How to build a hotel social media team [Infographic]
by Josiah Mackenzie on May 17, 2010
9 Comments
9 Comments
Who should be on your social media team? At least one person from every department…
- The Management Team provides strategic direction and addresses guest feedback
- Revenue Manager and Marketing Director work together to create special promotions
- PR Manager watches for, and shares, interesting stories
- Concierge and Guest Services can share how they are making the guest experience better
- Social Media Ambassador collects contributions from this group, and publishes them in social media
The ‘social media ambassador‘ may be the public face of your social media presence – but building a team with someone from each department will make participation more effective.
[Feel free to download and use the full size version from Flickr]
This illustration was planned with Michael Hraba and drawn by the talented Carlo Tolentino – our new artist. Making digital communications simple is very important to me, and we look forward to sharing more illustrations like this.
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Article by Josiah Mackenzie // May 17, 2010
Josiah helps hospitality organizations use technology and the social web to provide better service and generate more profits.
+1 347 422 6784
Josiah,
As a guest, while I would also like to hear from hotel staff, personally I think that Social Media should start with the CEO or owner of a Hotel / Hotel chain.
Nobody embodies the spirit of a hotel / hotel chain better than the owner / CEO himself and if I can connect directly to him, then that gives the hotel / hotel chain a personal face I can always relate to.
Personal branding in social media has been highly effective in both non hotel (Richard Branson of Virgin) and hotel (Bill Marriott of Marriott Hotels) cases.
This is where hotel entrepreneurs have a distinct edge. By making their hotel more personal through social media, they gain a competitive advantage over their hotel chain competitors.
Cheers
Mihir
P.S. That is also one of the reasons why I place a large photo of myself as well as my tweets prominently on the homepage of my Mitaroy Goa Hotel.
Really liked your info. I’m a social media coordinator myself for the Pan Pacific Vancouver. Would love to hear you feedback on my site/sm channels. http://www.roomwithaviewblog.com
Hi Rishaad
I had a read through your blog and it seems really interesting and well put together.
I love the ample use of high quality photos and videos in your posts and your social media buttons are placed prominently including facebook connect which is good.
But, as Josiah once asked me, what is the #1 purpose of your site / blog ?
Is it to get people to sign up on Facebook ? Or Twitter ? Or is it to get bookings ? Or is it to sign up for a newsletter ?
Whatever your #1 purpose is, you need to highlight that prominently on your blog / site for first time visitors who land up on your site through search engines.
What is your call to action ?
Also, your blog looks a bit corporate and impersonal right now. Can you personalise it a bit with maybe a photo of you and a little bit about yourself ? Most guests like dealing with people rather than large corporations.
See what I have done with my blog / website http://www.mitaroygoahotel.com . Maybe that will give you an idea.
All the best.
Cheers
Mihir
Excellent image and useful information tant pinpoints all the elements of a social community manager! Thank you for sharing it with us. I would like to make one small insignificant comment. In my honest opinion it will be necesary to add clients in any place on this image.
Regards
Balneario Termas Pallarés
Good point! Thanks for the feedback.
Excellent work Josiah, I think you have covered all the major members here. I am doing a thesis how the hotel industries are using social media in brand building and this certainly will help me on that.
I too go by what Balneario said , It would always be great if your major clients can be involved a bit as well as their testimonies would be very valuable.
The Social Media ambassador should be the superior head and have the final call on all updations as too many cooks may spoil the broth.
I think you blog is great, and think we could learn allot from you about how to create a great blog that we have really neglected, but social media is not just about blog and I notice that you have really not been paying much attention to your Facebook Page. Facebook cab be a great a asset to hotels and is often over looked.
For example, hotels can directly interact with new guests and old, keeping your location in the top of their minds, reminding them of what a great time they had with you, encouraging repeat guest and referrals of new guests. (Verble referrals being very important to hotels).
Gaining a locale following, all hotels have high and low seasons, locals might mean anything from 100 yards to 1000Km, they do use local hotels for meetings, dinning and take short breaks, weekends away etc. and are often asked for advice by friends that visit their area on where to stay and eat. Local guests for example in our case are not affected by political problems, volcanos in Europe etc.
Having a strong local following protects you in slow times and gains you good steady traffic from the referrals locals give you. This is not to be underestimated.
We have learned over the years that financially this is a great tool and thank god has been over looked by the bigger hotel chains up until now.
Direct referrals have another advantage, that is always forgotten by the industry, with its heavy reliance on agent sties to sell rooms for them, is that an agent takes in most case 20% of your room revenue, were direst bookings do not. Add that up over a year how much more could a hotels spend on direct marketing including Facebook and social media.
it does not take much though, to realise that hotels are an integral part of peoples holiday, and big ticket item for most people, they want to share this with friends and family when they return home it does not take much to encourage them to share this with a wider forum and social sites like Facebook are great for this.
Feel free to browse our facebook page and see how much interaction is going on and how much of it is from our guests and not just us pushing us.
Our page for a 40 room resort in the middle of know where on a very small island 60km from the nearest land over 200km from the next big-ish town has now over 20,000 likes and very loyal following and I can’t state enough how it has assisted us in becoming as successful we are.
http://www.facebook.com/castawayresort
I can’t see how this would not be a useful tool to any Hotel of any size, and is truly easy to implement, it just takes a little bit of cash and a little bit of thought.
Thanks for sharing what’s working for your hotel, Pierre! I agree that properties should establish strong and authentic communications through whichever channel they find best.
We don’t have anything against Facebook, but suggest establishing a presence outside of third-party networks, which can change without warning and without the hotelier’s input/consent. Personally, I use Facebook to communicate with friends, and feel a little intruded upon by aggressive advertisements. Any company that I support on Facebook, I support and share with my friends, regardless.
Do you think we could share your success story with our readers as a case study? Here’s the link, if you’re interested.
http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/submit-example/
Thanks again, Pierre!
Katie
Great illustration. One more thing the mgmt team needs to do is brief on the evolution of what’s happening within the hotel. Just like the concierge does for what’s going on outside. Here I am not talking about shows and so forth. But renovations and other stuff.
Plus I guess the Social Media ambassador should be getting stuff from guests and posting it on the pages with their agreement (ideally the guests do that themselves but a little nudge helps).