1. Cover Story
Navigating the social
media landscape
Social media is changing the hospitality marketing landscape and
allowing hotels to interact with current and potential guests like
never before. ALB asked experts and brands how to optimize a
social media network for success
S By Jonathan
ocial media is the fastest-grow- Margaret Mastrogiacomo, social
ing internet marketing tool and media specialist with Hospitality
it has become a critical one for Springston, AAHOA eBusiness Strategies, said social me-
the hospitality industry. Lodging Business dia works well for the customer and
Hotels that are utilizing social service-oriented hotel industry.
media are able to interact with Mariana Mechoso Safer, senior “You’re building that customer
customers like never before and director of marketing for Hospital- relationship through social media,”
are reaping hefty benefits in online ity eBusiness Strategies, said social she said. “It’s more than just selling
placement and revenue. media allows hotels to not only con- hard products, you’re building that
Many brands utilize popular nect with current customers but also guest experience online.”
websites like Facebook, Twitter, future potential customers.
YouTube, TripAdvisor, and Flickr “Social media allows hotels to Getting Started
while others have developed their differentiate themselves from the The large social media universe can
own unique sites. competition,” she said. sometimes be complex and tough to
32 AAHOA Lodging Business FEBRUARY 2011
2. Cover Story
navigate for hoteliers who are new to
the concept.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Mile-
stone Internet Marketing and Ameri-
can Hotel & Lodging Association Ed-
ucational Institute in 2010 released
the latest edition of the book Hotels
to HTMLs.
In it, authors Benu and Anil
Aggarwal break down social media
into seven different categories called
channels: video sites (YouTube);
social networks (Facebook, Twitter);
blogs; bookmarking sites (Digg);
traveler reviews (Expedia, Orbitz);
photosharing (Flickr); and news and
PR articles.
For hotels that are not currently
involved with social media but are
interested, the book suggests they
begin carving out a presence on the
popular social media sites. “The cerned – from small, hyper-focused say Twitter or Facebook, we do have
main social media objectives for private online communities - with several properties who have found
these hotels should be to establish our partner Communispace - to a social media to be a viable outlet
a presence in the main social media public online community - Prior- through which they can engage
channels and use simple marketing ity Club Connect for Priority Club their guests in a personal way with
techniques to create a network of Reward members - to active pres- things like unique content, special
fans and friends.” ences across Twitter, Facebook and deals and promotions,” he said. “In
“Before they even set up their YouTube, among others,” Nick addition to the activity of our indi-
presence on social media, [hoteliers] Ayres, manager of social marketing, vidual properties, our global brands
need to set up a social media strat- distribution and relationship mar- are digging in as well and working
It’s clear from talking
egy and set benchmarks,” Mas- to build advocacy within a host
trogiacomo said. “Once they have of social spaces.”
these in place, then it’s important Best Western has a strong
to delegate responsibilities. Once
they have a strategy in place and with the different presence on Facebook, Twit-
ter and YouTube and actively
an action plan, then they can set
up their presence on the platform brands that there is maintains blogs like www.
youmustbetrippin.com and
no one-size-fits-all
they feel is best.” www.onthegowithamy.com, ac-
For hotels that are farther cording to Troy Rutman, director
along, the HTMLs recommend
approach to social
of external communications for
cross-networking each of their Best Western.
social media channels. “At the hotel level, we offer
“Make sure that the social
media icons are displayed clearly media marketing our owner-operators digital
consulting services to help them
on your website so that consum- craft an effective online pres-
ers can get to those channels,” keting for InterContinental Hotels ence,” Rutman said. “This includes
Hotels to HTMLs says. “Flickr should Group (IHG), said. everything from SEO [search engine
be interlinked to your Facebook and “We’re also working at the optimization] and social networking
Twitter accounts. Similarly, make hyper-local level via location-based to reputation management in hotel
sure that you are linking Twitter and marketing with programs like our review forums.”
YouTube to your Facebook account. Topguest partnership, where we Certain Wyndham brands like
Cross-linking the channels will help award Priority Club Reward mem- Howard Johnson and Baymont Inn
you in optimization as well as in bers 50 Priority Club Reward points & Suites first started experimenting
expanding your network.” for their virtual check-ins to any of with social media in 2009, accord-
It’s clear from talking with the our properties globally.” he added. ing to Rosanne Zusman, senior vice
different brands that there is no one- Ayres said IHG hotels have been president of brand marketing for the
size-fits-all approach to social media tinkering with social media for a Wyndham Hotel Group.
marketing. number of years. “Since that time, we’ve seen more
“Our approach really runs the “While not every property is and more of them move into the
gamut as far as platforms are con- actively building out a following on space in one way or another,” she
FEBRUARY 2011 AAHOA Lodging Business 33
3. Cover Story
collaborate to continually monitor
and strengthen their social media
networks.
“In the last several years, Best
Western leadership has set a clear
course to make thoughtful, disci-
plined investments in the social
media platforms that are relevant to
our family brand,” Rutman said. “As
the online medium demands, there
Once hotels have
set up their social
network, they
should decide
how to operate
and maintain it
is also a major customer care compo-
nent in our web activity.”
Baymont Inn & Suites currently uses Facebook as one of several channels to advertise its Zusman said responsibility for
latest promotions and sweepstakes Wyndham’s social media varies by
said. “This past year was first year says. “A few hotels have a full-time brand.
where most of our brands saw sig- resource dedicated to managing “It is most often a collaborative
nificant participation in some type of their social media channels. At a effort between internal departments
social media channel.” minimum, you will need to allocate such as marketing and customer
Zusman noted that Wyndham an hour a day to make sure that the service as well as external resources
brands like Howard Johnson, Ra- channels you are using are effec- such as agencies,” she said.
mada and Super 8 use social media tive.” Ayres said the IHG approach is
according to specific needs and ob- The Best Western external com- a combination of individual point
jectives determined by the property munications and eCommerce teams persons acting alone and interde-
owner.
Carlson began dabbling in social
media in its Americas hotels in 2009.
“At the brand level, we have our
blog, www.talkofthecountry.com,
our Facebook page, www.facebook.
com/countryinns, and we are active
on Twitter as well, www.twitter.
com/countryinns,” Aurora Toth,
vice president of marketing for Carl-
son, said. “Our hotels in the Ameri-
cas manage their own accounts, and
we offer training to help them get
started.”
Managing Channels
Once hotels have set up their social
network, they should decide how to
operate and maintain it.
“The key to social media opti-
mization is to be actively involved
in these channels,” Hotels to HTMLs
34 AAHOA Lodging Business FEBRUARY 2011
4. Cover Story
to that group. One example from
Hotels to HTMLs is to become a fan
of Disneyland on Facebook and of-
fer specials to that group.
The Aggarwals offer a number
of suggestions for how hotels
should promote their channels,
including polls, “Tips of the Day,”
fun facts about the hotel, vaca-
tion packages, hotel perks, and
discussions of the latest initiatives,
among others.
partmental collaboration.
“We do have a small number
of people in the organization who
are explicitly responsible for social
media programs but there are
several functions like PR and com-
munications where social media
plays a part in their day-to-day roles
and responsibilities but is not their
primary or exclusive responsibility,”
he said. “Our belief is that in order
for social media to really become
an embedded part of our organiza-
tion, we need to distribute it where it
makes sense.”
Socializing and Promoting
Channels
“Across all social media channels,
the goal is for the hotel to be part of a
The goal is for the
hotel to be part
of a group that
shares common
interests with the
hotel
group that shares common interests
with the hotel - destination informa-
tion, events in your market, your
initiatives such as going green [or]
pet-friendly - so that the hotel can
constantly interact with the group
and offer value,” Hotels to HTMLs
says.
The book suggests becoming a
fan of relevant groups and business-
es on the social media channels and
then try to offer something exclusive
FEBRUARY 2011 AAHOA Lodging Business 35
5. Cover Story
“Our brands engage guests currently in the process of
through a variety of means identifying a long-term solu-
ranging from site-specific tion for better tracking and
special offers and contests to measurement.”
online games, video content Ayres said IHG is still
and polls,” Zusman said of working to nail down best
Wyndham. practices for tracking feed-
Rutman said Best Western back. He noted that a negative
uses a balance of promotions comment on Twitter should
and giveaways with entertain- be handled differently than a
ing and useful content. positive review on a blog.
“The teams who need the
Tracking Customer information are different,
Feedback the timing of the response
Obviously, hotels can put all is likely to be different, and
the information they want on so on,” he said. “Ultimately,
social media sites but if no one we want each guest to get
bothers to track feedback, the the best response from the
effort seems wasted. most appropriate touch
“It’s not just about actively point – whether that’s a hotel
posting on the fan page but general manager [or] a global
proactively monitoring the brand representative. There
buzz,” Mastrogiacomo said. are a variety of systems and
“The number one mistake platforms we’re working
that the hotel can make is on integrating to best en-
not monitoring the buzz on Howard Johnson was one of the first Wyndham Hotel Group able us to take advantage of
brands to make its way onto social media sites like Facebook and respond to the cloud of
social media. What guests are
and continues to build a strong fan base with fun comments, conversation we know exists
saying about you affects the videos, brand promotions and more
perception of your hotel.” about our brands, properties
Rutman said Best Western is transferring the conversation away and company.”
always in “listen mode.” from the web and finding a swift Toth said Carlson tries to re-
“We respond to individual resolution. spond quickly to customer feedback
guests where appropriate and track “From a hotel perspective, we but are working on best practices.
our overall share of online conver- educate our franchisees on how best “We are still in the infancy of
sation via monitoring tools that to respond and resolve to comments our social media experience and
scan blogs, reviews, networking and reviews on user generated are working with agencies to help
sites, and so on,” he said. content sites but allow each hotel us track and monitor at the brand
Wyndham has brand teams and to take the lead on how and when level,” she said.
customer care staff that collaborate they want to respond,” she said.
to address feedback individually, “With regards to tracking, we are Processing and
Analyzing Customer
Feedback
Brands place a great deal of emphasis
on feedback generated through so-
cial media as it plays into investment
decisions hotels believe will reduce
complaints and problems while in-
creasing loyalty.
Safer said handling negative
feedback the right way through so-
cial media can have a big impact on
many people.
“The hotel provides feedback
and people’s attitude turns around
right away,” she said. “That’s great
because not just the person who is
upset sees that feedback, but every-
one sees how much the brand cares.”
Mastrogiacomo said hotels
should take the time to respond to
36 AAHOA Lodging Business FEBRUARY 2011
6. Cover Story
negative feedback but also share the can be a leading indicator, chances
positive feedback. are if there’s a problem or an oppor-
“It’s important to respond to tunity that is on our guests’ collec-
brand ambassadors as well, reaching tive radar in a significant fashion, it
out and saying we’re so happy you will show up in social media as well
enjoyed your stay,” she said. “Keep as a host of other feedback chan-
the conversation going. Ask them nels,” Ayres said. “If it doesn’t, we
questions about what they did on need to take a hard look at whether
their trip and how they liked their the social chatter is really a repre-
experience.” sentative thread or not and do
Rutman said Best Western our diligence to understand
President and CEO David Kong has its overall level of im-
personally read thousands of guest portance.”
Determining
“We place
great value in
knowing and
best practices for understanding
what consumers are
analyzing customer thinking and saying
about our brands, whether
feedback is still a it’s through social media, the
press, customer care or some other
work in progress
channel,” Zusman said of Wynd-
ham. “Their feedback, along with
brand may step in. In large part, the feedback and comments from
though, our owners and guests are our franchisees, is just one of many
feedback cards during his tenure. best served by the intensive training items we consider when updating or
“Feedback through social media Best Western provides to its mem- implementing new brand standards.
certainly increases the reach of both bers, the goal of which is to help In every instance, we want to find
positive and negative comments, hoteliers prevent problems before the solution that’s not only the right
and we’ve invested intelligently they arise.” thing to do by our consumers but the
to remain aware and responsive in For IHG, Ayres said hotels like to right thing to do by our franchisees.”
those channels,” Rutman said. “In “triangulate” feedback from social Determining best practices for
many situations, guest complaints media with feedback that arrives analyzing customer feedback is
are best resolved at the local level, from more traditional channels of still a work in progress as the social
between the owner-operator and the feedback like phone and e-mail. media environment continues to
guest. If that becomes unlikely, the “While we’ve found social media change.
“Social media is yet one more
channel in which consumers have a
voice to publicly express their pleas-
ure or dissatisfaction with a product
or a brand,” Zusman said. “As such,
proactively monitoring and address-
ing their concerns in this space is
becoming increasingly important to
managing a brand’s reputation.”
Wyndham utilizes different on-
line tools to monitor feedback about
its brands and is working to develop
tools to measure the effectiveness of
their social media strategy.
“We put a lot of effort into
helping Best Western hoteliers
understand and benefit from social
media,” Rutman said. “It’s still a
new arena and everyone is trying to
figure out how to define ‘success.’
We rely on a combination of qualita-
tive and quantitative metrics, doing
a post-mortem on each online initia-
tive to quickly adjust our strategy
FEBRUARY 2011 AAHOA Lodging Business 37
7. Cover Story
based on [lessons learned]. Staying
nimble is key, as is recognizing that
social media is no longer just a Gen
Y game.”
Ayres said it is important at IHG
to listen to brand feedback on a daily
basis, a balance that he describes as
both an art and a science.
“Our goal is not to create an
entirely separate set of measure-
ments that do not lead back to what’s
important to the broader business,”
he said. “Social media programs
should be able to demonstrate and
translate their value to the business
in the same ways as any other pro-
gram. To best do that, we know there
will be times when we need to look levels of funding for 2011 than we book rooms on a hotel website or
a little more closely at the numbers did for 2010.” over the phone, even though they
and times we need to look a little “Like most marketers, the social found the hotel on Facebook or on
more broadly across longitudinal media space is one that we’re still Twitter,” the Hotels to HTMLs says.
qualitative insights but the key is un- just beginning to work into our larg- Hotels can use website analyti-
derstanding both are important and er marketing efforts,” Zusman said. cal tools to track web traffic to the
both should be a map to our vision “As such, our spending against so- social media channels and track the
of delivering ‘Great Hotels Guests cial media remains a very small part number of customers who went from
Love.’” of the larger marketing budget. How the channels to the hotel booking
quickly we’ll begin to see increases engine.
Costs and Funding in that spending is likely dependent “As technology advances, we are
Funding for social media at the upon how consumers continue to
brand level remains a small part of
the overall hotel marketing budget.
use this medium and how soon we
can find ways to accurately measure
Increased
But as social media becomes a more
popular tool for marketing, brands
and attribute its value.”
Tracking Return On
engagement is the
short term ROI
are finding reasons to increase
funding. Investment (ROI)
“Social media cuts across so Hotels to HTMLs argues track-
many functional areas, which is not ing ROI generated through social positive that there will be ways to
how traditional budgeting proc- media channels is difficult because measure actual ROI and social media
esses operate,” Ayres said. “We “the conversion from social media optimization effectiveness more ac-
have significant buy in across the marketing efforts occurs on chan- curately,” the Hotels to HTMLs says.
organization in the need to focus nels different from the social media “Hoteliers who want to be ahead of
on the social media opportunity, so channels.” the curve should invest today in the
we are seeing significantly higher “For example, most clients will media that is fast emerging as the
future of Internet marketing.”
Mastrogiacomo argues ROI from
the social media program is not
necessarily measured in dollars and
cents in the short term.
“The ROI [hoteliers] should
be looking for in the short term is
increased engagement,” she said.
“Are people posting on your walls
and asking about availability? Is
there an ongoing conversation? Are
you generating a lot of buzz on the
platform?”
“Keep in mind short- term ROI
leads in the long-term to brand
engagement,” she said. “You’re go-
ing to be the first hotel that comes to
mind.”
38 AAHOA Lodging Business FEBRUARY 2011