by Kirsten Rhode
August 2012
I. QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY
When I ask hoteliers what their goals are for any given Social Media
campaign,
undoubtedly I still get the answer “I want to be in the top listing on
Trip
Advisor”, or “I want 10,000 Facebook Fans, or Twitter followers” While
this is
at a minimum very unrealistic for any new campaign, it is not the
mindset that
is going to generate business or increase customer loyalty. The point I
always
try to clearly explain is this, Social Media is not necessarily a
numbers game,
it is more contingent on the quality of the fans, followers and reviews
you
have on your respective sites. Let’s start with Trip Advisor. If you
have 100
reviews, but they all have negative effects in them, you could be
number one
all you want, it won’t get anyone in your doors; in fact it will drive
them
strait to a neighboring property. Looking at Facebook, if you have
10,000 fans,
but none of them ever visit your page or interact on the page it is a
big waste
of every ones time. For a time not so far back, there were a lot of
people
buying Facebook fans to pump up their profiles. While this was a waste
of
money, it was also useless as these fans (supposing they were active
profiles)
were most likely never going to stay at your property, much less check
out
specials, leave comments and suggest updates they would like to see.
So what is the correct way to find fans,
followers, likes or
good reviews that will help increase bookings, and generate customer
loyalty?
The first thing I tell clients may seem so obvious and commonplace, but
it is
the staple of any quality hotel. CUSTOMER SERVICE speaks for itself,
treat your
guest right, go the extra mile by embedding this into your corporate
culture
and training programs, and your customers will move mountains for you.
I did a
survey awhile back that addressed the common misconception of customers
only
writing reviews when a negative experience occurred. I found the
opposite, and
current statistics will tell you the same. “The
vast majority of consumers who post
online reviews are overwhelmingly motivated by goodwill and positive
sentiment”, according to survey conducted by the Keller Fay Group,
which
surveyed some 1,300 online reviewers. (Keller Fay, 2012) If you are
positive
your customer has had a good experience, make sure your front desk
agents are
asking your guests to go online and write a review on TripAdvisor. Make
certain
to print your Facebook and Twitter page URL on the bottom of their
settlement,
and reward them for posting their experience on these two sites.
Encourage them
to book directly through your fan page as most hotels now have special
packages
directly bookable via Facebook, which are only available to fans. Use
location
based features, and offer a free meal to the guest who checks in via
Facebook
places or any other location feature such as Foursquare the most often
that
month. Facebook now has a feature that lets a guest check into an
event, as
well which then shows up on the users’ timeline for all of their
friends to
see. Jet Blue has done an amazing job by offering fans who check in
frequent
flier miles.
II. SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT ONLY FOR THE
YOUNGER GENERATION
Earlier this year I was a convention speaking to a G.M of a large hotel
who was
convinced that most of their clientele (or the type of clientele this
particular hotel would prefer to attract) would not be offering a
considerable
contribution in most of these social mediums. This is something I had
thought
was a hurdle we had long since overcome, but this is clearly still a
misconception that needs to be addressed. 62% of adults worldwide use
some type
of Social Medium daily (Mashable, 2012), yes daily folks. To bring this
to a
more tangible example, next time you are out look at the number of
people with
smart phones, grandparents and grandchildren alike all use them and
most of the
time they spend on their smart phones is in Social Mediums. Every
brand,
Independent and chain should have specific campaigns which target
different
demographics such as market, age, sex, target audience, and finally
type of
Social Network. With the major success of Tumblr and Instagram
hoteliers need
to be sure they are represented in these mediums.
III. HIRING SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS OUTSIDE
OF THE HOTEL TO
RUN YOUR CAMPAIGNS AND HOW AND WHEN TO USE CONSULTANTS.
This is a matter of opinion, but the true experts on your property are
exactly
that, on your property. Hiring a firm to run your entire Social Media
Campaign
who isn’t living and breathing the daily goings on at the hotel will
not be
privy to the pulse of your audience nor know how to answer their
questions in
the way they would expect a staff member to do. As being someone who
ran a
large Social Media Company at the very start of the boom, I can tell
you that
the best content always came from my endless interviews each week with
staff
and guests at the hotel. Nothing I could drum up based on my years of
marketing
experience could compare to being there and experiencing the day to day
issues
and celebrations that properties should use in daily updates. This is
not to be
mistaken with Social Media companies which have tracking software,
multi-platform
update capabilities, reputation alerts, and offer consultancy
expertise. These
are vitally important in obtaining an accurate picture of your efficacy
in
multiple networks, and if you are new to a specific medium they can
offer the
best way to navigate and positively engage users on that particular
site. They
also come in very handy if you want your Social Networks to be uniform
with
your brand design. As API Codes on Facebook are ever changing, (and
ever frustrating
to the user) and new networks with entirely different coding pop up
monthly,
this can be a daunting task to even the most experienced designers. My
contention is simply this, hiring someone in a different city or
country for
that matter to deal with your social networks so you don’t have to will
never
be half as effective as using your own staff. The beauty of social
networks is
the ease of use, and the quick response time. Potential guests need not
wait on
hold to get answers to their last minute questions, and best of all it
doesn’t
tie up endless customer service agents.
