Daniel Craig provides some useful advices of managing social media for hotels at HospitalityNet.org and Hotel-Online.com. I agree with him for the most part, except for the first two ideas.
· LESS IS MORE. Certainly, a company should spend its resource wisely and focus on a limited number of selected channels. For independent hotels or restaurants, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may seem plenty. However, I believe picture-sharing media like Flickr and Snapfish are also important. A hotel or restaurant may find advantages over others by having some “searchable” pictures online --- the key here is to label every picture with the right “key words.”
· SHOULD YOU START A BLOG? Daniel says no, but I argue that blogs may still play an important role in communications, especially in the corporate level. Marriott and McDonald’s are using blogs to communicate with captive audience (including internal and external customers) about their strategies and policies.
· LISTEN FIRST. Listen to what people are saying about the property before posting anything.
· MAKE REVIEWS A PRIORITY. Monitor, share, and respond to feedback or complaints.
· LEAVE OUT THE BORING PARTS. Nobody wants to hear boring stuff. Pictures, videos, and concise discussion are more interesting than long descriptions. It is also important to find ways to create “value” for the audience by offering tips or tools.
· EASY ON THE SMILEYS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS. Everything we say online will be stored in somewhere “forever.” What we say needs to match a hotel’s brand imagine.
· THINK OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A COCKTAIL PARTY. Think of ways to engage with the followers.
· TURN GUESTS INTO ADVOCATES. Web 2.0 is all about interactions --- Empower audience to lead a discussion and welcome inputs and suggestions.
How useful do you think these advices are?
References:
HospitalityNet.org: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok04282010
Picture was downloaded from: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok04282010P
· LESS IS MORE. Certainly, a company should spend its resource wisely and focus on a limited number of selected channels. For independent hotels or restaurants, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may seem plenty. However, I believe picture-sharing media like Flickr and Snapfish are also important. A hotel or restaurant may find advantages over others by having some “searchable” pictures online --- the key here is to label every picture with the right “key words.”· SHOULD YOU START A BLOG? Daniel says no, but I argue that blogs may still play an important role in communications, especially in the corporate level. Marriott and McDonald’s are using blogs to communicate with captive audience (including internal and external customers) about their strategies and policies.
· LISTEN FIRST. Listen to what people are saying about the property before posting anything.
· MAKE REVIEWS A PRIORITY. Monitor, share, and respond to feedback or complaints.
· LEAVE OUT THE BORING PARTS. Nobody wants to hear boring stuff. Pictures, videos, and concise discussion are more interesting than long descriptions. It is also important to find ways to create “value” for the audience by offering tips or tools.
· EASY ON THE SMILEYS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS. Everything we say online will be stored in somewhere “forever.” What we say needs to match a hotel’s brand imagine.
· THINK OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A COCKTAIL PARTY. Think of ways to engage with the followers.
· TURN GUESTS INTO ADVOCATES. Web 2.0 is all about interactions --- Empower audience to lead a discussion and welcome inputs and suggestions.
How useful do you think these advices are?
References:
HospitalityNet.org: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok04282010
Picture was downloaded from: http://tinyurl.com/linchikwok04282010P
I do believe all of the ideas you've introduced on your post. They are really convincing and can definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for beginners. May you please prolong them a bit from next time? Thank you for the post.
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Thank you for the feedback. I will post more (not necessarily longer) discussion on using social media in business.
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