HOTEL BUSINESS REVIEW
AUGUST FOCUS: Meetings & Conventions

Social Media: A Brave New World

By Michael McKean CEO, The Knowland Group | August 2011

The idea of making money with social media is like an abstract dream. Everybody talks about it but nobody is doing anything about it. Applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are low cost ways of reaching people and clients. No matter where someone is they can be reached with social media. A sales team that is integrated with social media has a huge advantage over teams that rely on outdated forms of media to communicate and build relationships. With social media there are plenty of ways for hotels to connect with meeting planners. Let’s log on and get started... **Making money with Social Media** By correctly using social media your hotel can make money. Social media is not just a wave that will eventually die out. Instead it will just keep evolving into something better, just like when laptops first hit the scene. When laptops were first available they could really only be used to type up documents. Otherwise they were large and inconvenient. That is, until someone discovered that the laptops could be connected to form a network. This eventually evolved into the Internet. The future of sales is tied to the world of social media. **Start making connections with Facebook** Facebook has more than 500 million active users with 250 million accessing their Facebook account from a mobile device on a daily basis. From these numbers alone it is obvious that by actively using Facebook, a hotel can reach a lot of people. Never miss an opportunity to engage! Your hotel sales team will be able to monitor brand hotel’s mentions, industry key words, competitor names and more with Facebook. **Don't underestimate your ability to reach huge numbers of people with social media sites.** Facebook makes it easy to search for people through different networks: work, education, location, etc. An easy way to start building relationships is by friending meeting planners on Facebook. By putting a face to a name you will be able to communicate better and build connections. The size of your personal network can be far reaching and have a real influence on your bookings. **Give a behind the scenes tour** Having a Facebook page is a great opportunity for hotels to give followers an insider access experience. Trying to show a meeting planner that your hotel has the best food and kitchen staff around? Connect with the meeting planner via Facebook by letting them "meet" the individuals behind the scenes. Post interviews or videos with your hotel’s chef and kitchen staff. A sales team member could also upload pictures of an event that is currently occurring at the hotel to the hotel Facebook page. For example, an awards dinner, then the attendees and meeting planners at the event would get tagged in them and then friend the hotel. This allows you to reach potential new customers as well. If you encourage a potential customer to visit your Facebook page you need to have strong online content. By having them view a wide variety of past successful event photos, visitors will learn all about the different and wonderful amenities your hotel offers from a trustworthy source – their peers. It is an easy way to connect, book and build strong relationships. **Show-off your hotel** Has your hotel recently renovated conference rooms and you want to show meeting planners the finished product? Don’t just email attachments that clutter up email boxes. Post videos showing off the bigger rooms, new tables and chairs. Explain in the photo captions all the new features that your hotel has installed that make it the best place to book. Have a group that has a ton of kids and is concerned that the hotel’s pool isn’t big enough? Post videos and blogs of that new pool. Once you’ve posted everything, send a Facebook message to all of your followers and share the photo album. **Tag, tag, tag** Facebook allows you to “tag” followers in wall posts. This can be used to a sales team’s advantage. A sales manager can post “countdown” status updates on Facebook saying how excited they are for a group to be coming. For example, if P&G is coming to your hotel, you can tag them in your Facebook post saying how excited you are that they are coming and that the hotel is ready. When you tag someone on Facebook it also shows up on their wall. So not only will the group know that you are prepared and ready to go but anyone who follows that group will see the posting to! With a simple wall posting you can reach a whole new potential customer base and audience. Facebook Status: *Crystal City Marriott-Welcomes @P&G for their Special Olympics Event!* **Be active and answer questions** When a follower posts a question on your wall about your hotel you can easily answer it! Acknowledging or answering a question by a follower cuts out the middleman. Your current and future customers won’t have to go around blindly searching the Internet to see the rooms, amenities and the exclusive attributes your hotel has. They can go straight to the source. **Twitter’s impact is bigger then it’s 140 character limit** The largest demographic on Twitter is the 35-49 age group. These numbers make it clear that social media isn’t just for young people. It’s for anyone who wants to use new technologies to grow their sales. **Be interactive, use Twitter** You can be successful with Twitter when you realize why people are drawn to it. Twitter provides people an instant account of what’s happening at a hotel and creates buzz. These days many hotels have set up their own Twitter accounts to get in on the action but not everyone is using Twitter to its full potential. Twitter is a quick and easy way to tweet to meeting planners everything from room renovations to rates to staff movements. By setting up an account, you can direct message groups and meeting planners and tell them why they should book at your hotel. A hotel that is willing to go out of their way for Twitter customers will make you stand out among the rest. Twitter allows sales teams to monitor and listen to followers. For example, Mr. Steitz (a meeting planner) is sting at a Hyatt and he tweets to Hyatt, “Tech Conference for WEB 2011 but my air conditioning is leaking and no one is answering at the front desk.” His comment is then read by a sales manager at the Hyatt. The sales manager gets a hold of the front desk to fix the problem and offers Mr. Steitz a pool-view room, the next day. Your followers will quickly see that your hotel values customers, and is dedicated to a first rate guest experience. That’s what will keep them coming back and booking business with you. Having your sales team actively following Twitter not only helps you keep current customers happy but it makes it easier to find new customers as well. In this case, a sales manager is looking