Building Your Online Identity - The Holy Grail of Social Networking

The Princess (sorry, Goddess) of the B&B world Karen Thorne wrote yesterday how she 'must be doing something right' using Twitter, as had her 'best year ever' using the networking site

This got me thinking and wondering how Karen seems to have unlocked the secret to gaining lots of business through Twitter, something lots of people want to do, but rarely manage it. 

Her self-imposed rules are explained in the article here but it doesn't really explain how she has so many followers and gains so much business through Twitter. What Karen has become extremely good at, whether she is aware of this or not, is having a unique writing voice.

When I was at University doing Journalism, they always harped on about your writing style and your 'voice' coming through the page. Karen's 'voice' comes through what she writes every time and is very distinctive. She stands out with her tweets because of this and it has enabled her to create a strong online identity.

This is not an easy concept to get your head around achieving with your own writing. What you can do is choose a writing style that you like and try to emulate it, then eventually your own 'voice' will begin to come through and you will create your own style.

This kind of worked for me in my previous life. I used to copy the style of FHM and when I brought that style into a golf magazine it gave the magazine a light-hearted appeal that readers enjoyed.

There are so many people out there writing on blogs and on networks that it's important you try to appear distinctive and memorable in your work. Choose a style you like and stick to it. 

The problem with all of us is that we aren't simple beings. We have many sides, but showing all your different sides works against you in a cluttered online environment. For readers to remember you they need to have a simple picture in their head of what you are. 

We are all publishers in our online world, we are all entertainers and the most successful entertainers are those that we remember for having a distinctive style. Frank Bruno is probably a multi-faceted personality (maybe not!) but to hear him reciting Macbeth would have just confused us. Cilla Black put on the fake voice but we liked it and knew where we stood. It was easy to take in and grasp. Choose a style that's simple and perfect it.

When you find a style to tweet or blog or Facebook, you not only make it easier for your audience to identify with, but you make it easier for yourself, as you know who you are too!

Have a look at the styles of successful people on Twitter and then choose a way of writing that conveys how you want you and your business to be perceived. 

 

 

 

 

 

Will Trip Advisor Ratings Take Over The Accreditation System?

Do you belong to a tourist board accreditation system and has the investment paid off for you? With Trip Advisor now being the dominant force in a guest's decision making process, could it be that the systems' days are numbered?

Let's take a look at Trip Advisor and the company's philosophy: 'Wisdom of the masses'. A customer decides to book with one operator by looking at the quantity of good reviews on the site. If the hotel has an abundance of positive feedback, then the consensus is that this is a good place to stay.

Under the accreditation systems, ran by tourist boards, a B&B is given a star rating by one qualified person who visits the property and gives it a rating, decided upon by the property's specs and general service.

In an ideal world it would be nice for a B&B to have a star rating by an accreditation board and a rating on Trip Advisor, determined by the amount of positive customer reviews. But my question to accredited businesses is this, are your customers still taking notice of the star system, or has Trip Advisor become the dominant force in their decision making process? If it has, then should you be paying what I consider a large amount of money to be accredited?

There are issues with Trip Advisor don't get me wrong. A hotel could quite easily 'fake' positive reviews as well as write 'fake' reviews on their competitor's sites. Potential guests may not read all the reviews and be swayed by one or two bad ones that don't give a fair undertaking. But if people use the site properly and read all the reviews, of which there are generally many, the overall outcome seems to be that they get a fair opinion.

There are problems with the accreditation system too. How can a tourist board, who is being paid to give a rating, then decide that the hotel is not worthy of the rating it requires, or perhaps has always had? Human feelings and errors will always influence one-man decisions. The inspector may be having a bad time in a relationship, or perhaps had opposing ideologies to the hoteliers. Or they may just be incompetent!

I have more questions than answers at the moment but (like I am also doing on reservation systems) I am undertaking a study on the accreditation systems, taking an in-depth look at the different prices and what they are offering. The purpose of this article then is to gauge the feelings of readers on the subject.

I'd love to know what your experiences have been on both systems, so would be very grateful for any comments. 

 

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