The Chesterfield Hotel in Mayfair, London is at the top of the table for the17th week running now.

Download this list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 27^th July 2010)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a TwitterGrade of 95 means tweets from your account have more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with all our lists, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the UK.

The Travelodge Ireland in Nationwide is at the top of the table for the third week in a row- Well done!

Download the list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 30th July 2010)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

In your search for the right tool(s), you should be looking to both monitor and measure your brand on social media. The two terms are used somewhat interchangeably, and although there is some overlap and similarity in business goals, monitoring and measurement are distinct processes. Let’s take a look at each one in a bit more detail.

Social Media Monitoring

Monitoring (or perhaps the more evocative definition is “listening”) is the process of continuous and immediate discovery of conversations with the purpose of learning, engaging, helping and collaborating. You can do this with anyone, whether it’s your customers, prospects, industry thought leaders, former customers, partners or others. There are also different cues to listen for and different ways to engage. Typically, monitoring has a stronger real-time implication than measurement, as one of the purposes is to track keywords as they appear, with the goal of quick reaction.

How it works: Typically, monitoring is performed on a keywords basis. Relevant keywords include your brand name, product name, etc. Based on your keywords, your monitoring system of choice goes out to the social networks you specify, grabs the relevant articles and messages, and hopefully arranges them for easier digestion and action.

Why it’s important: My favorite analogy for social media is that it’s like the “largest cocktail party in the world.” It’s a room filled with people driven by one desire to communicate, share, digest and relate, while carrying on many independent conversations. Some of these conversations can be about you, your competitors or your industry. Some of these conversations could be people looking for a product like yours. They will talk about all these topics regardless of whether you are listening or not. However, you wouldn’t know any of this if you weren’t listening.

Read More of the story at Mashable.Com

Well done to The Landmark Hotel, Killyhelvin Hotel and O’Callaghan Hotels who are all new to the table this week, Congratulations!

For the 21^st week in a row the Fitzwilton Hotel, Waterford remains unbeaten at number 1 on the list.

Download the list as a PDF here

(List correct as of 26^th July 2010)

The list is by no means final so if you feel we’ve missed you out, please let us know by commenting below and your hotel/group could appear on next weeks list.

The list is based on the number of fans the Facebook page has and is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This list only considers Facebook Pages as opposed to groups and personal profiles.

A Page or a Group, which is better? Well the answer to that depends on you and what works for your business.

Facebook Groups:

1. Set up for more personal interaction, they are highly active and require constant engagement.
2. Connected to the profile of the people who administer them.
3. When you post something as a group administrator, it appears to be coming from you and is attached to your personal profile.
4. Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause.
5. If the group is under 5,000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes.
6. Permissions settings make it possible for group admins to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved.
7. Groups can’t host applications.
8. You can advertise your group.

Facebook Pages:

1. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
2. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
3. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.
4. Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content.
5. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
6. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.

So it’s up to you who best suits your business right now and going forward.

Be sure to check back every Monday to see if your hotel has made the list!

The Travelodge Ireland in Nationwide is at the top of the table for the second week in a row- Well done!

Download the list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 23rd July 2010)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

For the 20^th week in a row the Fitzwilton Hotel, Waterford remains unbeaten at number 1 on the list.

Download the list as a PDF here

(List correct as of 19^th July 2010)

The list is by no means final so if you feel we’ve missed you out, please let us know by commenting below and your hotel/group could appear on next weeks list.

The list is based on the number of fans the Facebook page has and is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This list only considers Facebook Pages as opposed to groups and personal profiles.

A Page or a Group, which is better? Well the answer to that depends on you and what works for your business.

Facebook Groups:

1. Set up for more personal interaction, they are highly active and require constant engagement.
2. Connected to the profile of the people who administer them.
3. When you post something as a group administrator, it appears to be coming from you and is attached to your personal profile.
4. Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause.
5. If the group is under 5,000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes.
6. Permissions settings make it possible for group admins to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved.
7. Groups can’t host applications.
8. You can advertise your group.

