Social Media for Hotels: Filling Rooms with Facebook

The hotel industry has changed dramatically over the past decade, first with the introduction of online booking sites such as Expedia.com, then with the increased popularity of review sites such as TripAdvisor.com and now with social media.

Step Ahead Inc. demonstrated the power of social media for hotels with a group of Myrtle Beach area hotels, for whom we managed all Facebook pages and a single Twitter account for the group. The results we saw over time were astounding including dramatically increased web traffic, revenue in excess of $14K per month directly trackable to social media and an ability to handle some 15-20 major customer service issues per month.

We were able to increase Facebook friends from just a few hundred in 2009 to over 47,000 for all pages together by early 2011. We turned their pages into a source of helpful information about theMyrtle Beacharea, literally turning each Facebook page into a virtual “front desk” for the hotels. People loved it.

The Power of a Review

Facebook, it turns out, is a place where people feel very comfortable sharing positive and negative reviews. We saw lots of positive reviews on theMyrtle Beachpages and the occasional negative review, as well.

Some argue they don’t want a Facebook page, so as to avoid negative reviews, but people will share them whether you want them to or not. If they’re on your own page, at least you can monitor and respond to them. If they get posted somewhere else in Cyberspace, if you don’t have an active online monitoring service in place, you’re likely to miss it and it could easily spiral out of control.

Positive reviews, on the other hand, are a great selling point for your hotel, and can help sway potential customers. We found that often when someone said something negative about the hotel, other people would come to the defense without us even asking. What a powerful testimonial!

Beyond 9-5

A big key to successfully managing social media for hotels is being present outside of office hours and that means more than scheduling posts outside those hours. You have to be on and engaging.

If someone posts a complaint or negative review, you need to respond within a couple of hours max. Twenty-four hours is a lifetime in the world that is social media.

Also, don’t forget that people are very active on Facebook over weekends and holidays, often more so than during the week. That’s the time when they tend to be planning trips, doing research and booking hotel rooms. If you’re not on, you’re missing a key chance to engage your prospects.

This constant monitoring may seem tedious, but when you make your Facebook friends feel special and important they become even more loyal brand ambassadors and return visitors.

Social Media as a Money Maker

Who says you can’t make money on social media? Hotels who offer online booking certainly can and we proved it!

In early 2011, Facebook was averaging $14,000 per month of bookings for this hotel group directly trackable to Facebook and Twitter. This more than covered their social media fees, making social media a very profitable endeavor for them indeed.

Keep in mind, this number only includes direct traffic to their website, not phone calls from Facebook or Twitter friends. They did not have a tracking system in place to track phone calls that may have been generated from a visit to their page and we can only imagine how many of those originated on Facebook.

Traffic, Traffic and More Traffic

On a monthly basis, the Myrtle Beach Facebook pages were sending more than 5,000 visits to the websites, making Facebook one of their top referring sites.

We also noticed that the quality of traffic sent to the sites was very high, with a lower than average bounce rate and people stayed on the sites longer than average.

An important thing to note here is that in order to get the traffic and get the booking, your Facebook page should be made up of friends who are the right target, not just anyone you can get to click “like”. We take a very targeted approach to building a friend base and we believe that’s critical to generating these dramatic, measurable results for our hotel clients.

Social media has become a must-do marketing strategy for hotels, enabling them to be more effective at customer service, generate more revenue by providing followers with information for booking online and a way to get more eyes on your hotels as people research where they want to stay. Take a dedicated, consistent, targeted approach to social media and see if you don’t see your results from social media take a sharp turn upward.

 

Social Media News of Week: July 18, 2011

I’m feeling crazy today and excited for the weekend so my recap is going to be full of fun updates!

1.For those of you (like me) who grew up watching classic 90’s TV shows like All That, Hey Dude!, Double Dare and Salute Your Shorts, you’re going to freak out when I tell you they are all coming back

Nickelodeon is bringing back these classic programs and many more to their TeenNick channel.                    Although I’m not a teen anymore, I will have no problem tuning in to that channel frequently. My DVR is about to be packed with Legends of the Hidden Temple and GUTS — can’t wait! Vote for your favorite shows here!

