Move out of the way, Google! There’s a new old-guy in town called Bing with a better way to search, by using other people’s perspectives on movies, products, and more.  The redesigned search engine rolled out in May 2012 under the URL www.bing.com/new, but today you’ll find the new 3-column search engine display using either Bing.com or Bing.com/new.

So, how does this new 3-column display affect the way in which we now search on Bing? According to The Bing Team on Bing’s Blog, “Bing now integrates search and people in our social networks through a dedicated social 'sidebar.' With the sidebar, Bing brings together the best of the web, using the social opinions and preferences of experts and your friends alike, giving you the confidence to act. This new way to search lets you share, discover, and interact with friends like you do in real life."

Let’s dive into the elements of the Bing Social Interface to flesh out what the changes are and how they may help improve the way in which we search.

The Core

As previously stated, Bing has rolled out a new 3-column display on search. The Core Search, or the main search page, remains fairly unchanged. However, Bing removed the social annotations from the core search results, as they claim the social annotations caused more confusion for users in identifying credibility for each result. The assertion by Bing that social annotations didn’t help the user search experience is contrary to the reports that Google has released, so I guess we shall see who comes out victorious in that battle.

The Snapshot

Moving to the immediate right of the search results (but still within the main search window), you’ll find the “Snapshot.” The Snapshot provides the user with additional information about a search listing without needing to leave Bing’s main search results. Often times, the Snapshot will appear for a restaurant listing and it will provide the contact information, display pictures of the restaurant, and it may even include snippets of user reviews.

The Social Sidebar

Finally, the most significant upgrade to Bing’s search is the Social Sidebar to the far right of the screen. By logging into Facebook or your Windows Live account, the Social Sidebar integrates your search queries with your social network friends’ knowledge. The goal is to provide you with well-rounded (depending on your friends) perspectives on your search queries and allow you to make informed decisions.

When logging on to Bing, the most noteworthy update to the interface is the social sidebar on the far right-hand side of the screen.  This sidebar can display up to four different components:

• Ask Friends
• Friends Who Might Know
• People Who Might Know
• Activity Feed

Ask Friends

The "Ask Friends" section of the sidebar (see the blue circle to the right) allows you to do just that: ask friends on Facebook.  Simply, type your question into the text box and tag any friends that you think may be able to help answer your question. Your question will then be posted on your Facebook Timeline as a status update and any friends who were tagged in your question will receive a private message containing the question.  If you’d like to control who sees your Bing posts through Facebook, go to  your Account Settings and change the Bing settings under “Apps.”  Please note that Facebook will employ their “Edgerank” algorithm to determine which friends will see your question/post, depending on how relevant Facebook thinks that friend is to your question.

Friends Who Might Know

Another element of the Social Sidebar is the “Friends Who Might Know” feature.  Once you have signed-in, Bing pulls from Facebook to suggest relevant friends that may have knowledge on your search subject.  Bing determines which friends are relevant by searching the photos they’ve shared, the pages they’ve liked, and even posts in which they mention the search subject.  If you’re uncertain as to why a friend was suggested, just hover over their picture to release the drop-down box with the links, photos, and pages they’ve shared that made them relevant.  If you want to send questions or add links to this friend for advice, just click on the plus symbol icon next to the friend’s name.  Remember, everyone can see the question posted on your Timeline, but your “friend” will receive a private message containing the question and links.

People Who Might Know

While the first two features of the Social Sidebar crawl your Facebook friends for relevancy, the “People Who Might Know” section of the sidebar searches a variety of social channels that Bing considers appropriate to your search.  Some of the social channels Bing crawls, besides Facebook, are Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare, Blogger, and even Google+.  The people who may appear in this section will not be your specific Facebook friends, but rather experts, authors, and anyone with information that’s relative to your topic as Bing sources blogs, tweets, and other relative posts.  One significant difference that should be noted about this element of the Social Sidebar is that the results are not personalized; the "People Who Know" results will be the same for everyone performing that same search.

Activity

Finally, the Activity section of the Social Sidebar at the bottom of the column is simply a running feed of questions that you or your Facebook friends have asked (see the green circle in the screenshot above). You can respond to your friends’ questions by clicking on the question.  To see your responses, also just click on the question.  The questions that appear in this section don’t correspond with your current search query – it’s simply a running list of questions asked over time by you or your friends.

