The internet, global travel agent intranets and increased competition have all played a part in changing the way we run Caroline Serviced Apartments. The job itself continues to evolve as we adopt new ways of marketing ourselves, and improve our knowledge of our industry.

Here are six ways in which our business has changed in the last six years:

• The internet levels the playing field: The internet has enabled a small business like ours to compete with the bigger hotel chains globally. It helps even the smallest of businesses reach their most ideal client base… or better yet, have that target market find them.

• The internet has changed how people shop around: The information available online about any topic, product, service or business has completely changed the job of sales person. The phone used to ring off the hook throughout the day. We used to negotiate rates with prospective guests on most calls, and hear more about their specific needs before they made their booking.

• Online Booking sites were once only for last-minute availability: A couple of online booking sites was all that was needed to sell those last minute rooms, at super discounted prices. A room sold with a 25% discount is better than an empty room at full price when it comes to last minute sales. Now a number of 3rd party websites enable us to have inventory & rates listed for up to 365 days in advance! This offers a huge opportunity for offering better rates for quieter months etc.

• Hotel Websites a useful tool, and the booking engine was once optional: Our website used to be seen as a way to show our location, show photos of a couple of our best rooms and then hope that this would be enough for people to call. When we introduced an online booking engine to our website, we met it with suspicion and distrust (hilarious now when I think about it). Now we use our website to show people exactly what they are booking, and not just showing our top room. We feel this transparency builds trust from our prospective guests, as we have nothing to hide. We’re proud of our product!

• Yellow Pages, once were necessary for advertising: There was a time when it was essential to pay for an advertisement in the Yellow Pages. Delivered to every house, it was a sure fire way of getting your business noticed. Not anymore. The Yellow Pages is more useful as a door stop these days! We no longer list ourselves in the Yellow Pages. Now, most of our paid advertising is done in Search and Display campaigns. This has proved play a key role in getting our brand name noticed on a global level.

• Low cost advertising used to only reach a small, chosen market: In the past, if we wanted to advertise something specific but not launch into a full paid advertising campaign we would probably have had to get on the phone and call people, or produce an email or flyer. Now, there are so many opportunities to reach out to target markets (and beyond), thanks to the Social Media phenomenon. We Tweet daily and/or update our Facebook Page to let people know if we have a special offer available. But beyond this, we also make use of our YouTube channel or our Flickr photos to show guest testimonials, our rooms, our locations and our staff. Have you connected with us via any of these platforms? If the answer is no, then I suggest you check it out. We love that Facebook and Twitter offer us a quick way to respond to any questions or feedback from our guests, as well as allowing us to connect with them and offer advice or ideas of things to do/ specials at local restaurants etc while they are staying with us.

The internet has completely changed the face of our business in the last few years! Sometimes I do miss the days when someone would call up and I could spend some time going over all the features and descriptions of our room types, and they would make a decision straight away. But I have to say that I love embracing all of this new technology – as it’s just helping us get the name Caroline further and further out there!

What about you? We’d love to hear about how the internet has changed the way you find accommodation when you travel. Or how do you feel about the changes in your own business or industry with regards to how the internet?

Recently, I was ‘checking-in’ while at the hairdressers, and the manager wanted to hear all about why I use Foursquare. My answers went beyond my competitive streak of gaining badges as rewards for visiting a certain number of venues, or for being the weekly winner (amongst my friends) for having the most ‘check-ins’. I realised that Foursquare is a perfect way for small business to promote themselves and their services. Using my hair salon as an example, I explained to the manager that she could offer specials to Foursquare users, or a little discount to whoever is the Mayor of the venue. Each time someone checks-in at a venue, they are promoting that venue. They are helping get the place noticed by others who also use Foursquare.

Here’s five reasons why Foursquare could offer great marketing potential for business:

• Tips from Foursquare users can help promote the venue. I could be in a shop, and while ‘checking in’, I may also have a look at what other Foursquare users have added as Tips on places nearby. Someone may have suggested that the cafe next door has the best coffee…. so of course I am going to test that out (there’s that competitive streak shining through again)!

• Tips from Foursquare users can help improve the service offered. Not all feedback is bad. Foursquare user tips that mention a flaw in a business could be used as a way of monitoring what customers are saying about your business. It could also help re-focus what your business is trying to achieve.

• Tourism. Businesses can learn where people are visiting in their local area, and why they might be coming to their area. This offers great potential for cities encouraging users to discover new places by offering Badges that are specific to that area. The little achievements (badges and points) that Foursquare offers, really do encourage users to get out and visit more places.

• Foursquare users also share their locations on other Social media platforms. Each time someone ‘checks-in’ at a venue, they are able to share this on Twitter, Facebook and with their Foursquare friends – that enables a business name & location to appear on all of those channels. Free advertising!

• Make a game of it. Businesses could encourage Foursquare users to visit their venue by offering a weekly prize to the person who manages to have the most check-ins at that location each week. This type of marketing tool encourages repeat business, ensures exposure through multiple ‘check-ins’ and has the potential to virally spread to encourage new customers.

