Blog | Rhythm of Life Consulting

A Few Words on “Virtual” Hospitality

Tourists and residents alike enjoy visiting the glamorous St Julien Hotel & Spa—the first world-class hotel to open in Boulder, Colorado since 1905. With dramatic views of the Flatirons, eco-friendly luxury accommodations and a jam-packed social calendar—from business meetings to samba night to afternoon tea—the St Julien has become a destination for people of all ages.

“Ever since the hotel opened in 2005, we have given our guests, both hotel and local, a place where they can socially and professionally gather in an environment that is conducive to their expectations in both product and service,” said Anthony Grippo, who manages social media for the St Julien. In 2010 Conde Nast named the St Julien Hotel & Spa as one of the top hotels in the country.

With guests coming for weddings, business, or a vacation, the hotel has built a solid reputation on its outstanding service. But St Julien’s hospitality isn’t confined to four walls. You can find St Julien Hotel & Spa and Jill’s Restaurant on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and FourSquare.

The St Julien’s social media program is still new at only about a year old. “We do find success in sharing our events and activities on each platform today and it certainly helps letting guests know what’s going on at the hotel,” he said. “As our programs grow, guests increasingly share positive experiences and photos with us regarding their time spent at the hotel, the highest form of gratitude for what we do.”

Hotels like the St Julien are on the right track. A Sparkloft Media “State of the Tourism and Travel Industry: Social Media 2011” survey found that Facebook and Twitter were the most effective social media sites for hotels. The survey also stated that social media is most beneficial when engaging with leisure visitors.

Mr. Grippo said that at the St Julien they have also discovered that “everyone loves free stuff” and he recommends giveaways as a way to promote the hotel brand. “Run contests and run them often,” he said. “Running contests has been the most successful way we have grown our fan base.”

But is that enough?

According to www.dontdrinkthekoolaidblog.com, hotels make the mistake of not being human and only counting followers. Mr. Grippo says that is not a problem at the St Julien. “Measuring results is not necessarily counting followers and check-ins,” he said. “Measure your results by how often you are engaged by your guests and how well they respond to your posts. Guests enjoy the opportunity to communicate directly with you and it is critical to respond timely.”

We applaud the St Julien – not only because we love Samba night—because they are endeavoring to extend the spirit of hospitality online, and leveraging the best practices in social media to engage their guest before they walk in the door.

Marketing to Women

Women are savvy, emotional and loyal shoppers. It’s an advantage to know this when marketing products to women who are going to research before they buy, spend wisely, and not only stick with a product or company once they find something they love, but also recommend it to their friends.

No one knows this better than Skirt Sports, a Boulder, Colorado company founded by professional triathlete, Nicole DeBoom. “Women own the majority of the purchasing power in he United States,” she said, citing statistics that women are responsible for buying more than 80% of household goods.

Skirt Sports was founded on the premise that “women should never have to sacrifice their femininity for performance.” Skirt Sports’ active wear for women includes sexy and colorful skirts, fitted tops in florals and pinks, as well as jackets, pants, and dresses.

“Skirt Sports has the advantage in that it is a company of women athletes creating product for active women,” she said. “This core authenticity is why women see us as the experts. We speak to them as if we are good friends, and we keep their needs in mind as we develop product. Though the technical details of how the product works are important to women, it is the emotional connection that creates brand loyalists.”

While there is plenty of networking among athletes—amateur, professional and weekend—the best way to create that connection is using social media. Skirt Sports strives to have two-way communication with customers, not just blasts of information on products.

“Women want to be seen as unique individuals and they want to develop an emotional attachment to the brands they support,” Mrs. DeBoom said. “Two-way communication continues to foster this emotional attachment. Skirt Sports places utmost importance on great customer service and we regularly reach out to our customers through social media and corporate blogs to ensure that they feel they have a voice in the brand.”

As in any relationship, women have feelings and want to know that someone is listening to them. As Mrs. DeBoom explains it, it sounds a lot like dating: find a good mate, make sure you both want to commit, and know that this person/product brings out your best side.

“Women research their options before making a purchase and they want their dollars spent to feel like a long term investment,” she said. “They want solid, reputable brands that keep up their active lifestyles. Skirt Sports markets fitness as a lifestyle, and our products help women feel good about themselves and achieve their goals.”

Social Media for Food & Beverage Companies

You cannot taste it or smell it online, but you can learn about it. When it comes to using social media to connect customers with food and beverage companies, GoodBelly has found what works best.

