Social media for hotels and social media in common has had a huge impact in pretty much all aspects of our lives. It has replaced the way we learn, relate, have fun, and even affects how people pick to travel. Hotels and other businesses within the travel industry are finally starting to understand that ways of a targeted approach to social media can help build a powerful brand, get international exposure, drive sales and maintain meaningful relationships with customers. Social platforms also provide a set of tools and services that help you interact directly with your clients.
How hotels are using social media to build their brand
The first step in building a brand today is to get online. Online bookings are rising at a rapid pace and hotels have to get into the Internet to keep in touch with the latest technology and consumer trends. Travelers are changing the way they search, shop, buy, relate and communication. Hoteliers must follow suit and adapt.
Determines goals for your social media engagement
Hopping onto the Internet without a targeted plan is difficult at best and horrible at worst. Think about the aims you want to get by engaging in social media? Do you want to have discussions and give customer service? Are you looking to drive more bookings? Are you looking for brand influences and advocates to support you extend your brand? All of these should be kept in mind when setting goals. Once you have them in place, you can plan your social media marketing.
Decide on your platforms
Twitter, Facebook, Google + Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn are some of the most famous social platforms, but with 100s to pick from and new ones popping up almost every day, how do you decide which ones are top for your hotel brand and marketing?
For hotels Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest are probably best for you because of the capability to share high quality videos and images. See examples of how Instagram is being used by travel brands at BigTimeDaily.
Twitter and Facebook are also good for customer service. Scoop.it is good for promoting your brand and is a high authority resources that often ranks high in Google search. Blogging site like Blogger and WordPress are also being used to announce your promos. In this sense they are used like bookmarks in the same way as Redidt, Diigo and Tumblr are.
For video YouTube is perhaps the strongest in marketing. Its drawback is that it can lead your clients away to the numerous avenues with the alternative videos they recommend. For dedicated high quality videos Vimeo is far superior and DailyMotion offers some affordable and effective promotional options.
Whatever platforms you pick, maintaining a social media attendance takes a lot of time. The more platforms you are on, the more time it takes. Not all platforms will be matched to your needs, so it is value taking the time to figure out what channels match your hotels brand and message and top address the needs of your guests.
Automation
We are living in the digital age and just about everything can be automated to some extent. There are numerous tools like hootsuite and buffer that will help you plan and schedule post to social media and in some cases video site, document sites and blogs. Be wary of overdoing it with automation. A maxim is to never do more that a human could do. In other words don’t send out hundreds of post all saying the same think and linking to the same site.
You must be keep in mind that Google is constantly comparing what you do with the averages and best practices in your industry. For example your anchortext, the text you add to the links back to your promos, must be balanced. Check out this article to learn more about balance and anchortext.
There are many books that will explain all about using digital media for hotels and tourism. You can find them by searching on Amazon for books on Digital media Marketing Hotels and Tourism.
Focused marketing and advertisement
Luckily, social media websites make it extra simple for you to reach your focus market Today you can target big groups of people based on their age, interest, income group, circle of friends, geographic place and many, many other factors. It then becomes simple to make custom-made marketing campaigns, for example, hotels that specialize in family holidays can send advertisements to people that they know have children and means to pay for the hotels products.
On top of permitting for a specific targeting of people, social media branding also means a decrease of advertisement costs. Through the amazing analytic tools provided by social media sites, we can view which particular campaigns were more famous than others, and tons of other very strong insights that give marketers a lot of fire power.
Talk about your brand
The outstanding feature of social media is that it offers the best platform to show your brand directly to the customer. It is an extremely personalized and close way to relate to customers which will create trust in your service and brand. We are now at the dawn of the Intelligent Age where software, like PersonaHolidays and the Travel Matchmaker are being deployed to help personalize the entire travel experience from search to bookings and post stay connectivity.
Hotels can even take it further and invest in mobile application. Apps can help provide relevant information in a timely and target way and build a long lasting link with your customers with direct communication channel between the 2 of you. Everything from marketing to direct booking can now be done with a mobile app. It serves the traveler with relevant information and services when needed and hotels can offer services that go far beyond booking extending backward and forward to initial research and customer care during the stay and after.
Engage with your audience
One of the most vital social media marketing tips works around actually engaging with audience on social media for branding. This means taking the time to react to their questions, doing so in a helpful way, discussion with those who leave comments on the content you share and usually taking the time to interact.
Use hashtags to keep discussions about specific topics in one place, so that you can keep track of them more simply. This has the further benefit of making content more easily searchable for your fans too.
Reject the temptation to post too much
Regular social media posts are best and continue approach to posting content is even amazing, but it is vital not to overdo it. While it is usually okay to post regularly on Twitter, in order to increase exposure, people tend to be less forgiving when a Facebook business page share content all the time.
Studies advise that the highest number of posts on a Facebook business page is around 7 posts per week, and no more than 2 posts on a single day. You can still react to your audiences questions and comments, but you should be polite when posting new content and reject spamming peoples timelines.
Drive booking directly on social media
By using a booking that is attached directly into your Facebook page, users browsing your social media page can book their stay right away instead of having to leave Facebook and attached to your site. The same booking engine that emerges on your site can live right on your Facebook page with nearly no included work. This will permit visitors to view rates, accessibility, and book all in one simple step.
Final thought
Social media is a strong hotel marketing tool that is used by hundreds of millions people every day. Crafting a successful social media present is a journey that will provide you a benefit over rivals and can lead to developing lifelong faithful guests. By following the best social media branding techniques, you can make sure your strategy is well-rounded and more likely to support you to achieve your aims.