaign appeared first on Social Hospitality.

At the beginning of September, Ritz Carlton introduced a social film series: A Ritz-Carlton Reserve Adventure.

Each day on their social media channels, they featured a clip from the new social film series, leading up to a full reveal of the entire film.

The story is centered on a woman named Alice and her travel adventures. The social media posts were written from the traveler Alice’s perspective and focused on her thoughts and discoveries as she traveled to Ritz-Carlton Reserve resorts in exclusive destinations around the world.

“We have the most engaged audience of Ritz-Carlton fans and followers across social media channels that any brand could ever wish for. Therefore, it is a pleasure to have created something truly unique and tailored for this valuable group” said Ed French, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for The Ritz-Carlton.

“At a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, the service philosophy has been carefully crafted to help individual guests unlock the secrets of individual places. It is a philosophy that successfully reveals the personality of each unique location to create unforgettable experiences. The video series has been designed to take our social media audience on a journey around these beautiful destinations.”

Travelers are encouraged to share their travel memories by using the hashtag: #RCMemories. In July, the global luxury hotel company began showcasing the other side of the stories by providing a social environment for guests to share their favorite Ritz-Carlton vacation memories.

Ritz Carlton will feature a selection of user photos on Instagram and on the ‘Your Memories’ section of their website.

The post Ritz Carlton Debuts First Social Film Series appeared first on Social Hospitality.

The 2012 Market Metrix Hospitality Index found that location was the most important factor for travelers when deciding on a hotel to stay in. It’s easy for ad executives to write on a brochure or webpage that their property is located in sunny Phoenix to attract travelers from the Midwest and Northeast during the winter months. But showing time-lapsed video of a desert sunrise or kids playing in an outdoor pool on Christmas Day would close the deal instantly.

A 2013 survey by video advertising firm BrightRoll found that 75 percent of marketing executives believe online video marketing is more or equally effective than television advertising. 91 percent said the same of video compared to display ads. Despite these results, only $4.14 billion was spend producing and disseminating online video ads in 2013, while television marketing racked in $66 billion, according to an analysis by eMarketer.

Hotels can use YouTube to both increase sales and market their brand to nearly one billion unique users who visit the video sharing platform every month. Here are three tips for marketing executives starting their YouTube campaigns from scratch.

Video Tours

Hospitality marketing firm Lodging Interactive found in a survey earlier this year that prospective customers are 67 percent more likely to book a room after viewing a virtual tour. But DJ Vallauri, president of the company, said in a press release that video saturation means marketing executives must create compelling, entertaining and informative content to make their productions stand out and turn prospects into paying customers.

One way to capture the full attention of viewers is using 360-degree panoramic shots. These types of videos used to require expensive equipment and hours of editing. But today they can be filmed from smartphone cameras with simple attachments or an app. These wide-angled views are shot from the middle of the room and circle around showing everything from the bed to the bathroom entrance.

The basic concept for creating panoramic videos is taking several overlapping shots and splicing them together. You could also hire a freelance videographer from a site like Elance or Odesk if you’re not comfortable shooting the footage yourself.

Keywords & Titles

A great video production will be useless if prospective customers cannot find it. Of course all finished productions will be embedded on your website. But customers visiting your city in the coming weeks may simply take to YouTube and search for tours of rooms by location. That is why keywords are so important.

Use Google Keyword Planner to determine how you should title videos. This tool compiles historical data to determine the effectiveness of certain words when queried in search engines. Additional tags should include the city and state, along with your brand name, street and zip code.

Make your video descriptions as detailed as possible. If the video shows a suite as opposed to a single room, make sure that is clearly articulated. Talk about room service, media options, and shuttle service as necessary. The description should also include links to your website and social media channels, along with a phone number to call directly. Reply to comments left by customers as necessary, particularly negative ones. This shows your hotel cares what customers think and will only increase the chances that leads actually book a room.

Just In Case

YouTube is reliable and powered by the Internet’s most influential search engine, Google. But all of your work should still be backed up and ready for re-publishing in the event your channel is interrupted for whatever reason. Use a cloud backup service to make your files accessible to the entire team at a moments notice. Upload your finished videos to other platforms as well like Flickr and Veoh to maximize search engine optimization.

Cisco estimates that nearly 80 percent of all Internet traffic will be in the form of video by 2018. It behooves business-savvy hoteliers to incorporate video into their overall marketing campaigns sooner rather than later.

