Social media plays an important role in the travel shopping journey, helping to inspire travel shoppers, research & evaluate different accommodation options, and to share travel experiences.
Hotel marketers acknowledge that they need to have some form of social media presence, but it often falls down the list of priorities if you can’t see demonstrated ROI. In our webinar poll, 45% of attendees said they were not seeing results from their social media strategy (vs. 27% that don’t have a strategy, and 26% that said their strategy was working great).
It’s clear that hotel marketers need some ideas and guidance on how to use social media more effectively in their digital marketing mix to prove ROI.
In our latest webinar, we were joined by Greg Bodenair, Area Marketing Manager for Kimpton Hotels of Boston & Cambridge, to get the scoop on how to build a winning social media strategy with trackable ROI. Greg manages the digital marketing efforts for three Kimpton Hotel properties in Boston & Cambridge, Massachusetts. And his extensive background in social media strategy working with the Charles Hotel, Fairmont Southampton (Bermuda) and Mark Hotel (NYC), to name a few, make him an expert on this topic.
Here are some of the highlights from our very interactive discussion:
- You have thousands of storytellers at your property – they are your hotel guests!
- Frame your social media strategy around Google’s micro-moments (dreaming, planning, booking and experiencing moments). How are you appealing to these parts of the traveler journey?
- The goal of social media is to augment communications with guests before, during and after their stay, and to tell your property’s story
- Social media efforts shouldn’t just focus on pre or post stay. Engage with guests while they are on-property, capture those moments, and broadcast it out