2. Rebecca Black the “genius” behind the song “Friday” has come out with her follow up video titled “My Moment” Perfect name, don’t you think? Tell me your thoughts on the video and be sure to check out all the parodies while on YouTube

3. Finally, if you’ve ever read one of my blogs, looked at my Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare you would know I LOVE FOOD and I’m already on the food truck bandwagon like so many others. Tonight there’s a food tuck here in Charleston and I’m thrilled to check out the homemade fruit pops and then Taco Boy truck! In honor of this obsession, check out this great article from Mashable on innovated social media campaigns for food trucks!

Plus or Minus? A Review of Google Plus

Google Plus is all the buzz in social media circles over the last week and a half and I got a chance to check it out recently.

After playing around in this latest social network, which is getting raves reviews from social media influencers, here’s my two cents on its potential uses for personal and business on my SocialMoms.com blog.

Social Media News of the Week: July 4, 2011

This short holiday week was full of announcements! Facebook unveiled video chat powered by Skype! That’s a great idea for Facebook, because now you are able to increase your communication with friends all over without ever leaving the social network. Company pages can’t communicate with their “likers” yet but it’s just a matter of time before that’s an option and I’m sure video ads will be in the future as well!

What you might not know or remember is that MySpace released Skype-powered calls many moons ago in 2007! It’s funny how things don’t seem as cool when someone other than Facebook does them. In this case, many people just think Tom and MySpace were ahead of their time, considering Skype didn’t have the video option quite yet.

Google also released their Facebook competitor, Google+, and it’s getting rave reviews from early adopters and the social media glitterati! Here are 10 testimonials from those who are already registered courtesy of Mashable. We’re giving it a go here at Step Ahead and will have a blog next week detailing our thoughts.

I’m leaving you this week with a few questions: Did anyone follow Obama’s Twitter Town Hall? If so, what were your thoughts? Did anyone else religiously follow the TV show “The Voice” like I did? If you did, then you won’t be surprised that they snagged the title of “most social TV show in June”!

Final question: Who misses 4th of July already? I certainly do mainly because I love fireworks. If you love them like I do, here are a few great Twitter images from Independence Day!

Social Media Day: Round Two

Yesterday was the 2nd annual Social Media Day, and for all of us in the social media marketing field it’s nice to have that recognition. I (personally) spend the majority of my life in Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and writing blogs so it was nice to actually get out from behind the computer and be social!

This year we held our get together at Uno Mas in Mount Pleasant, keeping to our Mexican food theme (last year was at Taco Boy)! We had a great turnout, great food and even better happyritas!

Thank you to all those who came and a big thanks to Dine with Sal and everyone at Uno Mas for hosting the party! Here at Step Ahead we’re already looking forward to next year.

*** For more pictures visit our Tumblr account!

Social Media News of the Week: June 27, 2011

This was a great week for social media mainly because yesterday was Social Media Day (be sure to check out our Social Media Day Charleston event)! Other than that, Google announced their own social network Google +, Twitter lost their co-owner, Biz Stone, and so much more!

On Tuesday, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced that he is going to be focusing on other projects and step out of the “twit-light”. Dick Costolo, CEO of the social network, will stay front and center with the company.

Facebook is having to deal with the Winklevoss twins again who are back, now asking the Boston court system to look into their case. When will these guys take a hike? Google is not taking a hike either as they announced their Facebook competitor Google +. I’ve taken a brief look and I’ll admit it’s pretty cool. I don’t think people will just jump off Facebook and join Plus but you just never know! What do y’all think about Google Plus?

On a side note, I swapped my Droid for an iPhone, so the new Tumblr app 2.0 is amazing! And, I still can’t understand what Justin Timberlake sees in MySpace to have bought in but I guess he might just surprise me!

Oh yeah, and Step Ahead joined Tumblr this week, so check us out and follow us!

