Facebook Strategies for Hotel Marketing Executives

Whether you love or hate social media, you can't deny its power. Almost everyone now has some kind of social media account, especially Facebook or Twitter, and often both. The fact that social media has become such a part of life makes this a very powerful tool for people who want to market their businesses, and especially people who are in the social professions, such as travel and tourism. After all, when people have been on holiday they love to talk about it, and any visit to Facebook will show you that a large proportion of the posts are often pictures of people enjoying themselves at the beach, or walking along a country road, or cycling in the sunshine through a picturesque village. This is great news for hotel marketing executives and hoteliers in general, because it gives them a chance to really get the message out there and help them to pull in new business.

The Best Techniques

In order to use social media to the best effect, especially Facebook, it has to be used in the right way, and this is something many hoteliers really do not understand. This isn't surprising, because most people use social media to be exactly that – sociable — and therefore most people in the hotel industry when they come to market their hotel tend to do the same, and go on to Facebook to chat about things they enjoy doing and to talk about that particular hotel.

Although the average person enjoys being sociable and uses Facebook for exactly this reason, if you are a tourism professional you should take a slightly different approach, and instead of going on there to make a conversation you should concentrate much more on providing useful content. This will have the effect of making you appear as an expert in your field, and will bring a much wider audience to your Facebook timeline or business page, which is exactly the result you want.

There's a huge amount of scope for giving great content when you work in the travel and tourism industry, and there really is no excuse for not putting some effort into it. For one thing a hotelier can give tips about the resort, and the great places to visit, including how to get around, how to hire a car, how to hire a bicycle and so. He or she could also talk about the local cuisine, and give people tips on which dishes to try, and which wines are suitable to be eaten with particular foods. He or she can also talk about which wines can be enjoyed on their own, especially if they're local vintages which cannot be found in other places, generally speaking. The type of excursions a tourist can take from a particular result is also another good thing to talk about, along with all the other attractions such as museums, art galleries, areas of natural beauty and so on. There is also scope for giving advice about how a holidaymaker can get the best out of a trip overall, perhaps by talking about the preparations needed ahead of travel, including how to get help with travel insurance, how to book flights and the hundred other things the tourist needs to think about. All this will attract visitors to the hotel’s Facebook page and create a strong relationship with the prospective customers. Facebook and other social media sites are constantly coming up with new ways to enhance the experience of their users and provide some invaluable tools for businesses, enabling them to track and monitor their customer interactions.

Get More Business

Once this has been done, and the hotelier has begun to build up a following, he should make sure he then takes the next step of giving links to his website, and telling people to click on the link in order to claim something for free. This can be anything from a free downloadable report, or a set of videos which they could watch on the website, but whatever he offers he should make sure he asks for the e-mail address in return. Once he has this he can then contact prospective customers regularly by e-mail, giving even more information about the resort, and of course telling them about the wonderful facilities in his hotel. Most businesses which use Facebook will never think of using a technique like this, and by putting it to use a tourism professional can really make social media work for his business, by bringing in more leads and more sales. And in the end that is really the whole point of using social media, and especially Facebook, as a marketing tool.

by Melissa Moram

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Twitter for Hoteliers

Three simple Twitter tips PLUS the number one mistake hoteliers make with Twitter

There is an old saying that if a person is happy they tell three people. If a person is unhappy the will tell ten people.

Social media, and particularly Twitter, simply allows people to amplify their message, so instead of telling ten people, perhaps they are telling 10,000 or more about the experience they had at your business.

For you, the hospitality professional, if you are having trouble coming to terms with Twitter, try to think of it as the largest cocktail party or hotel lobby you’ve ever been invited to where you don’t know a single soul. As an example, if you walked into this “lobby of strangers” where you were trying to make a good impression, would you simply start handing out your business card to everyone and telling them how great you are? Certainly not!

For numerous companies who are new to Twitter, and social media in general, there appears to be a common misconception that as soon as you sign up, customers are going to fall from the sky in droves and you will immediately be inundated with more business than you can handle. Unfortunately, this is not the case. But, as a means of assisting you in your Twitter interaction, below are three simple tips.

1. Listen – If you do not subscribe to an online monitoring service like ReviewPro or Revinate, Twitter has a handy search tool that can be used in numerous ways to help the hospitality professional get a better idea of what is being said about their destination, their hotel, and their competition. For the example below, I just entered “Puerto Rico” in the search box to see what people were saying at the time of writing this article.

Out of the five tweets captured above there are at least four referencing trips to Puerto Rico (where conversations could be started!). You can do the exact same thing for your particular destination and property, or you could even follow the competition. Truly, this “listening” technique works for whatever you would like to track.

2. Participate in conversations – Brands and businesses that are successful on Twitter go beyond spamming followers with how great they are. The next example below comes from a Twitter user named the @productpoet. This person was seeking accommodation in downtown Omaha and they said that they would stay with the first hotel that responded (more in the image below).

As you can see above, because Hilton was paying attention (listening!) they were able to reply and book the stay. What did the @productpoet think of the stay? Well, below is what they tweeted to their over 117,000 followers.

3. Be a concierge first (and sell second) – Your potential guests have a never-ending stream of questions and you are the expert at your destination. Think of Twitter as an amazing extension of your concierge to help, educate, and take care of your patrons.

A quick search on Twitter for “London activities” brought up many instances of folks seeking help. Below is a perfect example for you to jump in as hospitality professional and offer guidance to this person looking for a place to see Christmas lights.

If you follow the general rule of interacting and having conversations 90% of the time and selling only 10% you should be able to have real success with Twitter.

The number ONE mistake hoteliers make with Twitter

Interestingly, you can now book a room using Twitter but where many hospitality ventures fail to succeed is that they do not collect @ usernames either during the booking process or while a guest is checking in.

If you are an active Twitter user how good would you feel if a hotel tweeted you wishing you a great stay. Or, if after you checked in, by the time you got to your room there was a tweet from the hotel just checking with you and making sure all is ok. Hospitality professionals, start collecting those @ names and engaging with your guests for maximum impact!

Task of the day: Ask every guest that checks in today if they are on Twitter. If they are, get their @ name and tweet them a welcome!

source: mark-hayward.com