“It’s the power of a fan’s word,” said Ariel Scott, Manager of Online Marketing and Consumer Communications for GoodBelly. “When thousands of people rave about a product and how it has affected their well-being, these authentic testimonies offer something more powerful than the brand itself could ever convey. It will drive people to make a purchase, and with great confidence.”

GoodBelly was founded in Boulder, Colorado three years ago and filled the market with its probiotic fruit juice drinks, using a patented probiotic strain. The organic drinks are dairy-free, soy-free and vegan and come in a variety of flavors like cranberry watermelon, strawberry, mango, pomegranate blackberry and more. The backbone of the products is a promise of better digestive health. (A footnote on their website states that GoodBelly is a food product and not a treatment for any disease or medical disorder.)

“People become personally invested in our brand because of the digestive health benefits they’ve experienced,” Ms. Scott said. “And while digestion may seem like a topic only discussed behind closed doors, private goes public quickly the moment one fan starts sharing.”

Indeed, such personal accolades about no more tummy troubles are sprinkled around the GoodBelly website. “My tummy is happier than happy now,” one satisfied customer wrote. “This magical little drink did the trick for both of us,” one woman wrote of how pleased she and her sister were with GoodBelly.

Ms. Scott said that the most successful social media campaigns using a combination of Facebook, Twitter and their blog were a sweepstakes contest and a “Refer-A-Friend” program. “There has been a tremendous amount of support by the community,” she said. “As soon as they were given some kind of incentive, they engaged at a more advanced level to help spread the word. Secondly, we are able to cast a wider net by collaborating with like-minded brands on these campaigns. It’s a win-win situation, and who doesn’t want that?”

In fact, customers turned volunteer advertisers are even better than the company tooting its own horn. “There is a certain amount of trust that people have when they realize their friends and family are so passionate about a brand that they are vocal about it on their own social media accounts,” Ms. Scott said.

GoodBelly does not rely on a single social media outlet to serve their customers. “As I’m sure other brands have found, Twitter can be extremely effective to network with extremely targeted audiences,” she said. “Facebook is a good resource for getting the fans to share their own stories. And the blog ties it all together like home base.”

Ultimately, Ms. Scott said that social media is the future for creating a community for your brand. “As long as the company is authentic and has a promise to deliver, social media is a wonderful opportunity to leverage that.”

SEO Simplified

Search engines becoming an anomaly? We’ve broken down the most important factors:

Be Trustworthy

Nearly a quarter of your search engine ranking is based on the overall trust and authority of your website and domain name. If your site has original content, doesn’t appear “scammy” or “fly-by-night” and other people rely on your site as a resource for information, you’ll have a strong page rank and trust score.

Page Rank (named for Larry Page, co-founder of Google) assigns a numerical ranking to your site. Ten is the best — and only a handful of sites have a Page Rank of 10. Page rank 9 is reserved for top sites like the New York Times, CNN.com and others. Denver Craigslist is a 6, as is the Customer Paradigm site. Many sites have a zero page rank, especially if the site is new or doesn’t have much relevant content. Want to know your site’s Page Rank? Email me back, and we’ll let you know.

Create Inbound Links

This does not mean any link to any page on your site (i.e. the home page). This measures how many inbound links you have to the specific page you rank for. The more inbound links to the page, the better.

That said, not all links are created equal. A single link from a highly trusted domain (see above) can be worth more than hundreds of inbound links from less relevant sites.

When CNN.com or NYTimes.com (both Page Rank 9 sites), for example, linked to my wife’s site, www.AdventureRabbi.org, this drastically boosted the overall relevancy of her site.

Identify Keywords

Just having a link isn’t enough. Another 20% of your ranking is based on the words inside the link. You need the words in the link to specifically use keywords that matter.

For example a link that simply says, Click Here, ranks for the words, “Click Here.” Not very helpful.

Instead, a link that reads – Visit here for Expert Content Marketers, ranks for “Expert Content Marketers.”

Harness the Power of Content

Content is still king. The words that you use on your page still matter. If you don’t have content on your site that matches what people are searching for, you’re likely not going to be ranked for those terms. Title tags are critical. H1 Headings show search engines what content is most important. Boldface text helps. Meta keywords, though, are just ignored.

Be Knowledgeable

You might think that it’s enough to have relevant text, a strong domain name, and great links pointing to your site. But if people “bounce” back to a search engine after briefly looking at your site, then your rankings will be diminished. Google and other search engines want to display the most relevant search results possible, and they track any time you:

Type in a search query
Visit a site
Hit the “Back” button to return back to the search results page

This is what is known as a “Bounce” in search engine marketing. In email marketing, bounces are when an email address doesn’t exist.

