Dozens of customers are using the website’s increasing power to try and get free upgrades or refunds despite nothing wrong with their accommodation.

Industry experts have said that a bad rating or review on the popular ratings site can be costly, sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds in lost bookings.

To be honest I didn’t find this story that shocking because I understand the power of a good and bad review because this is what I help my clients with everyday. Most of what I do in my day job is to get people to test products or services out and tell me and the world what they think of them. Sometimes they are positive and sometimes they aren’t.

I had a product earlier this year that was a great budget product but not a fantastic product when compared to far more expensive gadgets which is perfectly understandable. So when it started to review reasonably but not excellently – I advised the client that we should lead from the front with a flagship product. I saw it better to be outreaching a product which was still very reasonably priced but that also stood up against the competition in terms of features.

In fact, we did this recently with another of our clients Storage Options. The marketing team and us have developed a product which stands out in its class as being the best tablet PC under a certain price point (£300) and consequently, we got the product on The Gadget Show and it won best in class which we are all very proud of. The product in question was the Scroll Excel which has now completely sold out – in fact it sold out so much that I don’t even have my own version  yet but I have played around with the prototypes.

When I went on holiday this year to Cyprus the hotel manager sat us down and asked us how they could make the hotel better. He was asking us what we would do and it was very refreshing to see. He spent more than an hour with us and he reiterated how important a positive review was and said he felt some competitors even left fake negative reviews and this was very hard to combat against.

I think that should be looked at but overall I think the customer review situation has made hotels better places with higher standards and looking to improve their service. How can this be a bad thing?

I am all for power to the customer – we all need to be heard and if a hotel has terrible service then the world should know about it. The hotel then has to act and look to improve itself. I would advise the hotel to then invite the person back to see for themselves free of charge as that would convince me anyway. They should also think of some kind of incentive for giving reviews of the hotel as that could make people think of them more proactively.

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So last year we organised a pub quiz/soiree in the centre of Leeds and we got around 100 people from the local media and PR companies to come along and fight it out. Although it took a lot of organising I really enjoyed it and so decided to do it all over again.

This year we moved the event to Alea Casino in Clarence Dock which was a great venue and we managed to fill the entire top floor and even had our own free roulette table. The event started at 7pm and went on until late with several different quiz rounds from general knowledge to music. Sadly, my team didn’t win this year, in fact, we came third from bottom but I suppose you can’t win them all.

Nigel’s close family were in attendance and seemed to enjoy the nights proceedings. I have attached a few images of the night to show you what it looked like. I would certainly recommend the Alea as a venue for business events as the top floor can take around 200 people and it looks the part. The food was supplied by James Martin’s restaurant and was lovely.

So I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that came along and bought tickets to this year’s event. It’s a fun event and it’s great to get everyone from the PR industry in one room together. Last night we managed to raise around £2,000 for the charities and so I am very happy today.

The Businessdesk.com and The Yorkshire Evening Post will also be doing their own write ups over the next few days.

If you were at the event, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I want to use the feedback to make the event even better next year. Thanks.

The leader board looked like this:

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However, one of my big bug bears now is that people seem to want to use social media on a purely tactical basis rather than actually thinking things through properly. They look for the easy quick win.

If I hear another question like this “can you just place an offer on Twitter?” – I think I am going to explode.

Now I know it is my job to advise and consult and that’s what I try to do but I still find it immensely frustrating when people ask for things that simply won’t work. It used to be the same with the following statement “Let’s make a viral video” thankfully I think we have moved on from that space now because videos trying to be virals often don’t work and they can cost a fortune.

My point is this, if you use social media to share something purely commercial, yes it will have an effect, a very small effect but an effect all the same. However, if you think about how you can help people talk about something rather than trying to sell to them all the time you will find that you get a far, far better result. The marketing of anything should always be strategic, so why is it different for digital channels? The truth is it isn’t and you and I both know this!

So let’s try to stamp out this feeling that we should market everything possible in the vague hope that it may sell one more product because if you actually sit and think it through you may well find you have a fan, follower or better yet a customer for life, not just for that one product!

Does this happen to you? If so share your stories with me as I am genuinely interested. Tell me how you get around people that simply don’t understand how and when social media should be used.

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As most of you know I manage a lot of social media communities for companies and brands of all sizes some regional, some national and others on a global basis.

