Ms. Zoba

Social Media & PR

Identifying a Unique Social Media Voice and Learning How to Evaluate Results

By Holly Zoba, Senior VP of Sales - Hospitality, Signature Worldwide

According to a 2010 survey conducted by R2Integrated, 65 percent of business respondents said that their companies HAVE NOT increased revenue or profited using social media. That’s a big number. That means 35 percent of companies have seen an increase. What are they doing differently? Respondents that said their company had profited or increased revenues using social media were almost twice as likely to have a formal social media strategy.

This begs the question – why doesn’t everyone have a social media strategy? Based on our own research with hotels, it might be because playing with the social media tools is so much more interesting. There is much more instant gratification in creating a Facebook page for your hotel (time invested: 10 minutes) then mapping out an entire strategy that, let’s face it, may or may not work. But, simply having a hotel Facebook page does not count as having a formal social media strategy.

What exactly does count? Does a social media strategy need to be an elaborate web of social media tool utilization, customer data collection and complicated measurement metrics? It certainly can, but it doesn’t have to be. We have found that there are a few simple steps that hoteliers can take to make sure they are going down the right path in the social media jungle.

Step One: Define your voice and then use it.

Making weekly posts on your Facebook page about your “$109 special” is telling the world that you are a discounter, and they would be crazy to ever pay full price at your property. Discounting has become your voice whether you planned it or not.

I once heard the term “ambient intimacy” used to describe the secret to the popularity of Facebook and I believe it to be true. You feel closer to people because you read and see some of the details of their daily life: What they ate for breakfast, what books they are reading currently, what their favorite music is or what happened on their weekend trip to New York City. You get the benefit of this intimacy without investing the time to keep up with these people by actually talking to or spending time with them.

Similarly your social media voice needs to be a reflection of your hotel’s personality, and you need to use your voice to allow your friends to feel like they have an insider’s knowledge about your hotel.

One hotel we worked with defined its voice as one of storyteller and community cheerleader. When they post on Facebook, sent out a tweet or post a video to YouTube, their goal is always to tell a story or talk up their community. Signature’s voice is to be results driven, inspirational and fun. Whenever we are writing a blog article or creating a training tips video, we always ask ourselves how we can make it more results driven, inspirational and fun.

Your social media voice is always on and it may be coming from several sources so it will be critical to share your voice with the entire staff to ensure consistency. Your sales people may be responding to reviews on TripAdvisor and your voice should be reflected there as well. Your human resources director may be posting hotel videos on Monster.com or other job sites and again, you want your voice to be accurately reflected here. If you are a quirky hotel with a slightly offbeat staff, you don’t want a video posted that makes you out to be a traditional place to work.

One caveat about your social media voice: Be sure your voice reflects who you are now and not what you want to be, otherwise you will be like the Internet dater who posts pictures of himself twenty years younger when he had hair and a waist. You are setting yourself up to disappoint.

**Step Two: Define your business outcome or goal*8.

A business outcome is revenue increasing, cost saving or both. It may also be an increase in your customer service scores that will likely impact both revenue and expenses. Start simple, but be sure your goal is SMART – Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timely. Increasing area brides’ awareness of your banquet space is not a business outcome nor is it SMART. Instead, your goal might be to increase your wedding business 10 percent this year over last using social media.

What about the goal of increasing your “likes” or friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter? Are these valid business objectives? An argument could be made that more friends increase your customer loyalty because you have an opportunity to share information more easily. I consider increasing your number of followers a means to an end. I may put a number next to them and check to see where I started and where I would like to be, but it is never my primary objective.

Step Three: Create a logical, manageable action plan.

In creating your action plan, think about how you would attract business in the real world and then see if there are any social media tools to help. For example, a hotel I once ran got most of its wedding inquiries when people happened upon our Sunday brunch. If I had known about Foursquare back then, I would have put a tip on the page of every nearby church so that whenever someone “checks in” to the church, they see my tip about a great Sunday brunch at a nearby hotel.

To continue our wedding example, one step may be to make sure your existing wedding clients “like” you on Facebook – make them an offer if you have to. Then, with their permission, post pictures of their wedding on your Facebook page, making sure you tag them. Their friends will all see the pictures and will be taken to your photo gallery where you can have several photos of your banquet space dressed up for a beautiful wedding. People getting married are generally at an age where many of their friends will be getting married – this is a great target audience for your hotel.

Your social media strategy action plan must include some form of research or listening. There are many conversations going on in the social media world, and just like in real life, it would be rude to jump right in and start talking when you haven’t learned the tone or course of the conversation. In our wedding example, your action plan may include creating a wedding planner blog. Before you jump into your own blog, spend some time reading other wedding related blogs and start to become a part of their community. If your plans include Twitter, do some Twitter searches on your topic to see what is being said and who is talking.

Step Four: Monitor your progress. And don’t lie.

If your goal is to book 10 more weddings for next year and after three months you have only booked one, you need to make some adjustments to your plan. Don’t wait until the end of the year and realize you only booked four more because it’s a little too late to do anything about it at that point. Instead, in your strategy, create some reasonable milestones and force yourself to check back and assess your progress at least quarterly.

Step Five: Measure your results, and repeat what worked.

Don’t repeat what didn’t work just because it seemed like such a good idea and maybe it was just the economy, or the execution. Focus instead on replicating your successes. If you don’t have a goal to begin with, it will be impossible to measure your results. Know where you began and where you ended up. If you had an intangible goal like “increase area brides’ awareness” how will you ever know if you were successful? How will you know what parts of your action plans worked and which didn’t?

Step Six: Wash, rinse, repeat.

Start the entire process over again, define your goals, make them SMART, create your next action plan and move forward.

To summarize the social media strategy development process, you must create a goal, listen, make a plan, monitor, adjust, measure and start all over again. It’s not quite as simple as creating a Facebook page, but in the end you will be glad you spent the time creating and executing a social media strategy the right way.

Summary

Companies who are profiting from social media have one thing in common – they have a plan. They have a social media strategy in place that acts as a roadmap to get them where they want to be.

Companies who reported that they are not making any money from social media seem to be focused on the tools – setting up a Facebook page, creating a blog – but they aren’t focused on the big picture.

We have discovered a few simple steps to get your social media strategy moving – and the first step involves identifying your social media voice.

Holly Zoba is Senior Vice President of Sales for the Hospitality Division of Signature Worldwide, the leading provider of training solutions for the hospitality industry. Ms. Zoba has more than 20 years of sales and marketing management experience in the hospitality industry and is responsible for managing Signature Worldwide’s sales effort by determining best-fit solutions for hoteliers — helping them improve customer service and increase revenue. Ms. Zoba can be contacted at 614-766-5101 or hollyzoba@signatureworldwide.com Extended Bio...

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