Changes to Bing's core search results

Now that we’ve gone through the different elements of the Social Sidebar, let’s quickly run through the changes made by Bing to the Core Search Results.  As I previously mentioned, Bing removed the social annotations under each search result because they determined that the annotations weren’t as helpful as they had expected.  In place of the social annotations, Bing is now using small gray icons to identify “Trending Topics” and “Thumbs Up” topics by your social friends.

For search results containing trending topics, a small gray arrow will appear to the left of the search result.  By hovering over the arrow, Bing will show where the topic is trending, such as on Facebook or Twitter.  For results that your Facebook friends have liked, a small gray icon with a thumbs-up will appear to the left of the search result.  By hovering over that icon, you can see what friends either “Liked” the article or the source from which the article was pulled.  These small social annotation upgrades are less intrusive than the previous version of Bing’s social annotations, but be aware that trending topics will sometimes rank higher than your personalized results as part of the social integration of Bing’s new search algorithm.

It's clear that Bing is working hard to pave a new path in the social integration of search results and stand apart from Google's progress. I personally think Bing's new social interface is a highly useful improvement on several fronts. With the new, 3-column lay-out, Bing extricates social results from global results which lends to less confusion as to which sites are "credible" and which sites are more social and opinion-based.

I also see the Social Sidebar being very helpful in the hospitality and travel industries, as users now have the capability to interact with their Facebook friends or "People Who Might Know" while making travel arrangements.  For example, a user who is trying to plan a vacation to Europe can now use the Social Sidebar to ask Facebook Friends for suggestions on hotels, attractions, and even the best time of year to visit.  Depending on the number of people logged-into Facebook at the time of the question, that user could have answers and suggestions within minutes of posting the question. Furthermore, that same user will automatically be able to see which of their Facebook friends lived, studied abroad, or has some level of knowledge on that travel location that the user may have been privy to prior to his/her Bing search.

Having that level of interaction and connection to other people while sitting alone on the computer in your living room is revolutionary and, if used correctly, will help shape much more insightful travel plans.  If businesses or hotels begin incorporating Bing into their social media management schedules, it could potentially be another channel for marketing and engaging with future guests. Simply answering questions posed on Facebook from Bing could provide valuable information to the user and could convert into a reservation. I'll be keeping my eyes on Bing as this new interface continues to grow and evolve.

The importance of social media to the travel industry is a well-known fact by now, and we’ve helped to show you the way to the best Facebook apps, how to optimize on Foursquare, how to create captivating content, and even persuaded you into building a Google+ profile.  Just as you thought you had everything under control on the social media front, Facebook unleashed a new format for brand pages last month called Timeline and brands everywhere are working hard to make their pages look their best.  Looks like it’s time to roll-up our sleeves once again and tune-up our Timelines.  But, before you jump into your Facebook makeover, take a minute to read over these five tips.

1.  IDENTITY CRISIS: New format for Business Pages looks just like the format for Profile Pages.

The new brand pages (for businesses) now look just like personal profile pages (for people) with a large cover photo and two columns with the “timeline” in the middle and a sidebar timeline to jump through the years.

How you can optimize: Use these new features to your marketing advantage by featuring an attractive, focused cover photo that your guests will see as soon as they go to your page.  Your cover photo will need to be 850 x 315 pixels and you can add a welcome tagline, such as the one in the example below. However, be sure to read Facebook’s guidelines, as cover photos cannot contain ANY of the following:

• price or purchase information
• contact information
• any reference to user interface elements (such as “Like Us!”)
• calls to action

If you include any of those elements, Facebook will penalize your page.  

Optimize your Timeline features by adding important milestones relevant to your business.  Some examples include your business’ opening day, renovations, re-openings, or top sales days.  You can also pin important posts to the top of your timeline, which will stay there for 7 days or until you pin another post.  Pinning posts works best to advertise a sale or event that you want guests to see immediately.  Similarly, highlighting a post will also call attention to important events, updates, or sales, as that post will expand it to the entire width of your Timeline.

