How long does it take to set up social media for a hotel?

Posted: December 29th, 2010

In late November, I (Rodney) conducted a social media workshop in Nelson, BC including Ryan Martin from the Hume Hotel.  I recently checked in to see if he’d done anything.  Here’s a paraphrase of how much he achieved in just a few weeks:

I’ve set up a fan page, have the hotel wifi being directed to it and I’m working on getting a great landing page with specials to entice people to ‘like’ us.  I am also producing a two minute promo video trying to capture the authentic’Hume Hotel Experience’.  Emphasizing the experience and all that the building has to offer, 24 hours and not really having to leave… its like one stop shopping! That will be out soon on our site and youtube.

We were already active in responding to our TripAdvisor reviews but in the week after the workshop I had department meetings and informed staff about the site and encouraged everyone to make a personal appeal to customers of the importance of feedback on Tripadvisor. I opened up a business listing account for the Hume and ordered some business cards that have a picture of the hotel on one side and the tripadvisor website on the other side..

The top restaurant in Nelson on Tripadvisor only has 5 reviews so there is a big opportunity for our restaurants to jump all over it. I have been asking customers to go review us, it’s certainly easy when I can email them a link. The Hume is currently the number 2 hotel, second only to a motel that is out of town and I am making it a priority to be number 1!! My new website will have a link directly to the Tripadvisor site as well as our landing page on Facebook and Twitter.

I have opened up a Twitter account and have posted some things but haven’t been as successful with followers and activity. I had a famous dj play here (AC Slater) who tweeted about the Spiritbar but he didn’t hook it up to @humehotel which wouldve been cool. I know for next time to let them know we are there. Maybe I need a separate Spiritbar Twitter account from the hotel, like I have done on Facebook.

We haven’t blogged yet but on our Facebook site, I threw out an open-ended question about our rooftop neon sign to get some debate going…check it out here: www.facebook.com/humehotel It totally worked and had some people saying they thought it was an iconic sign while another hippied called it ‘corporate propaganda’!!! Beautiful.

Great work Ryan!  What is your experience?

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Posted in By Rodney Payne, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Communities that really work.

Posted: August 16th, 2010

With another resident, I’m an admin for an online community for the new Woodwards apartment building where I live. The community is valuable because we can communicate with everyone and share information very quickly. We’re still trying to get the property manager and developer to come to the table.

I recently started a non-profit organization with Laurel Eastman entirely on a Facebook page. It works because its targeted to an existing community of kiteboarders who are passionate about the cause. It lets us communicate much faster than email.

If I was in the business of marketing cruise ships, I’d start a community for every single cruise that went out. Cruises aren’t for me – I’m not that type of traveler – but my mum loves them. She meets amazing people and they share many days together at sea. People seem to bond when they’re stuck on a boat together. Often they lose touch when the party is over. Why not facilitate a community that allows passengers to connect and stay in touch when the trip is over.  People might share photos for all of their friends and family to see and those images may provide inspiration for others to try a cruise themselves.  Friends who met on a cruise could plan more cruises together.   As a group they could cause each other to book the next cruise.   Your product champions could market your cruises to each other, for you.   You could go even further and involve past passengers in the brand and ask them what they would like in future cruises.

Hotels and airlines have a tougher time in social marketing because they tend (and I’m generalizing here) not to be as unique or memorable as the travel experiences themselves.  Accommodation and flights are often treated as a means-to-an-end rather than an experience in themselves.  Generally, a plane flies you from A to B and a hotel provides you a bed.   How many hotels have you stayed at where you felt like you were part of a community?  How many amazing experiences have airlines provided to you?  When you only have a few hours on a flight or at a hotel, the experiences have to be quite remarkable to be memorable. There are always exceptions, where the service is the experience; Jet Blue and Virgin do a great job of this.  There are a number of hotels that are the destination themselves; the Banff Springs Fairmont, the Ice Hotel

Why would someone want to join your online community?

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Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Why does a hotel need a Facebook page?

Posted: June 16th, 2010

“We think we are ready to start a fan page. We have noticed lots of companies out there with fan pages and not a ton of followers, but we feel we just need to start somewhere. Any tips on setting it up? ” I thought I’d tackle this one for everyone:

A Facebook Fanpage is nothing more than a simple place to begin an online community. Just because there are 500 million Facebook users, doesn’t mean that they all want you to advertise to them. Don’t forget to think about your target market first and the tools last, based on your objectives and a clear strategy to achieve them. More importantly, forget about attracting a large number of fans or followers. As consumers, we’re already overwhelmed with businesses who we don’t care about trying to get us to ‘Like’ them. Unless I’m passionate about your product or service, its just noise. Attracting a large number of Fans is old advertising mentality: find a large audience and broadcast to them, hoping for a certain level of uptake.

First, you’ve got to think: ‘who would want to follow a hotel on facebook’? Which is another way of asking, who would want to be part of our online community. Your online community is a representation of your offline community so the logical starting point is staff and friends/family of staff. This is how word of mouth travels in the real world. How far you take this depends on how comfortable your team is with connecting their personal life to their work and this is a decision that only you can make.

If you establish solid relationships with repeat visitors, these are your next logical community members. Your goal is to find the people who really love your product and give them a place to interact with you and others. Prospective clients will see this interaction and find it to be a resource. The challenge is encouraging clients to actually take the time and go to the fan page to click Like, and then once you’ve figured that out, the next challenge is getting them to come back again.

What value can your fan page provide to people? What problem can you solve? Why would people go there? Think of this from a consumer perspective yourself – can you think of a hotel that you’ve stayed in that you actually remember?

Make sure you’ve got a remarkable product first, otherwise people will have nothing to talk about. Here’s a good post from William Bakker at Tourism BC about being remarkable. When I dive deep into my memory bank, there’s only one hotel that sticks in my mind. A little island in Fiji where I formed a close relationship with the owner over a beer every day. I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels.

Other businesses in your area are also part of your offline community. You can use the @ symbol in facebook posts to engage with your DMO or other businesses in your area. For that feature to work, the admin posting the comment must personally be a fan of the Page you’re trying to interact with. Here’s an example:

Can you remember any hotels you’ve stayed at that you would want to be involved in their community?

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Posted in Facebook | No Comments »