The buzz surrounding social media marketing hasn’t gone unnoticed by the hotel industry and hoteliers are seeking to make inroads by engaging with the leading social networks in new and innovative ways. Choice Hotels however has indicated, "hotels have been slow or very conservative in the adaptation of social media." This is further compounded by the fact that running a hotel for many owners and managers is a 24/7 role, with little time left for managing social media marketing initiatives.
To ride this seismic shift, hotels must transition past traditional "push" marketing to user-generated content, customer-generated engagement and brand messaging utilizing social media distribution channels. Savvy hoteliers that are following the trends now more than ever want to engage with prospective customers at the time of booking, prior to arrival and post stay. In so doing, they want to drive advocacy and manage reputation through online reviews and find an effective means of identifying prospective new pools of customers.
Beyond just basic feedback, hoteliers should be utilizing social media tools that track traffic and are actually able to shows conversions and return on investment (ROI). For free services, hoteliers can start the process by employing the analytical resources provided by Facebook Insights, YouTube Analytics and Google Analytics.
TripAdvisor, now into its 12th year is the gold standard for hotel review sites. It's Owners Center allows hoteliers to set up alerts, respond to reviews and garner complimentary basic analyses and traffic reports from Market Metrix.
ReviewMetrix is a paid service that feeds off of TripAdvisor data, but slices and dices it in ways that provides hoteliers with comparative competitive analysis. Performance is measured according to a proprietary Customer Satisfaction Index™ (CSI) with ranks TripAdvisor reviews from zero to 100 based on seven key categories, including guest comments. This scoreboard compares one hotel's performance with other properties to set benchmarks from a database of more than 450,000 properties.
Pricing for this service starts at $25 per month for individual hotels of up to 50 rooms, or $75 for the premium service called the Enterprise System. Current clients include the Loews, MGM and Viceroy Hotel Group.
Chatter Guard is a product launched by Lodging Interactive, a full-service interactive marketing agency based in Parsippany, NJ. With pricing ranging from $325 to $725 per months, CG packages score service attributes from social media channels pertaining to housekeeping, dining, personnel and guestrooms, and provides measurement for each review compared to an aggregate score across each service. Clients using this service include the Maison Dupuy and Turtle Bay Resorts in Hawaii.
An automated system like Flip.to which can integrate with a hotel’s booking engine can now offer hoteliers and guests a streamlined means of disseminating brand messaging during the reservation process. Termed “magnetic marketing,” the time of purchase is an optimal point of engagement when the hotelier has the undivided attention of its booking guest. This paradigm is based on the premise that the strength of the bond between seller and buyer is the greatest when both are traversing the “same wave length.” Greater than the traditional “technology push” or “market pull,” magnetic marketing converts customers into brand advocates.
Additionally, booking engine integrations provide an opportunity for guests to spread the word about their upcoming stay by incentivizing them with offers such as a “guest room upgrade.”
This level of engagement is far greater than traditional marketing and has translated into measurable returns in just about every metric (i.e., posts, impressions, shares, reach, sign-ups), and now even booked room nights. While the “push advertising” of the past might have been able to produce a 1-3% return at best, today these more robust services can garner 15-25% ROE and an astonishing 10X or better ROI.
Flip.to's international clientele now exceeds over 100 boutique and independent hotels on five continents including the Paramount in NYC, The James in Chicago, Aqua Resorts in Hawaii, Tune Hotels in S.E. Asia and the UK and the Louis Group in Capetown, Africa. Monthly fees range from $300 to $600 and there are not additional charges for set-up, customization or new product launches.
Hotels that wish to gain from the benefits of social media marketing should first explore what the market has to offer and then draft a marketing strategy that has clear goals and well-defined targets that can yield a significant ROI which is both trackable and scalable. Many of the services noted here are offering up a more streamlined and sophisticated means to move social media from its engagement origins to one that is much more robust and able to convert guests into new customers.
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