One thing I have noticed is that things have changed significantly in social media and online PR over the last 2-3 years. I remember the good old days when people didn’t know what Twitter or Linked-in were and we were all really excited about this cool new site called Friends Reunited that lets you hook up with your old friends.

I have been tweaking a few of the social media communities I have been working with and I have come across a few cool tools you can use to spruce up your Facebook pages in just 10 minutes. Yep you don’t have to pay some social media expert a couple of thousand pounds to do this.

1. Build your own Facebook tab in a few clicks. I have used a few of these services and the best one I have found is Page Modo which allows you to add a tab to your Facebook page. You can insert photos, branding and edit the text and its free. Of course you can upgrade to a pro-account for around $6 a month and this gives you access to better features such as “like” gates.
2. Add social media tabs to your Facebook page. Again this is free, just visit the Involver app and select an app from your gallery and choose which page you want to add it too. You can add Flickr, YouTube and Twitter apps amongst a few others. Again if you want to use more than two apps you do have to upgrade to a pro account.
3. Plug your blog into your Facebook page with a nice tab using Social RSS.

So there are some quick practical tips and here are some more tips I created for my recent CIPR presentation on “How to drive campaigns through social media”.

If you want to run a campaign on your facebook page, make sure you are obiding by the promotion guidelines.

1. Offer something unique
2. Release major stories in the early morning. If you post between 11 a.m. to 4pm you risk your content getting unnoticed
3. Thurs is the best day to get the most visibility for a post
4. A full link is 300% more likely to get clicked on than a shortened address
5. Use words like “best,” “most,” and those that explain, such as “why” and “how.”
6. Encourage interaction with your posts-likes and comments as they will be more visible in other newsfeeds
7. Seed your competitions on other Facebook pages and forums like moneysavingexpert.com
8. Be flexible with your strategy if something isn’t working just change it
9. Don’t ever get into an argument online – let a thread play out
10. Only share one in ten marketing messages
11. Always keep it relevant and think about the brand’s voice
12. Create a conversational calendar – planning a campaign before hand can save a lot of wasted energy.

Do you have a useful social media app for Facebook or a tip others could use if you do, please share it?

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#heapsong1 is the working title of the first song from my new album. The album will be completed in roughly 3 years, with a new song released every 3 months as soon as it’s completed.

My fourth solo album begins here, with you on the 14th March. You are the spark of inspiration.

Have a look at the ‘keyboard’ page, hover over the piano keys, click and discover how you can get involved with sounds, words, image and video.

Why am I doing this? Well, there’s so much going on in my life with touring, talks and tech that this was both a necessity coupled with my passion for collaborative, spontaneous and creative projects. I also love the idea of turning the tables in that the seeds of the song begins with you, making a full circle when you experience it as a finished piece.

Plus… I often thrive on a deadline (Speeding Cars + Can’t take it in both written / recorded in a week) and creative limitations (Glittering Cloud – a song about locusts using purely locust samples as the rhythm track!). I want to really put myself to the test and I’m going to have fun doing it, with you!

I wonder where your ‘seeds’ are going to lead me?

Imogen is also a huge advocate of video blogging and she regularly shares her latest ideas and works. She even provides a schedule of when she is going to be doing this through a Ustream channel here is the schedule page in case your interested.

On the microsite the user sees a virtual piano (pictured) here each key is a different day and has its own video explaining that day’s task. The Timeline for ‘#HeapSong1′ is as follows;

