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Social Media Marketing for Hotels Tutorial

Create an account/profile on every social media you can.  If a site does not allow the application of businesses, then do it in your name.  Place your marketing strategy around being honest, so that if your hotel is not the poshest in the area, then does it have the best food? Best locations? Closest to the theme park, airport or pubs?

Ÿ  Get people trying your new menu or newest foam mattresses by announcing it on your social media, and then giving discounts for your friends, followers, fans etc.  Reward people for knowing you.

Ÿ  There are lots of ways to get people to comment on your social media platforms, so why not try them all.  Why not have people who come up with the funniest responses get a free trial or free night at your hotel, or an ultra cheap weekend.

Ÿ  Get your follower/fans/friends talking, and make them fans of your hotel.  Get your previous customers to say how good it is.  Ask them if they agree when you say that “your gardens are the best” or “your food is top quality”, “your meal portions are the biggest”, and show them pictures.

Ÿ  Keep the dialogue open with the people who follow you. This can be done many ways, but don’t make it all about advertising and showing off or people will get bored.

Ÿ  Keep people updated on stuff and reward them some way for following your news.  Such as, if building works are being finished, then create a wall fingers over a weekend.  Create a wet concrete wall section and have your online followers push in one finger.  Future visitors can put their fingers in to see if theirs would fit.  You can even let people name their finger so they can tell people about how they are part of the building in the future.

Ÿ  Prove yourself with social media.  Show pictures of your large food portions or your silk sheets.  Show videos showing how quiet it really is, or how tall your tower really is.

Ÿ  Try to make it less about advertising and more about interaction, so as to keep a dialogue open.  Advertising is tantamount to boasting on social media, and is not smiled upon.

Ÿ  Find your competition on social media and see what they are doing.  Does it look like a good idea? Why not try it?

Remember these points about the social media industry.

Ÿ  Marketers are expecting a lot more of social media with 83% saying SM is very important for their current business.

Ÿ  Marketers wish to target the idea of analytics and targeting, with 40% wanting to learn just how to correctly measure their return on investment of most social media platforms

Ÿ  Most marketers use social media as a way of searching out customers and potential prospects.

Ÿ  Video marketing will be this year’s biggest thing, with 76% of marketers saying that they will concentrate on it the most this year.

Ÿ  Most marketers want to know about Google even more than ever, and this is despite the fact that only 40% of them have a Google+ account.  70% wish to know a lot more about social networking, and 67% are expecting to increase SM activity this year alone.

Ÿ  The main benefits of SM marketing - increasing awareness (85%) & increased traffic (69%) & market info collection (65%).

Ÿ  In order of importance, currently rated are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube.

Ÿ  Most companies say that Social media marketing takes at least 11 hours per week to make even a small positive impact.

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