2. FACE-LIFTED: Tab Visibility has been reduced to only 3 tabs

The panel of tabs on the left-hand side of the old page, which many brands used as landing pages to introduce potential fans to your brand, have been moved and reduced.  On the new Timeline, tabs (which contained Facebook applications) are now displayed as application boxes under the large cover photo.  Additionally, now only 3 tabs are visible before expanding the “see more” option.  Be sure to note that the “Photos” application box will always be visible and automatically consumes one of the 4 available boxes on display.

How you can optimize: Although the old tabs/landing pages were very useful in personalizing a brand page and adding content, this new arrangement forces brands to consider which three tabs are the most important to your company’s current marketing objectives.  The tabs can be re-arranged as often as you’d like in order to focus on ever-changing goals and targets.  The new Timeline application icons are 111 x 74 pixels, so you can incorporate attractive photos into your icon to draw guests’ attention to your tabs.  Without updating the icon picture, the old tab icons will be centered in the middle of the new application boxes without any adjustments, so it’s best to update the new format.

3. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: No Default Landing Pages

Without the aforementioned tab pages used as landing pages, brands no longer have the ability to send visitors to designated landing pages upon arriving at a business's Facebook page.  Instead, the "homepage" of a business Facebook page will always be the new Timeline page with the large cover photo. This change will dramatically affect the user’s first impression of your brand, and it changes marketing strategies for “Likes” and email signups.  Brands that previously relied on "Like walls" (where users had to like the page before viewing exclusive Facebook content) will no longer be able to grow their community base in that way.  However, on the positive side, removing this marketing tactic for “Likes” means the guests who continue to “Like” your brand page will be high-quality fans, which translates into high-quality engagement with people who really DO like your brand.

How to optimize: It’s time to re-think your marketing strategy since you can no longer force new visitors to navigate through the calls-to-action on your landing pages before reaching the wall of your Facebook page.  The best way to ensure your new or returning guests have a positive user-experience on your page is to create an attractive cover photo that highlights your best amenities, guestrooms, or products.  Feature a pinned post at the top of your page with a great rate, sale, or event. Highlight an even better post to expand it across the width of your page to make a great first impression.  Bring your applications front and center, which shouldn’t be difficult to accomplish since the new app boxes are much larger than the old 16x16 icons and encourage guests to expand your app list with attention-catching visible tabs.

4. OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW: Fresh ways to feature content

With the tried-and-true methods of marketing to new fans and incorporating fresh content removed from the Timeline format, marketers need to learn innovative ways to feature fresh content.  Luckily, as the saying goes, “When one door closes, a window opens.”  In this case, although landing pages have been removed from marketers' arsenals, pinned and highlighted posts have been added as new opportunities.

How to optimize: Facebook added new features to posts on your Wall, including “Pinned” posts and “Highlighted” posts.

• Highlighting a post: When you hover over a given post and click the star icon that appears, the option to highlight that post appears.  Highlighting a post will stretch the post to the entire width of your Page, thus calling attention to that particular message among the hodge-podge of other posts.  The highlighted post will remain this size until you highlight a different post.  Use this feature to draw attention to contests, sales, or to market special events.  Multiple posts can be highlighted at any given time.
• Pinning a post: Similarly, by hovering over the pencil icon in a post you can pin the post to the top of your Page.  This post will remain at the top of your page until you pin a different post, for a maximum of 7 days.  A ribbon on the right-hand corner of the posts indicates that the post has been pinned.  Again, pinning posts to the top of your Timeline is a great marketing strategy for flash sales, approaching events, or contests.

5. PERSONAL CONNECTION: Engage with your fans privately

As you may know, private messaging was not available through the original Facebook pages.  However, the Timeline format encourages more socialization, and with that comes deeper interaction between the brands and customers through the addition of private messaging.

How to optimize: Although this isn’t exactly considered “optimizing,” there are times when it’s best to use private messaging.  For example, the Timeline format creates a scattered, disorganized feel for some users.  When a customer or guest posts an inquiry on your Wall, it can become overwhelming and appear scattered as the responses multiply or when multiple people begin posting.  This would be a perfect opportunity to move the conversation into a private message so that you can address all the customers’ questions without clouding up your valuable Timeline space.  One thing to note: Brands can receive and send private messages with users, but the user has to initiate the private conversation by sending the first message.

