Speakers at the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference (HITEC) and HSMAI’s Revenue Management & Internet Marketing Strategy Conference earlier this month admitted the unthinkable: As hotel VIPs, they still don’t know how to make social media work. They don’t know how to approach it (one person or every employee’s job?), and they don’t have a big-picture goal (boost sales, seal loyalty).

Social media fills seats

Maybe more importantly, they haven’t found how to turn these social media activities into a profit stream, points out Glenn Haussman, the editor-in-chief over at Hotel Interactive, Inc. And that very well may be a red herring in the equation.  “The one thing we do know is that the clout of the hotel marketer and sales pro can get severely diminished as consumers cut the hotel brands out of the communication,” he writes at his blog. “It used to be that brands could deliver clear, highly controlled messages through channels such as magazine or television advertising or through a direct mail promotion. While those tools are still around, their influence on savvy consumers is waning. They’d rather talk amongst themselves.”

Trying to influence that conversation has backfired for more than one hotelier who has tried stuffing the ballot box at sites like TripAdvisor. It doesn’t matter that some of the complaints are, indeed, disgruntled employees or the competition trying to smear anonymously. Fake, glowing reviews are still taboo — and TripAdvisor is now playing cop, publicly announcing when a hotel is being investigated for fraudulent reviews.

Perhaps the answer lies in the Social Customer Relationship Management software bursting onto the scene. Like other CRM versions, it tracks data — this time, tweets, blog posts, Facebook updates, etc. to help companies deal with remarks the old-fashioned way: one at a time. Porter Gale, vice president of marketing for Virgin America, is one of the pioneers. The airline uses 1.5 people to engage in social media to listen to conversations and respond.

The word “marketing” doesn’t even enter the mix, according to Gale. Instead, it works like this: one of the 20,000 Twitter followers mentioned she had just graduated medical school and was flying Virgin America to get home. The VA social media team asked if anyone on the flight would buy her drink. Someone in Row 11 piped up. VA enhanced its fun image, and two human beings somewhere in the stratosphere made a live connection.

Photography: Virgin Atlantic