On January 12th, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckenberg announced that Facebook will change how it prioritizes content that users see in their news feeds focusing on meaningful interactions between people. Facebook explains the evolution of its algorithm in this video.
What does it mean for hoteliers and restaurateurs?
Facebook’s new focus on friends and family is expected to greatly reduce – or in some cases completely eliminate – the publications from business pages – i.e Hotel Facebook Pages, Restaurants Facebook pages – that a user will view on his Facebook news feed.
What is the impact of the changes to Facebook’s news feed?
This change in Facebook’s algorithm was dreaded by experts for several months, and depicted as the “Apocalypse for Facebook Marketers”.
Last year, publications on Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne’s page reached over 1 Million readers organically. In 2018, if nothing is done by EHL social media marketing team and community manager, EHL would therefore lose one of its main communication channels to students, potential students, parents and alumni.
The same is true for hotels and restaurants who rely on their Facebook page to showcase their business. Small businesses such as small independent hotels, bed and breakfast, tea-rooms, food trucks, concept bars or cafés are expected to suffer most, as they do not have significant advertising budget to compensate this change.
While this change is the hype in the social media marketing sphere, it might get un-noticed by hotel and restaurant managers who are busy running their operations – that is, until they look at their social media performance and realize a significant drop in their referral traffic, reservations, walk-in traffic after promotions.
It might also get unnoticed by many users, outside a hotel or restaurant’s most loyal customer base. They might simply forget about that hotel or restaurant, or assume that the hotelier or restaurateur has simply stopped posting the content that they enjoyed in the past.
Staying on top of the consumers’ mind through their Facebook new feed will become almost mission impossible.
What should independent hotel or restaurant owners do?
It might not be intuitive in the initial panic generated among marketers, but one could actually see this update as a good news for any business that puts customer satisfaction at its center.
Here is a list of 6 things to do to improve your Facebook hotel marketing for 2018:
- Ask your customers when they are on your premises whether they would like to see (promotions, recipes, etc.) and how frequently.