The post 3 Tips for Using YouTube for Hospitality Marketing appeared first on Social Hospitality.

Video marketing was once something that was seen as the reserve of bigger brands and companies with big marketing budgets, but thanks to the runaway growth of ever more affordable tech and hardware and the continuing growth of platforms like YouTube, it is now possible for any sized company to create a professional looking video and to share that video to a potentially massive audience.

Web Domination

In a 2013 report published by Digiday, 50% of all mobile traffic relates to video content, and a recent study by Invodo suggests that by 2017, a staggering 74% of all web traffic (not just mobile) will be video.

Video content is not just useful as a promotional tool, it is a huge catalyst for e-commerce – especially if you can use it to reach mobile and tablet users who are increasingly using these devices to shop online.

Although many companies are slow on the uptake, for many consumers video is actually the preferred method for consuming information and has been for some time. Online video is no longer just something that people watch to pass the time.

The engagement of video speaks for itself. Around 65% of web users actually sit and watch at least three-quarters of each video that they open.

Compare that to the drop off rates for text and it’s not hard to see why, in January of 2013, 51.9% of marketing professionals surveyed told eMarketer that video was the content type with the best ROI.

Getting People to Watch Your Videos

Getting people to watch your videos is easier than you might think. Simply using the word “video” in the subject lines of your email marketing messages can improve their open rate and CTR significantly, and over time will reduce the unsubscribe rate too.

Adding video content to Facebook and sharing it on Twitter is also an easy way to build engagement.

Why do you care about this engagement? Well, video content is more memorable than text or image content.

With 73% of consumers more likely to make a purchase after watching a video and 96% finding it helpful when making purchasing decisions, people who watch a video are far more likely to recall not just your brand, but also your message.

Depending on your industry, you may need several contacts with a prospect to convert them to a customer, but video content gives you a significant advantage over your competitors in terms of purchasing funnel.

Tips for Making Great Video Content

Although anyone can make a video, small and medium-sized businesses are starting to learn the importance of investing in it. In 2014, online video advertising spending grew to $5.7 billion in America, up from $4.1 billion the year before.

Despite the obvious benefits in terms of ROI, video was cited by 49.8% of marketers as the hardest content to create according to eMarketer.

It’s why investment in growing a joined up and well structured video marketing strategy is essential.

Professionally produced videos that have been optimized for e-commerce consistently outperforms user-generated videos by 30%, generating a 24.7% lift compared with 18.7% for the user-generated content, according to Comscore.

But despite the challenges, it’s important to remember that the best video content is often simple, concise, and engaging and it needn’t be expensive running your own do-it yourself YouTube video marketing campaign.

Try to keep your videos short enough that they can be watched by a mobile user in a typical viewing session. Make sure that your videos entertain and inform before they sell.

Focus on showing the user why the products or services you are talking about are so exciting and worry about selling later.

It’s essential that the audio is clear and that the lighting is good. You can use tools such as the free video stabilization feature that YouTube added to its video editor in 2014, to tidy up a lot of problems with your videos.

Sometimes, the best sales content is content that is aimed at existing product owners.

If you offer a series of tutorials that show people how to get the most out of a particular product, then there is a chance that someone who has not yet bought that product will watch it, thinking of it as a kind of review.

This is especially true with technology-related products – people will want to see the product in action and a how-to video is a great way to find out how versatile the latest gadgets really are.

You could even convert your old text guides to video. This may not only help to increase traffic, but also boost your brand in the mind of consumers.

Attracting new potential customers to your business website is only half the battle. Keeping them engaged once they get there is key to building your brand and converting sales, and video is undoubtedly proved the best way to do this.

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This article was contributed by Jon Mowat who used to make documentaries for the BBC. Now, he can be found running video production and marketing company, Hurricane Media, based in Bristol, England. You can follow Hurricane on Google+ or Facebook. Or check out some of the videos they’ve created on their YouTube Channel.

The post The Future of Content Marketing is Video appeared first on Social Hospitality.

It’s difficult to recall a world without YouTube, but the video giant is coming up on just 10 years old this February 14th.

This month’s YouTube anniversary is mostso based on its conception. The domain was created in February 2005, although the first video wasn’t uploaded until April, and the site didn’t officially launch until December.

By the first month, the site had amassed 3 million visitors, followed by 38 million at the end of the first year.

The team at One Productions, a video production company based in Dublin, Ireland, put together this infographic highlighting YouTube’s growth and maturation throughout the years.

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