Pestana Hotels and Resorts chooses Social Media Partner

The Pestana Group is currently the largest Portuguese tourism and leisure group, and in 2002 marked its 30th anniversary under the banner "30 Years, 30 Hotels".

Over the years, the Pestana Group has accumulated competences that have enabled it to become the largest Portuguese group in the tourism and leisure industry.

This is exemplified by the Group's high degree of know-how in key areas of operation within the tourism industry. It has achieved innovation in its procedures; having launched hotel Vacation Club in Portugal 15 years ago, it is now the 3rd largest European group in this sector. It has demonstrated its ability to adapt through new initiatives, such as the Pestana Palace Hotel in Lisbon, which represents a successful departure from the Group's traditional base in leisure and resort hotels.

This innovative spirit has allowed Pestana to move with the times and is now using social media platforms to communicate with its patrons via Facebook and Twitter. A small niche Digital Agency called Mediahouse has been tasked with managing its social media presence and redesigns its Africa website with social media integration. Mediahouse is a specialist online agency in the field of social media and online campaigns and activations. Pestana hopes, with this effort to further expand its online footprint and obtain priceless feedback from its guests using an informal platform. The new website is due for release in March of 2012. Social Media is being recognized by organizations such as Pestana as a valuable tool for marketing and market research.

Mediahouse has begun development on an exclusive project - www.zimbaliprivateproperty.co.za The project includes complete design and conceptualization of the website aimed at showcasing some of the most exclusive properties for sale at the exclusive coastal resort of Zimbali.

Read more: Mediahouse to design exclusive zimbaliprivateproperty.co.za

At the f8 conference in September, Facebook announced the addition of Timeline and Open Graph. These new tools let users tell a more detailed story of their life through a newly designed profile page. Earlier this week, Facebook launched Facebook Actions, an enhancement adding additional call-to-action tabs beyond the standard "like". As this may at first seem as though Facebook is doing too much to let users indicate where they are and what they are doing, Facebook Actions actually benefits the consumer, marketer, and SEO firm.

These Actions let users specifically indicate their interaction with a location, products, and more. For example, one may visit a local coffee shop and indicate they "bought" a particular drink. Immediately, that action is posted on their wall and their average of 130 friends can interact with that action. Others may comment, share, or even visit that store the next day to see for themselves.

That being said, since more than 50 percent of adult-consumers research products on social media platforms, the product has enormous ability to either significantly prosper from Facebook Actions (if it is a good product), or severely sink (if the product is not great).

The following are my top 3 impacts Facebook Actions will have on SEO:

Read more: Facebook Actions - How it impacts SEO

If you know anything about online marketing and search engine optimization, you understand the importance of content. After all, without content, what is there to optimize and how do potential clients or customers learn anything about you? The content that you produce is what sets you apart from the rest in the online space, which is competitive no matter what industry you are in. One popular method of producing content is to create a business blog and update it regularly. Of course, your blog posts will only be worthwhile if people actually see them. One way to improve your content marketing efforts is to include social share buttons on every blog post.Here are 3 reasons why:

Read more: Why social sharing buttons are important