At Caroline Serviced Apartments we make a real game of Foursquare. It has brought out the worst (or best?) competitive streak amongst our Front Office team. We have been battling it out to steal the title of Mayor of Caroline Apartments off each other, and we have fun trying to top each others stats on the weekly leader board. This little office banter we have is a good giggle, and addictive! It doesn’t have to be too invasive, ie we may not always want our co-workers to know where we are at all times – so the functionality of going “off the grid” still helps us get our points or badges, without letting anyone know our exact location. As much as I love my friends, I know they don’t really want to know that I am doing my grocery shopping at Safeway!

If you’re wondering how Caroline Serviced Apartments are using Foursquare to help promote our business… here’s a little sneak peak at a challenge we have set for Foursquare users on our Facebook Page. We’re asking for people to visit one of our properties (in Brighton or South Yarra) and ‘check-in’ on Foursquare at the venue sometime before 2pm Friday 16th April, to win a prize that’s well worth the effort!

CSA Launches Joint Venture with Restaurant

Cosy atmosphere is guaranteed at Rembroza

This week, Caroline Serviced Apartments added a new Package Deal to our popular website. It’s the first time we’ve ever entered into a joint venture with a restaurant to offer our guests breakfast as part of their accommodation. Tim at Rembroza is so pumped to work with us, and tomorrow we’ll be filming a short ‘welcome’ video so our guests can have a peek at the restaurant and the super yummy meals and coffees.

Connections and Sharing Ideas

• On Friday I had a fantastic meeting with the lovely Sam Mutimer of ThinkTank Media and Sue McDonald. Sue is only new to Social Media, so Sam brought us together so Sue could get some pointers on how I understand and use Twitter. I heard myself saying things like “gaining trust through interaction with followers” and “use search.twitter.com to look for people who are Tweeting about a particular topic that is relevant to you” and I started to realize just how much I’ve learned in the last few months.
• This meeting occurred after the fun night of networking at The Social in Windsor for the monthly TweetupMellers event, where I met some more awesome people who are passionate about connecting and learning together.
• Social Media has truly opened up some doors for our business… but I’m saving those details for our e-book case study.
• Speaking of sharing – Anna & Miranda (from our Brighton property) are starting to get on board with Caroline Apartments social media campaigns. We’ll be seeing some blog entries from them, as well as more Tweets, photos on Flickr and videos for YouTube. See? Enthusiasm is infectious!

The Buzz of the Week

And I can’t forget to mention Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival. We’ve seen some of our guests heading out to race days looking very glam, and on Tuesday Anna and I are going to be joining them – we’re off to a marquee at the Melbourne Cup! We’ll be sure to post some pics up on our Facebook Page and here on our Blog so anyone who didn’t get to the event can live vicariously through us for a moment…

Our latest competition was cooked up a couple of weeks ago when Mei-Li and I were working on Marketing with Sam at ThinkTank Media.

We aimed to develop a competition that was kind of unusual, without being too difficult or time consuming for people to enter. We wanted the prize to be something totally worthwhile, that would encourage people to give it a go…. but you have to watch the video to find out what you could win!

We had so much fun creating a video for the competition to upload onto YouTube-(because the ‘acting’ was so terribly bad)! We’ve been promoting the competition on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and our Blog. We’ve received a few entries so far and are amazed at how many views the video has received. We are certain that Caroline Serviced Apartments are getting more well known, as our Followers and Fans increase daily. We also feel that having such an unusual competition will help cement our company in people’s minds if ever they do need accommodation in Melbourne. They may remember us as the one’s who are making an effort to reach out to future guests in a very different way (so far we have not found any other accommodation provider in Australia who is running anything similar to this). What are you waiting for? Get creative and show us your ‘mug-shot’ before November 9th.

 
Let us introduce ourselves first then tell you guys why we are here.
 
Ali and Mei-Li (that is pronounced May-Lee) are adventurous, excitable and vivacious girls who are totally amazed by this space; social media. We have hooked up with Sam Mutimer from Thinktank Media who is cramming us with knowledge on how to use this space to connect with our clients; past, present & future. You maybe thinking now we work for some sort of escort agency… but actually we are managers of a brand of fabulous serviced apartments in Melbourne.

Caroline Serviced Apartments are luxuriously appointed apartments in some of Melbournes’ best locations (South Yarra, Brighton, Melbourne CBD) and we want to let everyone whose interested know about us! We want to show everyone how fun loving and accesible our staff and apartments can be! And we want to stay connected on a whole new level!
 
So what to expect in this blog? Expect everything!!! Expect the unusual, the quirky, the useful, the eye-opening, the crazy and of course a lot of ourselves. Most importantly we want to engage our guests and fans in social banter and do keep an eye out for competitions where the winner will actually recieve a PRIZE! For real.
 
What do you readers what to see in our blog? Let us know…