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Helping hotels harness social media

Helping hotels harness social media

via Springwise by Springwise on 7/7/10

There are now countless places out there for consumers to voice their opinions about brands large and small, and hotels are by no means exempt. In fact, online reviews are now the most critical measure of guest satisfaction and the top factor influencing where travelers decide to stay, according to Revinate. That, in turn, is why the San Francisco company recently unveiled a hotel-specific service that aims to bring structure, performance tracking and actionable guidance to that never-ending stream of social media.

Launched in March, Revinate collects every review, news story, blog post, photo, video and social media mention of its client hotels and presents them in a single intuitive dashboard that's accessible online. Revinate can also do the same for competitors' reviews and social media activity, giving clients new competitive insight into their relative strengths and weaknesses. Its Social Media Scorecard, in turn, converts those online reviews into a detailed guest satisfaction report, tracking key performance metrics and competitive benchmarks. The tool's powerful analytics, meanwhile, provide real-time, easy-to-use reports that highlight what's important, with charts, exportable data, competitive intelligence and flexible options.

Finally—and perhaps most important—is that, similar to Brands in Public, Revinate also makes it easy for hotels to join the conversation by responding to reviews and communicating with consumers via social media. TweetConcierge, for example, is Revinate's hotel-specific Twitter client with features designed exclusively for hotels, including the ability to track Twitter campaigns and measure click and sales activity generated across multiple promotional tweets. Revinate clients include Peninsula Hotels, Trump Hotel Collection, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton Hotels, InterContinental, Andaz, White Lodging and Peabody Hotel Group. A video tour is available on screenr. The service's pricing is based a hotel's size and average daily rate, approximating the value of one incremental booking per month, Revinate says.

There can hardly be any brands left that doubt the power of social media. Will they be the victim of that transparency tyranny, or will they turn it into transparency triumph and—indeed—foreverism, as our sister site would call it? That's up to them, and how actively—and proactively—they get involved. As Revinate says, "millions of travelers are talking, and hoteliers must listen." (Related: SeatGuru for hotel rooms — Analytics tools help music bands uncover local demand.)

Website: www.revinate.com
Contact: www.revinate.com/contact

Bus idea: spc card for green businesses

Consumers get to purchase a card they entitles them to discounts at green businesses and retailers.

Promotes awareness of business

iPhone/bb app that provides instant savings when shown to retailer.

Focus on large retailers or small medium businesses.

Local stores / chains.

'greencard''

Justin

Sent from my iPhone

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Engadget

Web magazine with coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

http://www.engadget.com/

--
Justin

"If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it."
William Arthur Ward

"If you don't know where you're going, chances are you will end up somewhere else"
Yogi Berra

Compost service for businesses sells the soil it creates

Instead of focusing on end consumer, this eco-friendly venture targets businesses...

Compost service for businesses sells the soil it creates

via Springwise by Springwise on 6/18/10

Where most of the composting initiatives we've seen have focused on helping consumers get the dirty job done on their own household waste, Utah-based Eco Scraps collects leftover food from grocery stores and restaurants and turns it into valuable organic soil conditioner for sale at local nurseries.

Americans throw out nearly 30 million tons of food every year, and 27 million of those come from supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores. Hoping to put that waste to good use, Eco Scraps collects leftover food and coffee grounds from five grocery stores and six coffee shops in Utah Valley, according to a report in the Standard-Examiner. A delivery vehicle makes rounds to pick up some 2,000 pounds of local waste each day; it then brings them to Eco Scraps' Provo workshop, where they are ground up, mixed and turned daily until the resulting compost is ready to be bagged and sold. Roughly 60,000 pounds of compost are reportedly produced each month and sell out quickly at local garden retailers and wholesalers.

Launched by a Brigham Young University student, Eco Scraps took second place recently at the BYU Social Venture Competition and is also a Sparkseed innovator. The company hopes to expand to five additional markets in California, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon by early 2011, with further expansion after that. Time to make trash part of your next treasure...? (Related: Compost service for urbanites, with soil in return — Garbage into gold, via worm poop.)

Website: www.ecoscraps.net
Contact: contact@ecoscraps.net

Spotted by: Garett Gee