I like the way this is worded: “Did TripAdvisor help you today?”

It seems this approach could quickly grow their fan numbers on Facebook.

What do you think? Is this too pushy, or could you use it on your blog or information site?

Bowen Payson, Online Marketing Manager at Virgin America

I run the online marketing team, responsible for all digital communications from Virgin America
There’s four of us working on social media: 2 from marketing, 2 from corporate communications
My workday is 50% managing content development, 50% on promotional activities generating direct revenue
We’re focused on fare promotions, and also on telling people about our unique amenities
People may say something online, but do something else. On our recent Facebook promotions, for every person that complains, 5 are buying a ticket
We have a matrix approach to promotions: if we only did one type (discount, giveaway, etc) it would burn out the audience. It’s all about creating a mix.
Twitter a year ago was totally different than Twitter today. Facebook is the same way.
Early adopters used be the only ones on some social media; now it’s more mainstream
For me, Twitter is a newsfeed; for others it may be something else
We plan some social media promotions months ahead of time
Our editorial calendar is pretty lose and open, so we can change and update as needed
Our most successful channel in terms of views, clicks, and sales is Twitter
Facebook is growing, but user behavior is different. Facebook can bring a very engaged audience.
Nick Schwartz is our voice on Twitter
If there’s a basic question, Nick takes care of it. If it’s bigger, we work closely with our guest services team to resolve issues.
A big project for us right now is finding the right buzz channels. Last week we launched a promotion around “awkward family photos,” where people send in photos for a chance to win prizes.
It’s great because the photos are viral and funny, but it’s also a good offer for our customers.
Our website is intended to be fun and user-friendly. It’s meant to be relevant and intuitive. We’re using big photos and less text to quickly get the message across.
If I could start over, I would have focused more on search optimization. I’d work on deeper integration of the social media into the website.
One of the best things we ever did was in emails to our Elevate members: including a “tweet this” button in our emails. Different people at different times need different things from email. Sometimes people aren’t buying, but want to share an offer with their friends.
Social media takes a lot of work. What you invest, you get out. You need to invest in people, thought, time and strategy. It’s not like buying traditional media.

See Bowen next week at EyeforTravel’s Travel Distribution Summit North America 2010.

Here’s the video intro:

This community will start out on this Facebook page: I invite you join here. In fact, I’ll make it super-easy for you by including the Facebook widget here – just click the “like” button below:

A note about Facebook privacy: Joining does not open up your personal network. We’re just using the Facebook Connect platform to get as many people involved as possible. It’s just to let you plug into the community without separate registration.

Once you’ve “liked” our page, please share links, articles, or examples that you think would inspire innovation in this space.

Of course, the solution isn’t to avoid all forms of online interaction. Social media can serve as a powerful channel for your staff to serve guests.

The Internet marketing managers at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York City have developed a web presence that shows what’s possible when social media is done right. Through a dedicated website, blog, Facebook fan page, YouTube channel, Flickr photo stream, and a Twitter account with over 3,000 followers, the hotel is able to build loyalty and attract attention using social media.

And then there’s the vast majority of hotels that have either a nonexistent or a mediocre social media presence. The problem there is that their social media campaign is so boring it doesn’t attract any attention: negative or positive. They’re simply not on the radar.

This is why a social media policy is so important

A good social media policy serves as a roadmap for encouraging your staff to take part in promoting your hotel online…but also serves as a safeguard against tarnishing your brand’s reputation. It recognizes that social media is by definition a personality-powered platform. It encourages your staff to actively participate in spreading the word about your organization online.

It’s not so much a set of rules as it is a written philosophy to clarify your engagement strategy.

The two parts of a good social media policy

In my mind, a social media policy should serve two functions:

1. Explain how to interact with others in social media
2. Provide guidelines on producing content for distribution

First, explain how to interact with others

Be a good listener. Take time to understand other’s point of view and handle criticism well. Accept that people will inevitably post negative comments at some point. Understand how to manage it, rather than avoiding or being defensive.

When replying to others, be honest and straightforward. Be conversational and avoid corporate jargon and rehearsed marketing pitches.

Before posting responses to challenging issues it may be helpful to get a second opinion from another employee. Make sure the response is appropriate before you post it — because once something is posted to the web, it’s usually on there for good. Where appropriate, have a system for including management in this process.

If you do not know enough about a situation, say so. But make it clear you will do your best to promptly investigate and take appropriate action.

Try to stay away from arguments that could damage your brand. At times, it can be best to take a complaint offline and settle things directly with the person who made the comment. You might assign a customer service or public relations specialist to bring a quick resolution.

Second, provide guidelines for producing social media content

Be careful that you do not disclose any private or confidential information.

Never smear your organization’s reputation. Social media requires you be honest, candid, and transparent. But as you do that, it’s important to avoid spreading unnecessary information that can lead to a bad reputation. Some things are better resolved within the organization… and don’t need to be shared with the world.