July Social Media Star: Kirk Stelsel

Every industry needs to reach out to its members, and Kirk Stelsel of the National Precast Concrete Association uses social media to reach his members and create an online community. How does Kirk create an active online community in a very niche industry? Well, he uses many different social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and blogs.

The key here is that when trying to reach a large group, your best bet is to uses many different avenues. Each tool will in turn compliment the other, leading to more success in the end.

Read more about Kirk and how he has transformed communication in his industry.

What is your job/company/profession/title?

Company: National Precast Concrete Association (NPCA)

My profession: Communications

Profession of my employer: National trade association for the precast concrete industry.

Title: Communication Manager

Job: I manage the online communications, including the social media; write and edit for two magazines and dabble in various other communications functions. For social media, I have built a program from the ground up that includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and blogs to engage members, prospective members and related audiences. The goal is to engage members and create an online community that communicates the benefits of precast concrete.

What was the first social media technology you used?

The definition of social media technology is sort of loose, but the first “modern” social media technology I used personally was Facebook when it became available on my college campus in 2004. Professionally, I sort of dove in head first using multiple technologies. Although there are many more social media sites out there, the six listed above are the tools I felt would be most beneficial to our members, and the places where they are most likely to engage with us.

What is your favorite social media tool?

It depends on what I’m looking to accomplish, but overall I like the depth of Facebook. I like the ability to have a more meaningful and rich connection. Twitter is great if I just want to make a quick observation or am looking for some immediate feedback. With Facebook, though, I think they’ve done a good job of expanding the ways you can connect and share information with friends and fans, particularly the change that made pages able to function in the same manner as personal profiles.

How have you used social media for your business/company and how has it benefited?

I’ve used social media at work in three ways: 1.) To connect with members and their companies 2.) To promote the benefits of precast concrete and 3.) To connect with those closely aligned with the precast concrete industry, such as architects, engineers, contractors, etc. With social media, there’s never going to be a point where you can say “the work is done, we can’t do anymore,” but so far the benefits have been an increase in member relations, an increased profile for precast concrete as a building product, and, through my scanning of the industry for information to post, the generation of leads for our sales department and discovery of quality topics for blogs and magazine articles.

How much time would you say you spend a day engaging social media?

I probably spend a good three or four hours a day working on items related to our social media efforts. Some days are more, some are less, but that’s a good average.

How do you incorporate it into your day so it’s not a time waster?

Any time your attention is drawn away from what you’re doing, it takes a while to get back into the swing of things — even if it’s just for a second. For that reason, I don’t have any alerts set up but rather check in on it and work on it periodically throughout the day. That way I can spend periods of time concentrating on my other responsibilities without interruptions. Very few things require instantaneous feedback, so if I respond within a few hours that’s usually more than adequate.

 

Is there a social media tool/technique that you think is underutilized that you would like people to know about?

I went to a communicators conference in Chicago recently and was reminded how large the gap is between registered Facebook and Twitter users. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but suffice it to say there are A LOT more people on Facebook. As communicators, we as a community are more likely than the general population to be on Twitter. As a result, get wrapped up in it and lose sight of the fact that it has a long way to go to catch up to Facebook in terms on users. Not to say Twitter isn’t a great tool for businesses, it certainly can be, but placing a heavy emphasis on Facebook, in my opinion, is going to yield the best return for most companies. That said, you should direct the bulk of your efforts wherever the greatest concentration of your target audience happens to be.

I’m also very interested in Tumblr and plan to spend some time soon seeing if it can benefit us in a way that is not already covered by our other social media tools.

Where can people find you online and via social media?

Professionally, you can follow NPCA at www.facebook.com/nationalprecast and on Twitter at @nationalprecast. The rest of our social media links and our blogs can be found on our website at www.precast.org.

Personally, I’d love to connect with you on Twitter (@kirkstelsel) and LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/kirkstelsel). I also write a weekly entry for the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association’s blog at www.doingindy.com. I post every Monday.