It's really important today that hotels consider the social media because it's the most easiest way and cheapest method to promote the hotel and to get in touch with the guests.
Today everything happens on the internet and that's why hotels have to start to work on this big platform.
In this text we can find the different benefits of social media for the hotels.
The first one is that it can be a New Marketing Channel. I think that it's not only a new marketing channel but only the cheapest marketing channel that a hotel can get.
Creating a facebook page or a twitter account costs nothing but the hotel can re
ach a lot of potential guests through it. For example when I created the facebook page for the hotel in which I worked this summer, after 2 months the page had already 300 fans with whom shared the newest information and promotion of the hotel. To find potential fans for my facebook page I went through the lists of all the former geusts of the hotel, put their email address on facebook and if they had a profile I invited them to become a fan of the page. The only problem was that I could only invit 10 persons a day because if I invited more facebook threatened me to delete my page because of terms of violations because facebooks doesn't exist to make free advertising and sending invitations and updates to facebook profiles. So finally on facebook not everything can be done so easily.
In this text we can find the different benefits of social media for the hotels.
The first one is that it can be a New Marketing Channel. I think that it's not only a new marketing channel but only the cheapest marketing channel that a hotel can get.
Creating a facebook page or a twitter account costs nothing but the hotel can re
ach a lot of potential guests through it. For example when I created the facebook page for the hotel in which I worked this summer, after 2 months the page had already 300 fans with whom shared the newest information and promotion of the hotel. To find potential fans for my facebook page I went through the lists of all the former geusts of the hotel, put their email address on facebook and if they had a profile I invited them to become a fan of the page. The only problem was that I could only invit 10 persons a day because if I invited more facebook threatened me to delete my page because of terms of violations because facebooks doesn't exist to make free advertising and sending invitations and updates to facebook profiles. So finally on facebook not everything can be done so easily.In fact social media is a real benefit but to be successfull a lot of time has to be spent on those kind of social media websites. It is not enough to put only new videos or updates
of new hotel promotions on those kinds of pages but there should be a real interaction between the visitors or members of those kinds of social media websites and the hotel. Questions of te vistors or members should be answered, for example on facebook new friends should be found that would become a fan of the pacebook page of the hotel, news and promotions should always be updated to keep this sites alive, because users get bored very fast.
I think that the amount of time that those kinds of websites need should not be neglected, even if it's simple to handle.
of new hotel promotions on those kinds of pages but there should be a real interaction between the visitors or members of those kinds of social media websites and the hotel. Questions of te vistors or members should be answered, for example on facebook new friends should be found that would become a fan of the pacebook page of the hotel, news and promotions should always be updated to keep this sites alive, because users get bored very fast.
I think that the amount of time that those kinds of websites need should not be neglected, even if it's simple to handle.
Another benefit of social media is that it offers a fast method for the hotel to communicate with the potential guest or the guests that already have been in the hotel.
It's sure like it i said in this text that the hotel will sometimes find some negative reactions of past customers on the internet, but it's important to respond to those reactions not only to show that the hotel cares, but also to clarify some points. I remember that during my last internship we received some bad comments of our hotel on trip advisor, but they included facts that were completely wrong and which were invented to give the hotel a bad image. It was more than a negative critic that's why the director had to put his respond on the trip advisor page to clarify the facts that were mentioned.
It's sure like it i said in this text that the hotel will sometimes find some negative reactions of past customers on the internet, but it's important to respond to those reactions not only to show that the hotel cares, but also to clarify some points. I remember that during my last internship we received some bad comments of our hotel on trip advisor, but they included facts that were completely wrong and which were invented to give the hotel a bad image. It was more than a negative critic that's why the director had to put his respond on the trip advisor page to clarify the facts that were mentioned.
Another effect that is mentioned in the text is to improve results by the help of social media. This is the only point were I m a bit sceptical. It is said in the text that RIU generated $10,000 only with the facebook page. I'm not really sure that this can be measured I mean how can RIU really know that facebook fans stayed in their hotels? Do they really compare the names of the guests with the names of the fans of the RIU Facebook page? I don' think so that's why i can't really trust this fact.
All in all i can say that social media is really important in the hospitality industry but it is not as easy that everybody thinks it is.
All in all i can say that social media is really important in the hospitality industry but it is not as easy that everybody thinks it is.
I agree with everything you said. The problem is how do you measure the impact of advertising on Facebook or Twitter? It will be interesting to see if the statistics tools provided on twitter and FB are good tools for the professionals to measure the return on investment.
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