When it comes to your hotel's online reputation management, think of the internet as high school and you’re trying to win the popularity contest. With Google’s plans to incorporate Google+ into personalized search results and the backlash of TripAdvisor’s misleading reviews, I think it’s fair to say that there’s a considerable focus on what people are saying about your brand. More than ever before, people are turning to each other through the internet to glean opinions about hotels, their staff, and even how the hotel dealt with problems, before making any concrete decisions about where to stay.

Here’s the real clincher: consumers aren’t just looking for their peers’ reactions; they’re also taking into account how the hotel responded to both positive and negative reviews. Your online reputation management will continue to be increasingly important as “likes,” “+1’s,” and reviews are intertwined into how we discover new information on the internet.

So, how will you amp up your online reputation management to make sure small blunders inside the hotel don’t go viral?

1. Listen to the locker room gossip

Know what people are saying about your hotel. Like any good prom queen in the running, you need to know what’s being said and where people are saying it. One simple and free way to oversee mentions of your hotel is to set-up Google Alerts. With Google Alerts, you’ll be notified via email every time your hotel name (or whatever keywords you deem relevant) are mentioned anywhere in search results.

Another key strategy is to monitor your social media profiles daily. There are more opinions posted on those sites besides just reviews. Tracking the increase in visits, likes, re-tweets, shares, etc. can give you a good idea over how buzz worthy your hotel is or not.

Finally, if you’re a one-man show and need some minions to help build your reputation, you can employ technology services to help manage the process. Bookassist offers a service called “Reputation Alert” which not only collects reviews from guests who book through your brand.com, but it also crawls hundreds of sites to gather comments or reviews and brings them to you in one place. Some more comprehensive products to consider are ReviewPro or ReviewAnalyst. Not only do these services monitor and collect all reviews, but they also compile the data into easy-to-use reports.

2. Be a social butterfly

Be engaged with your online community. If you’re going to gain entrance into the cool crowd, you need to be outgoing and diplomatic to others. The same goes for your hotel’s image online. Similar to how you want to be accepted and liked by others, your guests or reviewers want to be heard and acknowledged, too! Responding to positive reviews about your hotel is easy enough to do, but a lot of hoteliers shy away from responding to negative reviews or complaints. These are the reviews that need the most attention, as these guests may have felt as though their issue was ignored on-property or not handled properly. Now they want to lambast your hotel for the whole world to see.

By simply acknowledging that there was an issue and offering a diplomatic response, you are engaging in an online conversation that other potential guests will see. People are eager to see how the hotel will respond or react to a negative situation.  Furthermore, the way in which its handled will give potential guests insight as to what they’ll be up against if a problem occurs during their stay. In fact, there have been cases in which a once disgruntled reviewer was so satisfied by the hotel’s response to their issue that they removed the negative review and became a cheerleader for the hotel. The more you engage with your online community through responses, blogs, and social media, the more positive your brand image will become.

3. Transform your ugly duckling into a beautiful swan

Interesting images and other content are key to growing your community. If you’re going to be a front-runner in the popularity game, it’s important to always highlight your best features. High quality and complementary images of your property will draw consumers’ eyes away from any negative reviews and into your photo gallery. New social media sites, like Pinterest, showcase destinations with beautiful landscapes or neat décor with a link back to the source (aka your brand.com).

What’s more, gaining new followers on your social media channels is more than just skin deep; you have to show your inner beauty. Provide content that followers will want to share with their networks. Interesting blog entries, fun contests, and “featured guests” posts are sure fire ways to gain attention and keep your current followers interested. Finally, posting pictures and posts about hotel staff events allows your followers to feel a connection with the hotel and helps make your hotel staff seem more approachable.

4. Campaign like a class president

Promote guest reviews. Although “Vote for Me” posters aren’t exactly within brand standards, there are other ways that you can encourage your guests to leave reviews on your social media channels that will help keep your content and reviews fresh. Adding links to your TripAdvisor, Google+, or Yahoo listings on your Facebook page is one way to ensure writing reviews is top of mind for your guests. More subtle methods include adding a link to your listings on email signatures, newsletters, and brand.com. Providing easy access to your business listings will keep reviewing from feeling like a chore to your guests.