• 14th March: The ‘recording’ process will begin with Imogen’s fans uploading sound ‘seeds’ for the song (a cat’s meow, rustling leaves, banging on pots and pans) from all over the world via Soundcloud to her #heapsong1 microsite. Imogen will be online chatting about and choosing those sounds her instincts draw her to.
• 15th March: People can submit words to a ‘wordcloud’ where more popular words visually grow in size. Imogen will be watching and writing at home being inspired by these ‘buzz’ words with an aim to encapsulate that day in time, lyrically.
• 16th March: A space for people to upload their own photographs/ drawings/ stencils etc they feel connect to the past two inspirational ‘seed’ day’s themes in some way. The favourite/s will be incorporated into the 3DiCD (a virtual 3D CD) digital artwork.
• 17th March: Thursday is for moving image (animation/film etc). These will be the core of the video for the song. Again, urging people to choose clips they feel flow with the direction of the song.
• 18th March: Imogen will reveal the middle section of the song only… here she will encourage people to record a ‘solo’ (beatbox, cello, vocal, spoons, you name it) via Soundcloud over this section.
• 19th March: Imogen will discuss and choose one or some of these solos which will be added into the mix.
• 21st March: The song will be written and completed by the morning of the 21st March just in time to make the video which will be filmed, edited and ready for release 28th March.
• 26th March: Imogen, during this period will be inviting/challenging fans to draw inspiration from those same initial seeds and finish a piece of work of their own. On this day they can upload their work for all to see and hear on an ‘inspiration wall’, whether that might be poetry, music or a video
  blog response.
• 28th March: Taking things to the extreme, Imogen will reveal the first listen of the song publicly on her website on 28th March in parallel with a live remix by Tim Exile who will also be hearing it for the first time. http://www.timexile.com

Her fans are encouraged to send anything from car horns through to rustling leaves. All of the content which is sent in and used is to be accredited and paid for appropriately which I think is pretty fair too. I think this is an interesting and exciting concept. It is giving the fans the power to actually influence their favourite musician’s album.

If I am going to be picky I think the channels could have been done a bit slicker and shared a bit better but I still think this is an interesting idea and something which could prove extremely fruitful for both Imogen and her fans. Social media is about engagement and you can’t get much more engaging than producing the music yourself.

I would like to give a bit of a hat tip to my good friend Gemma Wilson who tipped me off about this as she knows the type of stuff I like to blog about.

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We ran a social media audit and workshop for them and created an online strategy which included launching the alternative Christmas track competition, which has been a lot of fun to run and organise albeit very busy.

In the last few months we have received a huge number of musical entries from all across the world varying in quality and genre. The original aim of the campaign was to seek out fun and vibrant alternatives to Christmas carols and songs and help people to get creative. We launched it using the brand’s Facebook and Twitter channels and a social media news release. Entrants each had to submit their video entries via YouTube but for doing so they received a free pair of headphones for their user generated content.

The competition wasn’t restricted to any particular type of music so bands, DJs or music producers from any genre had the opportunity to show off their talent. The entries have been judged by Grammy & Brit award-winning record producer Steve Levine.

You can vote for your favourite video by visiting this online poll.

The winning entry will be announced on Thursday 23rd December. Here are all of the eligible entries from its YouTube playlist.

The lucky winner receives £500 worth of Audio-Technica equipment and the five runners-up will scoop prizes of £100 worth of equipment each.

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1. Search engines loves great content – The better the content is structured and written on your website, the more Google will read and search the content of your website and other people will read it as well. Keywords should be written naturally into the content of each individual page of the website in order to ensure the site is well optimised for search engines.
2. Keywords in title tag (unique for each page, include keywords) – Keyword titles are one of the most important HTML tags that can be optimised for search engines. You should always have unique title tags for each page of your website.
3. Keyword in H1 on each page - Google reads content by the HTML code of your website. A H1 tag tells Google about the headline of that content or copy. So if you are targeting the keyword ‘chocolate donuts’ primarily, you should ensure this appears in your headline.
4. Add your keywords in text -  Your keywords should be work naturally into the content of each page on your website. The rule of thumb is 4-6 keywords references in the text copy.
5. Optimise your URL architecture – (www.website.com/example/topic instead of www.website.com/example/?topic=cookies). Use correct 301 redirects if your renaming pages or URL structure. Another essential part of search engine optimisation, the better the website architecture the easier it is for Google to read your pages, and more quickly!  Google prefers high-fens rather than underscores any URLs are best written as http://www.website.com/good-seo-guide.htm
6. Alt tags – Make sure all images have alternative text for search engines. This should be done on relevant images, include keywords in alt tags and in your image filenames.This is also important from a usability perspective.
7. Decide if you need a meta description – Modern search engines are great at scanning the text of websites and displacing applicable snippets based on user queries. You need to decide if you want to rely on the algorithm or create your own description. Remember the purpose of making the description is to convince potential customers to click on the link in the search engine page results (SERPs). Make it convincing and use your keywords.
8. Add company address and phone number – Be sure to do this on every page. The search engines are smart enough to detect address and phone number formats. This data is essential to local search and google maps.
9. Make sure you website is user friendly and potential customers can make an enquiry simply - If your website is difficult to use, there is no point in being 1st in Google for your chosen keyword as you will be wasting valuable traffic by people leaving due the frustration of using your website over a competitors.
10. Remember it’s not just optimising a website for search engines that helps your ranking. You need links!!! Google counts links to your website as a vote, the more votes you have, the more likely your reputation will be improved and authority in Google, hence the improvement in rankings. 100,000 links from spammy sites with bad anchor text will help less than a single link with excellent keyword anchor text from a super authoritative site.