Set Yourself up for Social Search

Six percent of your search results rankings are based on social media metrics. For example, if there are a lot of people on Facebook or Twitter who post links to your site, this will help.

Think of it as a high school popularity contest. If everyone is pointing to you (via tweets on Twitter or “Likes” on Facebook or +1 on Google), then you’re considered the popular person, and seen as the authority. Google and other search engines reward you as a result.

I’d expect social media metrics to play an increasingly prominent role going forward in search engine rankings.

Withstand the Test of Time

Google and other search engines value websites that have “Withstood The Test of Time.” Funny for an industry that’s only about 12 years old. But in order to prevent someone like me from registering a domain today, building a website tonight and stuffing it with keywords, Google places about 5% of your score based on domain name factors such as how old your domain is. A domain that was registered in 1999 will often outrank one that was just registered last week. In fact, many sites won’t even show up in Google’s index for six months or more. This is known as the Google Sandbox, although there are ways to have your site appear faster.

Top level domain name extensions matter. In the US, .com is considered the best for businesses. A .biz, .ws, .us or .net domain name is often secondary.

Where your site is hosted matters, too. If your site is hosted in Russia or China (the source of many shady businesses), you may be ranked lower than someone else who is hosted in the same country their business is located.

Finally, Google and other search engines look to see if all of your inbound links are coming from sites that are hosted at the same hosting company. For example, if all of your inbound links are from similar IP addresses, your site may not be perceived as relevant.

**Article re-purposed with permission from Customer Paradigm

Tracking Success: Sage Hospitality Partners with Denver B-cycle

The warmth of summer can be an opportunity to market your business.

As the sunny days bring more people outdoors, one business is capitalizing on this and promoting their Corporate Citizenship and green practices. In May 2011 Sage Hospitality of Denver, Colorado, announced a partnership with Denver B-cycle.

B-cycle is a bike sharing program that began in Denver in 2010 and offers anyone the opportunity to rent a bicycle for a daily or annual fee from bike stations scattered around town. Each bike is equipped with a hidden computer that tracks miles ridden, calories burned and the carbon emission offset for riding instead of driving. Sage Hospitality is one of the nation’s leading hotel and restaurant management companies.

On the face of it, hotel management and bike sharing don’t have much in common. However, Sage Hospitality has a SageWell health initiative for its employees and also has a Green Effort to show hotel clients that their intention is to reduce the carbon footprint of each hotel they manage. In other words, with a mission to promote healthy living, Sage Hospitality and Denver B-cycle are a match made in green heaven.

Sage Hospitality purchased annual memberships for its 600 full-time employees, encouraging them to bike to work and use the red rental bikes whenever possible. In addition, Sage purchased 200 B-cycle passes for hotel guests at six participating Denver hotels (available between Memorial Day and Labor Day). The 24-hour passes are available at the front desk of these hotels for $3 per day. There are also promotional packages, such as a “Spokes & Suds” package that bundles a 24-hour B-cycle pass with the room rate and other amenities.

“If we sell all those tickets, that would be a success for the consumer angle of the program,” said Kelly McCourt, vice president of marketing for Sage Hospitality. “We are hoping that at least 25% or more of our downtown associates will ride on the B-cycles.”

Only a few weeks into the program in June, Ms. McCourt said it is too early to know how successful the program is. Each hotel will have a B-cycle in their lobby with a sign directing guests to the front desk to purchase their pass and take a ride. The hope is that riding the bicycles will give hotel guests a new way to see the Mile High City during their visit too.

“We feel the city’s B-cycle initiative is important in helping develop our city,” Ms. McCourt said. “And it helps local Denverites and visitors to Denver be a bit healthier and live a little greener.”

Market Research: EMU Snowmass

Can outdoor music festivals become environmental? Some people might think that sitting on a patch of soft grass under the wide open summer sky is environmentally friendly by itself.

The organizers of the first Eco Music Festival saw the opportunity to make a summer tradition a greener experience for concertgoers. Fourth of July weekend (June 30-July 3, 2011) EMU takes over the Colorado ski resort town of Snowmass and will showcase not only emerging and established musicians, but also the natural beauty of the surroundings.

The target audience is reflected in both the eco-mission of the festival and the acts themselves. If you jam out to Leftover Salmon, The Disco Biscuits, Tea Leaf Green, and Perpetual Groove, to name a few of the bands in the lineup, then you are likely EMU’s demographic.

