Whether you are big or small, here are 5 Tips on how to use TripAdvisor to market your travel business and monitor your online reputation – for free!

1) Get listed
Tripadvisor.com offers a free listing service for accommodation and attractions (and also restaurants in the US). Listing your establishment offers you official representation on the Tripadvisor.com site – in the form of 75 words, one photo and your contact details. Once live the listing gives your customers a platform to write reviews and post photos and videos of your establishment. It also gives you, the service provider, a chance to respond to those reviews.

2) Monitor your reputation
If you are in the hospitality sector, you cannot afford to ignore the conversation going on about your brand on Tripadvisor.com. Of course it’s important to respond to reviews on your official listing, but don’t forget to also keep track of the travel forum as this is where the real discussions take place. Download the Brandseye.com Brand Recovery Checklist PDF for a full list of advice on how to deal with an online brand attack.

3) Do some market research
Staying up to date with the forums is great way to learn more about your target market and pick up ideas that you can implement in your business.

4) Participate – but avoid blatant self-marketing and seeding
If there is one lesson I have learned from ORM it’s “don’t piss off the community you are trying to market to”. Seeding on Tripadvisor.com is easily identified and reported by the users. Self-marketing is allowed as long as you identify yourself and offer services only where appropriate. I’ve seen some companies and travel professionals successfully build their reputation as a knowledgeable resource by answering questions and offering advice on the forums.

5) Ask your fans to promote you
If people who stayed at your BnB can’t tell you enough about how much they loved their stay, ask them to post a review on TripAdvisor when they get home. It is likely that you are also going to get some negative reviews from time to time, but by having a wealth of reviews people will feel more reassured that they are getting the full story about your establishment. After all, the TripAdvisor slogan is “Get the truth, then go”.

I feel it’s also important to highlight that TripAdvisor can also be used by the dark side of the force. Some hoteliers have questioned the reliability of reviews and have even suggested that malicious reviews have been posted by competitors. TripAdvisor maintain that every review is moderated and that they have algorithms in place to spot fraudulent behaviour so this type of problem is minimised. The TripAdvisor community also does a good job of policing the site by flagging inappropriate posts to be removed.

Like with all social media, wildly positive or negative opinions on TripAdvisor are taken with a pinch of salt. And by following these tips you should be able to protect your valuable reputation while also promoting your travel business online. After all, the 17 million users from 190 countries who used TripAdvisor in the last week have a lot to say – and you can’t afford to ignore them.