The most obvious way to encourage exceptional guest reviews is to provide the guest with a great hospitality experience. Even if there are blunders during their stay, the way in which it’s handled can make or break a raving review. It’s important to train your staff that what happens inside the hotel may be reflected online, and reviewers aren’t shy about naming names if they’re really upset. They also aren’t shy about naming names when a hotelier helped make their stay really wonderful, so just ask yourself what kind of publicity do you want?

In the end, will you be a popular student or a wallflower? If your hotel stays in touch with their reviews and reviewers, provides valuable content on its social media channels, and encourages positive reviews when the opportunity arises, I could foresee Prom Court in your future. And remember, it’s the negative reviews that need the most nurturing and what happens inside your hotel doesn’t always stay inside your hotel. Good luck!

Whether you ignore it or not, social media is helping travelers everywhere plan vacations and choose the right hotels according to their wants and needs…and other people’s opinions.

At the beginning of travel industry time, travelers would dream of the destinations they wanted to visit and travel agents were the fairy godmothers making those dreams become a reality.  Travelers grew to trust their travel agents to provide them with the best flight, hotel, and destination arrangements for their budget.  What choice did they have, anyway? Only travel agents had access to the GDS and the time to search through the various options to formulate a travel itinerary.

With the arrival of online travel agents, like Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, and Orbitz, the road to vacationing forever changed.  Travelers were able to access GDS through these sites, which would sort through the database of available flights and hotels and allow the traveler to put together his or her own travel itinerary.

But wait! What does this have to do with Social Media?

With the power of travel in every user’s hands, both business and leisure travelers began spreading the word about certain hotels’ policies, staff attitudes, room amenities and cleanliness.  Future travelers’ decisions were being based off of these reports and opinions, orchestrated on the social media platforms of TripAdvisor, Expedia forums, and Facebook.  According to Steve Pike, author of Destination Marketing, 81% of travelers “always or often use the internet to plan their vacations” and travelers were using social media to look for reviews of hotels, airlines, and services before booking.

Social media and social networks offer the same frankness in conversation as two close friends in a room.  A good way of looking at social media for hotels is that it’s like having the ability to have millions of people in your meeting room, discussing your hotel, offering suggestions and comments, conveying the experience for others, dishing out tips and ideas, and marketing to others who want to spend their time and money at your hotel.

The conversation isn’t one-sided, either.  Social media allows the hotel to join in the conversation, responding to complaints, expanding upon suggestions, and building long-term relationships with guests through brand awareness and loyalty.  This instant, direct response from hotel management to the guest provides for a better customer service experience for the guests and helps build a devoted customer base.  What’s more, it’s more profitable to foster relationships with existing guests who will only become more loyal and spread the word for your hotel, rather than the cost of reaching a continuous stream of new guests.

How can you optimize your hotel for social media?

Remember that social media is a fantastic marketing base in which your hotel can advertise specials, contests, and last-minute rates to a large number of viewers that, without social media, might not otherwise have happened. For hotels that do not currently have a social media strategy because they’re scared of the investment costs, here are some free and easy ways to get started in social media.

• Register with sites, such as TripAdvisor, that have user generated content. There’s not much maintenance for the hotel, besides responding to user comments.  That also means there’s not a lot of control on the hotel’s end in terms of the content or pictures being posted for your property.
• Create a Facebook or Google+ Business page. Social media affects search engine results, so the more “Likes” or “+1”and visits on your page, the more likely your hotel will be visible in search results over other area hotels.
• Create a Twitter profile. Stimulate conversations with your followers, and announce specials or contests quickly (140 characters or less) and easily to hundreds of people.  Encourage your followers to re-tweet your tweets and you’ve just reached their networks with little to no effort on your side.
• Start a blog. Personalize your hotel with a voice and stories.  Encourage guests to write quick blog posts about their stay at your hotel or comment on your posts.  Any platform where you can control or respond to the conversation about your property, the better.

Social media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon – so those hotels that optimize for social media and learn how to use it to their advantage will gain the competitive edge over hotels that are still dragging their feet.  So, c’mon! Join the conversation!