Comments on: Facebook for Hotel Marketing? We’ll pass…

By: Are Morch

Are Morch — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:01:28 +0000

First thanks for the Quantcast tip. Great information from this site.

I believe Facebook and Facebook Marketing is important elements for a Hotels Social Media Strategy.

I agree that we can discuss various usage of it, but I would not leave it out. Up until now traditional Location – Location – Location has pretty much set the tone for your marketing strategy. But with location based applications you have new opportunities to reach out to new market segments.

Facebook provides locations and lately also Facebook Deals. Here is an abundance of opportunities for Hotels.

Facebook also offer some Travel Planner applications. Though TripIt is better incorporated at LinkedIn at the moment.

Don’t also TripAdvisor owns the Where I’ve Been app on Facebook?

I think in general we will see that Social Media Networks will be more streamlined, and Hotels will be able to utilize them in a more efficient way then today. I am all in for being an early adapter.

Now said so I am also supporting that a Hotels Social Media strategy has to reflect demographic and marketing segmentation strategies.

Social Media opens new market segments that require a different type of engagement then the traditional consumer. Facebook require a lot of engagement techniques that I can see that some might find time consuming at this time.

Plus we have seen some spam discussion prior to release of the latest FB messaging/ mail system.

This indicates that Hotel most definitive need beside their Social Media Strategy to introduce Social Media Guidelines.

Facebook has done a lot of changes also over this year, so this is also something that need to be addressed.

So in someway I agree that Hotels need to do their homework before they jump onto Facebook, or any Social Network. And then do like you have done here use a tool like Quantcast to identify if their market segment utilize Facebook or other related Social Networks.

Cheers.. Are

By: Josiah Mackenzie

Josiah Mackenzie — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:06:09 +0000

Only slightly

Facebook pages have opened up new opportunities for marketers, but I still feel 99% get it wrong. People don’t go to Facebook to listen to marketers…

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:31:05 +0000

Hi Josh,

Good article. I am curious as well if your opinion has changed.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 31 May 2010 22:32:18 +0000

I would have agreed with you back when this was written but what a difference a year makes.
I wonder what your thoughts on this are now.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:15:20 +0000

I work in social media strategy and I wanted to point out that your numbers are slightly jilted. You’re looking a compete so you’re getting the average UMVs and a breakdown of those by age, sex, etc. but that doesn’t accurately reflect the make-up of Facebook or the make-up of those who spend money on Facebook.

You can get data on the break down of Facebook members from Inside Facebook and they tell a different story: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/03/25/number-of-us-facebook-users-over-35-nearly-doubles-in-last-60-days/

That data is a couple months old but the point is that the demographics of Facebook is changing, older audiences are growing and becoming more savvy, and any travel and tourism that ignores this is going to miss the boat.

By: Olga

Olga — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:10:52 +0000

Ian R Clayton. We have just created a page. How to add this application to our profile? Thanks
Olga

By: Ian R Clayton

Ian R Clayton — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:48:27 +0000

agreed but the key point about facebook is that its demographic is changing. More and more businesses are creating facebook pages and inviting fans from all walks of live and all ages.

We just launched a facebook bookings application for hotels – Facebook fans and potential guest can see rooms, photos, rates – get quotes and book online

live example see http://www.facebook.com/pages/arcresBookings/76837318113?v=box_3&viewas=592900427

By: HhotelConsult

HhotelConsult — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:09:02 +0000

http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2009/04/27/facebook-for-hotels-what-are-we-trying-to-achieve-so-far-seems-to-be-nothing/ Check out my new article. I think I am done with FB for now. I just don’t see anything worthwhile or meaningful at all. Actually, it is to be blamed for my entire lost morning.. I should be doing something meaningful like publicly replying to all the TA and Yelp reviews!

By: Facebook for Hotels - What are we trying to achieve? So far… seems to be nothing. » Hraba Hospitality Consulting

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:02:03 +0000

[...] there has to be a presence. But what am I missing guys? I note this has come up recently, like *HERE*… but there hasn’t been much follow [...]

By: Rohit Seth

Rohit Seth — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:34:52 +0000

Great article. And I completely agree with you. I’m not entirely convinced that social marketing has much potential for the hospitality industry just as yet. You can setup blogs and pages of any number of social media sites, but it wont convert to business because most people are interested in themselves, rather than whats happening at a hotel.

The only social media (if you can call it that) that hotels should be looking hard is TripAdvisor. Now that’s an investment that WILL pay off.

Rohit Seth
Graytown Hospitality Marketing