Consider putting together best practices documents for each of your major social media initiatives. For example…

• Blog — update biweekly, write about behind-the-scenes insight information that guests would find interesting
• Twitter — update three times daily, search queries to proactively reach out.
• Flickr — add new photos weekly, moderate comments and submit to appropriate groups.
• YouTube — add new videos bimonthly, cross post to hotel blog
• Facebook — update weekly, add photos and videos from other sites as appropriate, interact with fans

Use your good judgment in creating content.

Terry Moran, the ABC anchor who leaked Barack Obama’s “off the record” remark about Kanye West being a “jackass” certainly attracted a lot of attention, but may not have used good judgement in sharing that private conversation on Twitter. Apparently that’s what ABC News thought, and they had to issue a formal apology.

Avoid unnecessary rules in your social media policy

Don’t tie your people up in red tape. Unnecessary bureaucracy stifles the kind of creative environment needed for your organization to flourish in social media.

In most cases, less is more. Simple is best.

A few more things to remember

Protect yourself, but be careful of going too far.

Collaborate and involve your staff in writing your social media policy. Getting their input and feedback will help them take ownership and responsibility for it.

Training your staff in general guest service principles carries over to online and social media participation. It’s one of the best investments that you can make — from a management and marketing perspective.

More resources

If you’re in the process of planning your social media strategy, here are some cornerstone articles I’ve written about social media marketing fundamentals:

• Lessons in building your hotel’s internet fanbase
• 5 tips for turning social media traffic into sales
• Beating Negative Hotel Reviews: An Action Plan for Proactive Reputation Management
• Creating a hotel social media management routine

[Photo credit: earcos]

The Pros & Cons of using Facebook

Pros

• It can serve as a rich media sharing platform for collecting and distributing photos and video of special events at your hotel
• You can extend your page functionality through various applications
• It can serve as a good social media hub, sharing content from various sites around the web
• The new enhanced wall feature encourages interactivity and creates a sort of “lifestream” around your hotel
• Event promotion seems to be something that works very well – considering how people tend to use Facebook
• You can rally people around a cause
• Access to statistics has improved over the past few months, making it easier to track metrics

Cons

• Your potential guests may not be using it
• Your guests may not want to use it to interact with a hotel
• People may even get annoyed by receiving marketing messages from a hotel on Facebook

“I thought Beverly Hilton was an old girlfriend, but then realized I’d been friended by a hotel. #HiltonFail” @simmonet

But perhaps the most powerful argument I hear against using Facebook is that is doesn’t reach people in the decision making stage of the travel planning process. This is something you must consider carefully if you are starting a brand-new Internet marketing campaign with limited resources. You may get a higher return on investment by focusing on online reputation building and search marketing.

Should your hotel have a Facebook presence?

Here are some questions to ask yourself

Who is our target market? Yes, the fastest growing demographic is users above 35 — and maybe even women over 55. But I recommend using tools such as Quantcast to see if the people that you want to reach are actually using this site.

Could this help our search marketing efforts? Most likely, it will.  Facebook pages sit  outside the secure firewall — allowing search engines to crawl their content. Given the good relationship that Facebook has with Google, there’s an excellent chance that your page will appear highly in search results.

Do we have upcoming events that we want to promote? Some of the best Facebook marketing campaigns that I’ve seen are centered around event promotion. If your hotel or restaurant regularly has special events this is a great place to get the word out.

Do we have photos and video that we can share? Facebook is becoming more and more centered around media. The more content you can upload to your page, the more interactive it will feel.

Do we have enough time to create an effective presence here? With so many social media options, it’s important not to lose focus. If you have the resources to effectively promote your hotel on Facebook, go for it. Otherwise, you may want to wait until you have more time or support for producing your page.

What is our long-term strategy? If you acquire 5,000 fans: what will happen then? It’s easy to get caught up with meaningless statistics in social media. Avoid this by having a real business strategy for participating in a site like Facebook.

Alternatives to Facebook

If you asked yourself the above questions, and decided that Facebook isn’t for you, here are some smart alternatives that may give you a better return on investment:

Blogs. Publishing a blog – either about your hotel or about your destination – has the potential to bring long-term traffic to your hotel website. By being accessible outside the network, you can reach more people. It also can serve many of the same media sharing functions that work well on Facebook.

Flickr & YouTube. Sharing rich media seems to be one of the most effective uses of Facebook. But sharing your photos and videos on these popular websites allows them to be viewed by people who may not be members of a closed social network. Again, this gives search marketing benefits, and increases your overall Web visibility.

Take a look at how other hotels are using Facebook.

One of the best ways to get marketing inspiration – and help you decide whether you should be using Facebook as a marketing channel – is to look at how other hotels are using this platform.

A few months ago, I analyzed five different types of hotel Facebook pages on Guillaume’s blog. You can also see this list of hotels on Facebook…or read HotelChatter stories about Facebook.

What do you think: what is the best criteria for choosing Facebook as a hotel marketing tactic?

A couple big takeaways from this:

• Facebook reaches nearly four times as many people as Twitter
• Facebook is growing faster than Twitter (especially over the past 3 months)
• Twitter growth has plateaued over the past month (Quantcast even shows a drop)

For these reasons, I wondered how hotels are using Facebook to engage their fans and attract new ones.

Read the whole story: How hotels use (and misuse) Facebook: 5 examples, 14 ideas for you