This is a guest post from a friend of mine, Illeya Vjestica the managing director of Smart Dog Digital. You can read his original post here. The picture was sourced from SEOmoz – Perfectly optimized page. I wanted him to share it on here as I felt it gave a good overview of how SEO works. Most of the campaigns we are involved in these days are online and we use most of these rules on a daily basis but sometimes it is good to remind ourselves of what we should be doing in terms of best practice.

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I was asked several months back if I would do it and I said I would be happy to share my thoughts with the group. I managed to get about five slides into a presentation before the quick fire round started and the questions started to come thick and fast. I found it extremely interesting to hear this group of wealthy business owners talking about social networks and the varying ways in which they or their staff use them.

I will be honest here and say that most of my clients tend to be marketing directors but I do deal with some business owners as I am sure most PR people do. Surprisingly, on the whole 85% of the room weren’t on any social network whatsoever. By far the most widely used social channel was Linked-in. To be honest it still amazes me how many people still pay for courses on how to use linked-in but that’s for another time and another post.

Anyway the thing that interested me the most was the fact that employers still seem to be totally comfortable with blocking the social networks for their employees. Most of these business owners believed that if they let their employees have access to social media they will just play around and start organising their evenings out rather than doing what they call ‘real work’.

Now my opinion on this is clear, I think the use of social networks should be encouraged for all the benefits I often talk about here on the blog but I do know where they are coming from. At one of my previous employers one of my team members used to spend an awful long time on Facebook claiming they were researching for outreach programmes etc. I don’t mind the occasional use of it for fun purposes either as it is now part of our society but using it for hours on end can be counter productive for any employer.

So my question is this. In 2010, now that Facebook is more than six years old and the shine has dimmed a bit – is it still right for employers to block social network usage altogether or should they be encouraging their staff to network and communicate?

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Rising Digital has an impressive roster of clients including the Gorillaz, chart sensation Swedish House Mafia, DJ Mag Top 10 Sander van Doorn, BBC Radio 1′s ‘In new DJs we trust’ Alex Metric, Mercury award winner Ms Dynamite and many more.

The new division is going to be called ‘Rising Lite’ and will offer its services and advice, to help up and coming artists so they too can have a bespoke and strategic guide for their online presence. Artists will gain consultancy on which platforms will be most be suited to them, how to communicate with fans and industry peers, as well as how to capitalise on the use of new technologies. My old pal and former colleague Sebastian Mysko said:

"We work with young producers who are at the top of their game, and just need a ‘digital’ pick-me-up. They have time on their hands, a hungry desire to solidify a name in the industry and a huge passion for the music. These three attributes alone mean they work hard, and I mean really hard."

Rising Digital launched back in 2008 and has become a dominant force in online marketing in the music sector. The Rising Digital guys are real specialists in the dance music arena and if I had a client in that area I would refer them to Seb and the gang as they really do know their stuff and the sector inside out. I would personally like to wish them all good luck with this as I think its a great idea.

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When a user has liked a product or service they then receive all of the updates from that page within their newsfeed. This is brilliant if you really love that particular brand and want to stay on top of what a brand is doing minute by minute. However, what happens if you are interested in what a brand does but you don’t particularly like that brand? How could you get its updates? The answer is nothing.

Facebook hasn’t really launched this feature but it would nice if they did. This isn’t one of mine as I got this idea from FiR the brilliant podcast by Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz. I an an avid listener and thought the idea of a ‘just interested button’ would be brilliant. I mean how many people are out there now that have liked something but they don’t really like it at all? This means they are receiving irrelevant advertisements and they are making a company look good (in terms of like numbers) when they don’t even like it.

What do you think Facebook should add to Facebook pages?

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