Facebook Pages:

1. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
2. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
3. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.
4. Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content.
5. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
6. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.

So it’s up to you who best suits your business right now and going forward.

Be sure to check back every Monday to see if your hotel has made the list!

“With corporate travel managers focused on getting more out of their travel budgets, companies continue to turn to the Internet for choice, cost savings and a great user experience,” said Frank Petito, president, Orbitz for Business. “Of course, we believe that Orbitz for Business is uniquely positioned to deliver those benefits to our customers, online and off.”

Cost Cutting Continues Amidst Cautious Optimism

After a decline in corporate travel the last two years, the trend report highlights an ongoing commitment by companies and individual employees to reduce travel costs, even as they fly more:

- A Personal Commitment: 70 percent of travelers felt personally obligated to save their company money when they travel.

- Fly Economy Class: 38 percent of respondents stated they have flown economy class on domestic flights to cut travel costs.

- Booking Ahead: To help avoid higher fares associated with last-minute bookings, only 6 percent of business travelers said they book their flights less than a week in advance. Thirty percent of respondents said they book at least eight days in advance, with the remaining 64 percent booking at least two weeks before a trip.

- On the Bright Side: Nearly 20 percent of business travelers said no cost cuts have been made so far in 2010, and the majority of respondents (54 percent) said they were planning to have the same number of business trips in the next three months as they had in the first quarter.

Compliance and Online Adoption

With corporate travel managers setting their sights on compliance as a pathway to cost reduction and adoption, more attention is being given to converting out of policy travelers. According to the trend report, reigning in these ‘rogue travelers’ will depend on how a company adopts self-service and online booking tools as part of their managed travel solution:

- Self-Service: 91 percent of business travelers surveyed book their own travel. And 73 percent of respondents cited convenience and self-service as the primary reasons they chose a specific airline carrier.

Read more at Hotel Marketing.Com

The Travelodge Ireland are back at the top of the table once again. Well done guys!

Download the list as a PDF here

(List is correct as of 16th July 2010)

The data in this list differs slightly to that of our Facebook list and is ranked according to the hotel’s influence on the twitter verse.

We’ve used twitter.grader.com to rank each hotel on twitter. This clever little app considers many different factors including number of followers, number of followings and number of posts (among many others). This creates a score, enabling each twitter account to be ranked out of all the accounts that have been graded in the twitter network.

It basically gives you an idea of the impact each tweet has.

The grade is out of 100 and represents the percentage of accounts that have less of an impact than yours. For example, a Twitter Grade of 95 means tweets from your account has more of an impact than tweets from 95% of all other graded accounts on twitter. Pretty impressive hey?!

As with our Facebook list, we’ve done our best to recognise every contender for the list but a few are bound to have slipped through the net. If you think your hotel should be included on the list, please let us know by commenting below, remembering to include your “@” twitter account name.

The list is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Be sure to check back each week to see if your hotel has made the list.

Rule 1: Rethinking “websites”

Let’s set the record straight: “Websites” are soooooo 1999. Today’s website needs to be an experience: a social experience, a mobile experience, an interactive experience. So when you’re thinking about how to create an “awesome website,” you really should be thinking about how to create an experience that engages your audience — and maybe the way to do that is not through a website at all.

Here are some tips for creating the best possible interactive experience:

Start with strategy
To whom are you speaking? Is your market baby boomers? If it is, then you are probably going to want to have some type of physical site, as baby boomers like to dig for information. The site could be a landing page, a content site, or a Flash-driven experience. As long as it contains the information that they’re looking for, baby boomers will find it awesome.

On the flipside, if you’re targeting rising professionals in their 20s and 30s, you might be better off focusing your efforts on social sites like Facebook. There are a number of brands taking time in 2010 to bolster brand experiences on these networks because they’ve learned that their audience just isn’t digging for information. You can create an awesome brand site, but if your audience isn’t going to visit it, you’re wasting your time.