The problem facing everyone today, is lack
of expertise and
general know how to both run and capitalize on all fronts concerning
social
media. To do social media well you really need to be a bit of an all
a-rounder
Not only is it crucial that you can navigate the site, spell correctly,
and
avoid grammatical errors, you need to be good at marketing, strategy,
analytics, reporting, customer service, and communication… and it helps
to have
an individual who can keep calm, as these sites can be daunting and
stressful.
There are not too many people that satisfy all these areas, I know of
about 10
myself who I can say without a shadow of a doubt have it down to a
science, and
having been one of them who designed and implemented large scale
campaigns for
hotels and hotel groups I can tell you it requires a lot of dedication,
interest and a personal investment in seeing it through. Just like your
public
relations, or your marketing representatives, this person will be the
voice of
your brand and speaking directly to your consumers. You do NOT want to
hire the
wrong person for this job. You can do a whole load of damage very
quickly, and
wind up a social media blunder that we point out as what not to do for
future
clients. Do not fret, it isn’t as ominous as it seems, I myself have
trained
several people to use these sites and use them well, I simply want to
stress
the importance of this role and the understanding that time spent on
research is
imperative in your hotels success. The biggest reason companies fail to
reap
the rewards of social media is lack of planning and conducting an in
depth
analysis of the current climate.
IV. NO INVOLVEMENT IN THE NEWEST MEDIUMS
SUCH AS TUMBLR
OR INSTAGRAM
The beauty of Social Media (or curse) however you look at it, is that
new
Social Networks are popping up nearly every 6 months. These two are
ones that I
absolutely contend will be here for the long haul. The question that my
clients
have, is how do we use them and what is the benefit. These are the most
underutilized, and are as of yet an untapped resource for hoteliers to
capitalize on. There aren’t a lot of front runners from our Industry
that have
the following some other Business to Consumer Companies have and if
done
correctly can be the biggest success your hotel has this year on Social
Networks. For those of you unfamiliar with these sites, I explain them
very
briefly below, but keep in mind this doesn’t even begin to scratch the
surface.
Tumblr is a blogging platform that doubles as a social network. For a
hotel
having a built in blog gives them a captive audience, and unlike other
blog
sites the manner in which content is liked, reblogged and followed is
unique,
which allows it to go viral much faster than on any other blogging
medium.
Instagram is a free photo sharing application that gives users the
ability to
showcase their art, brand, or interest in purely a visual format.
Instagram, or
IG as it is more commonly known was until recently solely a mobile
application,
which creates a unique aspect in that regard alone. According to
Wikipedia, “As
of April 2012, Instagram reached 30 million users”. (Instagram, 2012)
It is
growing fast and companies are taking notice, but hotels are the
minority on this
network, so if you want a new medium and you are willing to take on the
challenge, now is the time to capitalize. We cannot be afraid to delve
into new
waters and test new social sites; what must remain important is the
amount of
time you are dedicating to each site and what your ROI is from each
medium.
While Tumblr or Instagram may not give you those extra bookings strait
away if
you’re spending an extra 15 minutes and people are interested in your
images,
see it through. Everyone will have their favorite forums that they
enjoy over
others, but it’s important to gauge what kind of results each site
brings in
and the quality of fans or followers you have, that may be reblogging
or
reposting your content. That above all is the true test of
sustainability for
your brand, to get people talking about your product in a positive way.
V. ITS NOT ABOUT YOU
People forget the reason people are on social networks is because they
relate
to friends, relatives and things they like and want to know about,
personally.
Social media campaigns fail because they forget to make it about the
user,
nobody cares what you want to talk about, the key is figuring out what
users
want you to talk about. Make sure to research what your target audience
wants
to know about, and what their online habits are, then simply ask them
what they
would like to most hear about on a regular basis. We tend to get hung
up on
making ourselves look silly by having to poll our audience for content
ideas,
but don’t! Fans on your sites will appreciate being heard and if their
topics
make it to the social sites, they will be thrilled. Remember to keep
all your
content interesting to your users, frequent contests, using user
generated
content, answering their questions, and thinking outside the box is
what makes
a campaign successful and memorable.
About the author:
Kirsten Rhode, is a 11 year Industry Expert whose
resume includes Sales, Social Media, Leadership Development and Global
Distribution Services. Kirsten was the first to
develop a booking engine for Facebook while heading up Genares’ Social
Media
Campaign just as the boom began, and was quickly promoted to Vice
President of
Social Media. Until recently Ms. Rhode has been in Dublin, Ireland as
the
Director of Global Distribution Services, a first time venture for that
company. Kirsten is currently starting her own consulting firm based in
Dallas,
TX and Frankfurt, Germany and specializes in Social Media, Ethical
Practices in
Hospitality, GDS Services and Leadership Development. She holds a
Bachelors of
Science in Psychology from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX.