Social media for hotels - beyond pr and marketing

2. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
A Bit About Me…..
• Others say I am a thought leader, idea factory and a marketing
maverick...................I would not disagree!
• Worked in sales and marketing for over thirty years and as a freelancer or
consultant for nearly twenty of those years.
• Work internationally with clients ranging from the global chairman of TNS to small
one person consultancies.

3. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
A Bit About Me…..
• Speak at conferences internationally from the Association of Project Managers
(APM) knowledge share conference in London to IT conference in Moscow and
golf course owners conference in Marbella and a myriad of others.
• Run a talent portal for marketing people to find jobs, bid on freelance and project
work and find on-line training to sharpen their marketing skills.
• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/smmuk
• Facebook https://www.facebook.com/socialmediauk
• Social Media Strategy Blog http://socialmediastrategy.org.uk/blog/
• Marketing Talent Portal http://socialmediamarketing.eu.com

4. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
The Importance of Social Media to Your Hotel Brand
Think of social media like a platform to enhance your hotel, and it automatically
becomes a tool for enhancing your brand and its reputation. Help your guests to find
places of interest in the area. Give members of your social circle access to special
offers. Update frequently about your new rooms, or new items on the hotel menu.
Upload video clips of the entertainment you had on last night.
The first importance of social media for the hotel brand is its ability to render all brand
transactions
That’s every interaction between your hotel brand and its guests or staff becomes
transparent. One of the biggest concerns that large organisations have traditionally
is the potential discrepancy between the brand values of the MDs and the behaviour
of employees they have never met, in departments they have never seen. Social
media allows the brand message to feed the whole infrastructure without dilution or
change.

5. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
Successful use of social media for hotel brands involves managing all areas of the
business’ reputation
First by identifying the current stage of that reputation by following your brand online
through Twitter analysis and customer feedback (creating a Facebook page is ideal
for this) and then by altering brand behaviour to improve the reputation that you find.
The need for Inside out branding and joined up thinking
Hotels, particularly big ones and chains, have plenty of departments that barely know
what each other are doing. How often does the restaurant manager have an idea
what is going on in the bedroom cleaning department? Yet this disparity of
experience within the hotel departments can lead to a disjointed customer service
experience, which ultimately damages the brand.

6. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
A Hotel’s Brand identity can also be reinforced through interaction with customers
If the hotel team responds to them – either personally or reactively, it makes
customers feel involved in the brand. You can also easily expand the interactivity of
your business and boost your customer loyalty by using social media tools to offer
promotions that shape your brand identity or meet new corporate strategies
For example, if you want to entice more young people to take weekend breaks at
your hotel, you can easily use social networking tools and hashtags to reach that
audience.
For the more expert social media marketers you may consider cross culture social
media to improve the customer experience. Analyse the emotional touch points in
the service delivery and build in social interaction so the customers are encouraged
to engage their social media when they are on an emotional high and want to tell all
their friends.

7. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
But savvy hotel owners shouldn’t just be paying attention to their external social
media presence, they need to use internal social media too
Internal social media networks allow a business to create a unique bond amongst its
workforce, whilst allowing it to simultaneously and instantly drive its brand strategies
and ensure all employees adhere to the business’s vision.
Internal social media is also a huge facet of maintaining a business’ brand, corporate
strategy and workforce morale. By equipping your business with an internal social
media network you can engender and manage a unique brand identity within your
company, making sure that your workers stay on message and key areas of the
business aren’t neglected.
By opening up a chain of communication that stretches from the lowest employee to
the highest executive, businesses can democratise their business model and make
their employees feel like stakeholders, facilitating idea generation and problem
solving.

8. Social Media for Hotels - Beyond PR and Marketing
Thank you for your time and if you wish to ask further questions you can contact
me or view my sites through any of the following……
@smm_uk
@bulletproof_uk
www.linkedin.com/in/smmuk
peter@peter.uk.com | www.peter.uk.com
peter@socialmediastrategy.org.uk | www.socialmediastrategy.org.uk/blog
peter@socialmediamarketing.eu.com | www.socialmediamarketing.eu.com

9. That’s all we have time for today
folks. For more insight and
information call Peter Wilkinson on
07930 330125 or visit his blog on
http://socialmediastrategy.org.uk/blog