“Our target demographic is wide and encompasses everything from 18-35 year old concert goers to young families, and the generation that birthed Rock and Roll, plus eco/music/adventure lovers,” stated Michelin Hall, EMU creator, in an email message. “We are targeting these groups through a full 360-degree marketing effort that includes media buy, p.r., event marketing, street teams, online marketing and social media.”

The ways in which this music festival are green are as diverse as the target demographic: the large white tents are sustainably-built, all plates and utensils are biodegradable, food will come from local sources as much as possible, water bottles sold are biodegradable. For every ticket sold for the festival, $1 will be donated to the non-profit, Trees, Water & People, to plant a tree and offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Those tickets include other aspects of the multi-day event, not just the concert, and it is by encouraging exploration of the great outdoors that EMU is trying to set itself apart as a destination event. Go mountain biking, do some mountainside yoga, or participate in an Eco Climb-it Challenge to raise money for local schools. Guest can choose to stay in a LEED Gold-certified hotel, the Viceroy Resort, further embracing environmental practices.

The whole idea behind the Eco Music Festival is for attendees to have a whole environmental experience—from the obvious appeal of the Rocky Mountains in summertime to the containers for their food while they rock out to the tunes.

Brand Identity and Personality: A Recipe for Success

Find your bliss. It’s been said so many times (and practically become Oprah’s motto) that the words are almost meaningless. But when you meet someone like Judy Godec, founder of Venus & Vetiver, who has found her bliss, you cannot help but feel inspired.

Follow your passion. That expression also can sound trite, yet that is exactly what Judy did and is still doing as she sees her fledgling business gain a solid reputation in the multi-billion dollar skin care business. Venus & Vetiver (www.venusandvetiver.com), based in Boulder, Colorado, offers skin care based in the ancient rituals and wisdom of pure essential oils.

“I’ve been focused on health and beauty and healing for maybe the last 25 years,” she said. “I’m putting beauty into the world and allowing women to experience a ritual of beauty.”

Beauty is only skin deep. Well, maybe not. Judy is a radiant 48-year old mother of two teenage boys whose tousled wavy hair frames a glowing and beaming youthful face. In other words, her skin is gorgeous and who wouldn’t want to look that good and feel as good she appears to be feeling? Judy’s belief is that it matters what we put on our skin because it is seeping in to our bodies and affecting our health from the inside.

As a new mother, Judy took what she calls her “recreational” use of aromatherapy and turned it into therapeutics for her young children. Word spread about her knowledge of using essential oils and she was fielding calls from friends who wanted to know how to naturally treat warts or ear infections.

“It grew naturally from these questions,” Judy says of her skin care business. “As it evolved, it became a ritual gathering, like a women’s circle.” Dubbing them “Venus on the Half Shell” Judy’s gatherings grew from discussions of essential oils to include nutrition, acupuncture, and from superficial to in-depth topics. The handful of girlfriends grew to hundreds of people who wanted to join in.

“I would say women really respond to community and they respond powerfully to ceremony,” Judy said. “Those gatherings have jump-started my business.”

And her business continues to expand with the simple word-of-mouth praise for her organic essential oils and skin care line with names like, “Immortal Dew,” “Lip Honey” as well as things like “Broken Heart Salve.”

Judy said she gets calls from around the country as friends tell friends and friends of friends about their success with her products. She also has a lot of aestheticians contact her to use things such as “Whipped Roses” and “Lotus Leaf Lift” on their clients.

“I really love what I do, and I feel like I am called to do it,” Judy said. “People need healing and I think women get it.”

She added: “That’s my recipe for success: love and intention in what I do.”

Building a Content Management Team

Like what you see? When you read these posts, you are experiencing the work of a content management team. Content such as this takes teamwork, experts in different fields coming together to create a product.

To build a content management team takes first knowing who the audience for the content is and having a clear goal on how to best reach them.

First, you will need consumer-friendly content to enhance your online brand. It’s important to tell your story online in order to create a relationship with your customers or supporters. Consumers who are doing a Google search or poking around on Facebook are looking for answers—maybe to medical problems or just for the perfect pair of shoes.

As these people follow your electronic path, it should lead them to a decision point. They might need help on the path, and your content can guide them there, to you and your product or service.

In order to craft this online message that attracts your audience, you need to create a team. Ideally the content management team should consist of three people: content director, content manager and a content writer, who are all working in sync and drawing on their professional expertise to craft the brand’s identity.

Just like here at Rhythm of Life Consulting, a professional journalist does our writing. Often businesses cut corners on costs by asking designers or other staff to hastily write the content for websites…and it’s noticeable with spelling and grammar errors, not to mention the core message losing that strong voice.