Continuing down in age: If your focus is Generation Y, your consumers are probably spending more time on their mobile devices than in front of a computer. Better have your WAP page or mobile applications ready for this audience. Over time, you’ll want to make sure that your interactive presence is cohesive. But point blank, start by strategically targeting the vehicle that your audience is most likely to use.

Rule 2: Make it social

Regardless of whether your target is baby boomers or young professionals, your consumers are probably engaged in some type of online community and will share information they like if you give them the right tools. Provide people with the ability to spread the word easily. Site add-ons like “Add This” give developers quick access to the tools that make it easy to share any content on your website.

With Facebook rolling out its own set of sharing tools recently, you can now easily integrate all of your content with Facebook in a way that allows you to see what your friends have “liked.” This has been incredibly successful in the retail industry for early adopters such as Levi’s. With this new technology, you can view individual Levi’s products to see not only the total number of people who have liked it, but your specific friends’ likes as well. This is also a great new way for brands to quickly see product popularity within a particular age group or region.

Rule 3: Create an integrated marketing network

While it is possible to catch a fish with a fishing pole, it is much easier to catch a school of fish with a large net. The same rule applies for your brand’s digital presence.

In the digital age, there are a number of platforms and networks on which people are searching for information. Make sure you are where your audience is and, more importantly, once you have them, make sure you keep them. Your blog should lead to your website, your website to your Facebook and Twitter, your Facebook and Twitter to your mobile application, and so on. The wider your net is cast, the more fish you are going to catch.

A great example of this is a recent campaign run by Cottonelle. Cottonelle utilized outdoor media to spread the word about a campaign that asked consumers, “Which way do you roll?” The campaign immediately drove to mobile marketing — consumers texted in their response — which then drove to the web and social media. Each channel was also marketed and available independently of the other channels. If accessed independently, they then drove to other channels respectively. The findings were used in a follow-up campaign that then explained that the majority of people roll their toilet paper roll “over the top.” By utilizing multiple touch points through an integrated network — rather than a website alone — Cottonelle was able to engage a much wider group of consumers through a more interesting, integrated, interactive experience.

Read More at i Media Connection

For the 19^th week in a row the Fitzwilton Hotel, Waterford remains unbeaten at number 1 on the list.

Download the list as a PDF here

(List correct as of 12^h July 2010)

The list is by no means final so if you feel we’ve missed you out, please let us know by commenting below and your hotel/group could appear on next weeks list.

The list is based on the number of fans the Facebook page has and is open to all hotels in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This list only considers Facebook Pages as opposed to groups and personal profiles.

A Page or a Group, which is better? Well the answer to that depends on you and what works for your business.

Facebook Groups:

1. Set up for more personal interaction, they are highly active and require constant engagement.
2. Connected to the profile of the people who administer them.
3. When you post something as a group administrator, it appears to be coming from you and is attached to your personal profile.
4. Groups are great for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause.
5. If the group is under 5,000 members, group admins can send messages to the group members that will appear in their inboxes.
6. Permissions settings make it possible for group admins to restrict access to a group, so that new members have to be approved.
7. Groups can’t host applications.
8. You can advertise your group.

Facebook Pages:

1. Access to a Page, however, can only be restricted by certain ages and locations.
2. Page admins can send updates to fans through the Page, and these updates will appear in the “Updates” section of fans’ inboxes.
3. There is no limit on how many fans you may send an update to, or how many total fans a Page can have.
4. Pages can host applications, so a Page can essentially be more personalized and show more content.
5. Pages can benefit from social ads that publicize the fan connection between a Page and a specific user.
6. Pages are better for brands, businesses, bands, movies, or celebrities who want to interact with their fans or customers without having them connected to a personal account, and have a need to exceed Facebook’s 5,000 friend cap.

Neither Groups nor Pages have great moderation features. If someone posts spam on your Group or your Page, you have to remove it manually, and you can also remove specific members.

So it’s up to you who best suits your business right now and going forward.

Be sure to check back every Monday to see if your hotel has made the list!