Over the last few years, hotels have been rapidly contracting Community Managers to manage their social media sites, upload content and generally manage there presence on the brand website as well as maintaining content on other online sites that promote or review the hotel. They ensure that all promotions are uploaded and marketed online and in some hotels create adword campaigns and provide SEO. Hotels who have contracted a Community Manager feel they are relating better with their clients and General Managers are always happy when they see an increase in Facebook, Google+ and Twitter Fans. More Fans = More Business and better client interaction right?
I have a few questions that might make you question this strategy and maybe get you to have a rethink a) Is the Content that you are uploading onto your social media sites interesting to your clients? b) How much business can you directly attribute to the work of the Community Manager? c)Who owns all your content, communities and Data?
Lets take the first question. To me this sums up content marketing so that almost anyone can understand it.
“Your audience don’t care about you, your products, or your services. They care about themselves, their wants, and their problems. Content Marketing is about creating interesting information your audience is passionate about, so they seek you out and actually pay attention to what you have to say.”
By having a community Manager that is just uploading promotions or talking about what is going on in your hotel does not fulfill their job description. They have to be publishing content that generates reactions and debate which may or may not be related to the hotel they are working for, which leads me onto question b. I asked 4 Hotel General Managers. 2 from City Centers and 2 from Resorts, how many reservations have they received as a direct result of the work of the Community Manager and I was amazed with their answers. Not one of them could provide me with a figure, all of them boasted how many fans they had and also the regular content they were publishing with only one of the GMs saying that they used the Community Manager to increase their marketing database. At leasts theirs one, I thought! Finally a Community Manager producing a quantifiable result for their hotel.
The work of any Community Manager should be focused in increasing your marketing database & your online conversions, uploading content that gets fans engagement on the various social media sites and managing your hotels or resorts reputation.
There is though one final bit missing which leads me on to question c. Do you own all your content that you publish on social media sites, do you own your fans and data? The answer is NO, THEY DO!! So how can we change this and gain control? By creating your own social website! A relatively new concept coming from the states but one sure to take off, which is to create website where you place all your social conversations, promotions, content & Reviews. Where the fans you build are YOUR FANS, Where the content you share is YOUR CONTENT and where the data you gain from your hard efforts is YOUR DATA that can be used to market your hotel or resort in more traditional means like email camaigns. So the work of your Community Manager with a Social Website can now actually be about increasing your social fan base which will always stay with you and in your control. You still have to publish content with the other social media sites but the generation of content is done and controlled on your social website and shared across the other channels,
Hotelient can help your hotel get ahead. We can work with your community manager in the configuration and setup of your social website so your investment in social media is now producing tangible results. Email us at info@hotelient.net for more information.