at his hotel’s Twitter feed and sees that a meeting planner from National Association of Culinary Arts has tweeted that they are looking to book a hotel for a conference. The meeting planner needs several conference rooms for all of the different speakers but wants a hotel that has a large restaurant for attendees to meet and relax in at night. The sales manager can quickly direct message the meeting planner and reach out. Tweeting and responding to comments left on company social media sites gives hotels an opportunity to pleasantly surprise both current and future customers. **Be a telephone not a bullhorn** We’ve all been out on a date where the other person couldn’t stop talking about how awesome they are and never asked you about yourself. What did you do on the date? You tuned them out, paid the check, and then never called them again. This happens in sales all the time. Many companies flood the channels with press releases that are impersonal. They act like a megaphone when they just constantly talk about themselves and their products. Eventually people tune them out. This doesn’t help sales teams produce revenue or make connections. However, Twitter isn’t an impersonal tool. It can be a great mobile telephone where you can create a back and forth conversation. With your Twitter account you can follow as many groups and meeting planners as you want. Not only will you be able to tweet stuff about your hotel but you can reach out to your followers. When using Twitter don’t just tweet your hotel. Check out your followers pages and re-tweet articles that they have posted. Or if you have just read an article that relates to a follower tweet it to them. This shows that you are personally invested and understand what they do. A meeting planner will see that you are engaging and will continue this conversation by booking at your hotel. **LinkedIn isn’t just for posting resumes** Many people think that LinkedIn can only be used to post resumes and get a job. It works well for this because it is an online network of more than 100 million experienced professionals from around the world. However, it is a tool that is under-utilized by many in the hospitality industry. Your hotel can easily increase the value of LinkedIn and book group business. **Increase your visibility** A sales manager can find meeting planners on Linkedin, send a direct messages and connect with them that way. By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust. **Use the LinkedIn recommendation feature to generate leads** The LinkedIn recommendation feature is a great tool for a sales team to gain attention for a hotel. The Linkedin recommendation feature allows for users or “connections” to post recommendations for another user on Linkedin. For example, a sales manager has connected with a meeting planner that has recently held an event at the sales manager’s hotel. The meeting planner was pleased with the conference rooms and posts a picture on their LinkedIn profile recommending it to other meeting planners. This can go the other way as well. A sales manager can post descriptions of different services that their hotel has. Then when they connect with a meeting planner, whose group would fit well with the hotel, the sales manager can shoot them a direct message telling them to check out past reviews/recommendations on their property. Additionally, this recommendation will appear in status updates/status e-mails for the user giving the recommendation. For example, when your customer’s new LinkedIn connection views your customer’s LinkedIn profile; the new connection will see that a past customer wrote a shining review of your hotel. Additionally, the new connection may also receive an e-mail with your customer’s status updates which will include the recommendation. Finally, it’s great for your staff to have positive recommendations on their profiles as they connect with prospective customers who use LinkedIn regularly. The Linkedin recommendation feature is fairly new and is a great way to feature the amenities you’re your hotel has. **The Future of Sales…** Throughout the series “A Hotelier’s Guide to Social Media Marketing,” we have looked at the many ways your hotel can grow and drive the conversation about your property on a number of social media platforms. Traditional sales focus more on being a monologue. A sales manager meets with a meeting planner and gives a speech/presentation on their property and why they should book there. But you can’t expect to have a good relationship if it is just a 10 minute chat every once in a while. Building a sales relationship is just like any other personal relationship. It requires a constant dialogue and back and forth. Social media is the field that allows for this constant dialogue. When you have an ongoing conversation with a customer or potential customer the outcome is more fulfilling and the sales are much higher. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are two-way streets across several channels that enable all parties to feel as if they are being heard. Many thing in the hospitality industry will continue to morph and change but one thing will stay the same-the ability to make money using social media.

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You hereby authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card to pay for your membership to HotelExecutive. You further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card for any and all purchases of products, services in association with HotelExecutive. You agree to be personally liable for all charges incurred by you in association with your access or other use of any content provided by HotelExecutive or any third party in association with HotelExecutive. You acknowledge and agree that your liability for all such charges shall continue after termination of your access or any type of membership arrangement with HotelExecutive.

In the event that you have chosen to have your membership automatically rebilled, unless and until you notify HotelExecutive that you wish to cancel or terminate your membership to HotelExecutive, you hereby agree and authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to automatically renew your membership to HotelExecutive on a continuing basis and to charge your credit card (or other payment means you have selected) to pay for the ongoing cost of your membership. You hereby further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card (or other approved payment means you have selected) for any and all purchases of products, services and entertainment provided to in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive.

13. PRIVACY POLICY

The following is the Privacy Policy for HotelExecutive

We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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AUGUST FOCUS: Meetings & Conventions