Think of a sports team and how their goal is to win the game. That’s a decent goal, but it is only accomplished by the team working together to make basket after basket or touchdown after touchdown for the duration of the game, not just once. Your business has a goal to succeed and be profitable, but there are a lot of points to make along the way.

Just like a basketball team, your content management team is making points along the way to your ultimate success with each well-written article and post to convey your message to your fans.

Company Culture – How to Keep it Harmonious

Office culture and educational models have a lot in common. It used to be that both were structured around sitting rather quietly on chairs behind desks, with few breaks, while work and studying were done. Now many schools have models such as Montessori that encourage self-directed learning where children are free to roam their classroom while they learn.

The same is true of many modern offices where technology has made the notion of sitting at one’s desk for eight hours a day, well, old school. While people may still come to work in the same building for about eight hours on weekdays, they can also telecommute or enjoy flexible perks that make the work day less rigid.

And, just like creating independent thinkers in preschool by letting kids leave their desks, alternatives such as doing yoga at work, bringing a dog to the office, or working from home regularly, can make people more productive in their work and at work.

A 2010 study found that people who worked in an environment where a dog was present had more trust and cohesion as a team. And in 2009, researchers determined that just 20 minutes of guided yoga in the workplace reduces stress and therefore increases productivity.

At some businesses it’s not just one or two things that make workers more productive and the day more stimulating, but the whole office design and culture. Google might be the best example, where the Googleplex in California is a colorful and well-lit place with an outdoor swimming pool and volleyball court and billiards room inside as employees move from idea boards to recreation.

Each year Outside Magazine awards the “Best Places to Work” and these offices tend to include similar features to Google—workplaces and play spaces somewhat merged. Clif Bar in Emeryville, California was one of Outside’s winners in 2010. The Clif Bar workplace has a climbing wall, and dogs as well as children can come to the office (there is a child care center with music room). Clif Bar employees can take yoga and dance classes in the onsite gym. Rally Software of Boulder, Colorado, was also in Outside’s top 10 list of best work places in 2010 in part for their goals of employees “developing as individuals” rather than filling one “rigid” job role. Rally also provides a game room, yoga classes and encourages employees to have a work-life balance.

Whether it’s deep breathing and yoga poses at your own desk, petting a friendly canine, or redefining teamwork over a friendly game of foosball in the break room, get outside the cubicle and cubicle mindset to increase your own office productivity.

Social Media Doing Good

Just when it seems Twitter is simply a forum for banter about Charlie Sheen’s latest antics and other nonsense, the social media company and others like it become strategic players in disaster relief and other non-profit organization missions.

With all eyeballs on the latest natural disaster news whether it appears on Facebook, Twitter or a local news website or blog, people are paying attention and want to help out. Certainly anyone at the scene of an unfolding disaster can instantly share news of earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, and floods, but non-profit organizations are increasingly using social media tools to mobilize potential victims and rescuers.

For the American Red Cross, Hurricane Katrina was the impetus for creating a social media strategy. Initially the efforts were driven by a desire to combat negative blog posts about the response time of relief efforts in New Orleans. What they found was people truly want to help, not just complain, and that has resulted in everything from improving coordinated relief on the ground to grassroots fundraising on Facebook.

And each disaster brings social media innovations as human beings connect over a common cause. After the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan this year, a British teacher living near Tokyo created, “Quakebook,” a Twitter-sourced project that started with a single Tweet. The book of images and essays about the catastrophe will raise funds for the Japanese Red Cross—and has been promoted in part on Twitter.

Even the United States government—not exactly known for being a leader in technology innovation—turned to social media tools after the Haiti earthquake in 2010. The Homeland Security Department created the Haiti Social Media Disaster Monitoring Initiative to monitor Twitter posts, blogs, and other Internet forums for up-to-the-minute data. In that instance, trapped victims were able to text or call relatives, as well as organizations like the American Red Cross, and have those messages passed on to aid workers who could come to their rescue.

With each new disaster headline comes a new way for people to get involved, help out others, and discover new ways to communicate in a time of crisis. Since 2005 when the American Red Cross set out to just listen to the chatter on the Internet, social media has exploded and become an aspect of daily business at non-profits such as the National Wildlife Federation, the Humane Society of the United States, the March of Dimes and many more. People can choose their cause and how to follow their updates, donate or stay on top of the latest news. And even without breaking news, people can get on sites like www.twestival .com to join and support a local movement or cause.

As one commenter noted online, social media is about relationships and caring. “It really is bringing out the best in us, and it is only the beginning.”