EMP #002: Online Reputation of Meeting Venues and Hotels for Events

Event Masters Podcast

In this podcast I go over how to better understand the reputation of a meeting venue or hotel for corporate meetings by checking that sites customer reviews. A great place to get reviews are at Tripadvisor, Yelp!, Angieslist, and Cvent as well as their own Facebook pages and Their Twitter accounts. Also, I mention a great tool for LinkedIn to get things running on autopilot. Check out the show and let me know what you think! Thanks for taking the time to listen. Transcript: Hello Event Professionals, my name is Jorge Lopez with Adroit Sound & Entertainment and this is Event Masters Podcast episode #2 This is a podcast that is for event professionals by event professionals where we interview guests and answer your questions about things that are event related to help each other out with issues that we all have or go through. First, I want to Thank you so much for making this show a part of your day, I know you have many different podcast choices to listen to on iTunes, spreecast, and even on YouTube and I just want you to know that it makes me feel special and I'm truly grateful for that. It's Monday the 7th of Feburary, so I hope you had an awesome weekend. Mine wasn't too bad. Got to relax at home and work on the computer which is something I truly love doing. Before we get started, I wanted to share an Awesome New DISCORY that I came across... Now I'm sure many, if not all of you are on LinkedIn, as well you should be. I think most of us can agree at least in part that cold calling is not want it once was. Not to say that it's dead. Just well not as powerful as connecting with people online on the various social platforms out there now, not to mention the power of email marketing. This week's new discovery is for Linkedin and that is AutoPilot for LinkedIn. I myself have been on Linkedin for over a couple years now, but never really used to anywhere near its full potential. Even though i have always known about its power to connect me with people like you. So Powerful! So as part of my New Years Resolutions I decided it was time. So after doing some research, reading a few blogs and a couple books on how use it properly I came across a podcast, Mark Williams, AKA "Mr LinkedIn" [as he calls himself] the host of LinkedInFormed Podcast. On episodes #79 "A system to Powerboost your LinedIn Success" ...He interviews Scott Offord and Philip Cardwell, a couple of creators of a site that puts your Linkedin profile on a sort of Autopilot. If you have used LinkedIn enough your very familiar with your Notifications dropdown Which is a system that allows you to view those that have recently viewed your profile. Like you, at first i thought, "Spam Much?" How is a system going to go out there for me and do some output thing and it not come out as a spamming tactic. But now instead it seems like this could be an amazing system to quilt literally power boost your success on linked. It helps you use your Linkedin more effectively. In a nutshell, it goes out for you and search profiles and "views" them [with settings you set for it] thereby cause a percentage of those people to reciprocate and view your profile allowing you to start a conversation with those people in an inbound fashion. I think its genius. Outbound is still a great way of getting contractions and business, but unbound... Just so much easier. It comes in the form of a plugin, or Brower extension for Chrome or Firefox. Imagine if you could have a system set up with your set parameters doing that for you on autopilot and then having that many more people come back take a look at your profile. I'm guessing you can see the potential for this. If you're interested in hearing more about I'll post the link to the LinkedInFormed's Podcast episode and the link to the Autopoilt for Linkedin site so that you can get more info. This is not a promotion in any way, nor am I an affiliate for either of them, just thought it was a great tool and wanted to pass it on. I myself am just going to start using it this week myself and see how well it works, or not. I'm going to give the 14 day free trial a whirl and report back with my experiences. If you plan on giving this tool a try or have already, I'd love to hear your feedback. https://autopilotforlinkedin.com/ Ok, so on to todays show. Just a Quick question with a relatively short answer "How to find the right Venue Online." As a seasoned events or a meeting planner, you already know that you can find everything online that you need to plan a successful event. But do you take the time to read what customers are saying in reviews about the venue or hotel and treating those comments as vital information? The online reputation of the hotel or venue should be a key consideration as you prepare to select the ideal location for any particular client. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that most all of us these days look at reviews to judge if we're going to buy that amazon product or eat at the restaurant we've never been to after looking through yelp, four square or even sites like resturant.com So naturally it makes sense to read what past event attendees have said about any particular hotel or meeting space you would be considered as potential sites. These reviews can give you the levels of service from staff, how they felt about the ambiance, and if that venue space will truly fit the corporate image your trying to portray. A few things you want to be on the look out for would be what are people saying about the impression they get when they're there. And the appeal of the location. Finding out how they felt about the amenities and the things they offer goes a long way, especially if they mention they didn't like it or had issues with certain aspects. Also Looking through the venues Facebook page well give some good insight as to what they post about things they want to be social with or if they're not into social all that much to begin with. Seeing how they respond to their guest questions and complaints on twitter lets you know how serious from a social standpoint they take their customer service and online standards. Now the availability and accessibility. On their site, of course it's going to mention how close they are to Airports and public transportation, but what are people saying about that? Since at times, many of the attendees will be coming in from out of town. Some of the important feedback you get from reading these comments could be what their impression of the site was, and the level of professionalism they received. You might also learn about what accommodations they enjoyed near by, or the fact that there was really not a whole lot to do in the area. And even others will leave their experiences with all the best local attractions they enjoyed. But the real benefit of this is will be the overall impression of the venue or hotel and these little magical extras that you'd never know of had you not experienced it yourself. And of course what we're really looking for is those iPhone/Android app type reviews, the 1 star, 2 star, 3 star reviews, that tell us how they REALLY felt. Those are the type of reviews where you can ask yourself, "how would my client who is looking for X respond to this?" Would love to get your feedback, In the show notes there will be links to everything I mentioned here, plus links to subscribe to this show over at iTunes, Sticher, or SoundCloud. If you could leave an Honest review that would help a billion to not only get this show found by others that might be also looking for this information, but for me to know where I can improve. If you have a question that you would like to be answered and would like to hear your voice on the podcast or if there's a topic you think we should talk about, head over to AdroitSoundEnt.com/Ask and record your it. If I can't answer it, I will get someone on the show that can.