How hotels use (and misuse) Facebook: 5 examples, 14 ideas for you

This is a guest post by Josiah Mackenzie, author of a hotel marketing blog.

To followup on Guillaume's series on hotels using Twitter, I wanted to examine how hotels are using another popular network: Facebook. While Twitter seems to be getting all the press, a traffic comparison chart from Compete.com may surprise you:

A couple big takeaways from this:

• Facebook reaches four times as many people as Twitter
  
• Facebook is growing faster than Twitter (especially over the past 3 months)
• Twitter growth has plateaued over the past month (Quantcast even shows a drop)
  

For these reasons, I wondered how hotels are using Facebook to engage their fans and attract new ones. Let's take a look:

Hilton Hotels

Link: Facebook page
Location: Worldwide brand
Number of fans: 21,486
Wall content: Only fan comments
Info section: website URL
Hotel photos: 1 (only the company logo)
Fan photos: 163
Events: 1 (past event, no upcoming events)

Hilton's Facebook presence is largely driven by their fans. The front page consists mostly of comments like Gabriel wrote: "The best hotel on the world!!!!" I'll let you decide how helpful that is from a marketing standpoint, but I do like the variety and quality of their fan photos:

Encouraging fan photos is a great use of your page. Many people will post photos to Facebook after they return from vacation (holiday), and it is possible to collect more photos here than on Flickr - which has a smaller user base.

Opus Hotels

Link: Facebook page
Location: Vancouver and Montreal, Canada
Number of fans: 2,305
Wall content: mix of hotel-published events and media
Info section: location, phone, website URLs
Hotel photos: 14 albums
Fan photos: 76
Events: no upcoming events, but 53 past events
Boxes: videos, contests, hotel info, guest reviews

I like how Opus Hotels gives an insider access experience with their video interview series. By letting their Facebook fans "meet" the individuals behind the scenes, the Facebook page is providing unique value and a reason to participate.

Grand Hotel

Link: Facebook page
Location: Michigan, USA
Number of fans: 1,525
Wall content: diverse mix of hotel media, special offers, and fan content
Info section: location, phone, website URLs
Hotel photos: 21 albums
Fan photos: 18
Events: 11 upcoming events (plus several past ones)
Boxes: favorite pages (Flickr gallery and Mackinac Island - where they are located)

The Grand Hotel is very close to my summer home, and a popular landmark in the area. The people operating this page seem to be doing a good job of engaging their fanbase: particularly through announcing events and then publishing photo albums of them. Again, this is a good example of adding value by providing exclusive content not available elsewhere.

Also, they include updates from their other social media sites using Facebook applications. If you're publishing elsewhere, this is a good model to follow.

Hotel Olympia

Link: Facebook page
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
Number of fans: 601
Wall content: 2 (slightly ambiguous) updates from the hotel
Info section: location, phone, website URL, hotel info
Hotel photos: 69 photos in 3 albums
Fan photos: 0
Events: 1 (past event, no upcoming events)
Boxes: 2 discussion threads (nearly a year old) and 5 hotel reviews (mostly positive)

Located in a historic building, Hotel Olympia shares photos of what the property looked like decades ago...and the modern design it now offers. I like when historic hotels can share their heritage using new media like this.

Hotel Olympia has filled out their "Info" section to provide a lot of details about the hotel. But with 600 fans, I think they could be doing more to engage their followers. Remember, having a static page with no interaction doesn't really benefit you or your fans.

Hotel Murano

Link: Facebook page
Location: Washington, USA
Number of fans: 205
Wall content: mostly links to hotel-related content
Info section: location, phone, website URLs (including social media profiles)
Hotel photos: 7 albums
Fan photos: 0
Events: 0
Boxes: blog updates, Twitter updates and YouTube videos

Hotel Murano's Facebook page does a good job of what I call guestsourcing: encouraging their guests to produce online content. In this example, they link to photographers and bloggers who have recently covered the hotel. This is a good way to engage your fans, and ultimately builds a strong web presence.

Promotional ideas for hotels on Facebook

Let's recap the smart marketing actions taken by these hotels:

1. Encourage fan photos
2. Get a username URL (ex: facebook.com/opushotel)
3. Post video interviews with your staff ("behind the scenes access")
4. Provide unique content on your page (not available elsewhere)
   
5. Announce special events...then followup with a photo album for each event
6. Use Facebook applications to include content from other networks you're active in
7. Engage your followers: talk with them, ask them questions
8. Encourage bloggers to write about you by linking to their stories
   

Some more ideas you may want to try:

• Make sure you have a great profile picture (attention grabbing & attractive at a small size)
  
• Create a group, which is different than a hotel profile page (Tip: to be successful, it may have to be around a larger travel concept than just your hotel)
• Experiment with 'social ads' paid advertising (Warning: I don't recommend this in most cases, due to the poor return on investment my colleagues and I have seen over several campaigns)
  
• Start a poll to do real-time market research
• Explore other applications to add (expands the functionality of your page)
  
• Build your own application - which is probably only worthwhile if you're a large brand
  

Is Facebook a good use of your time?

It depends on your property type and goals. Ask yourself:

• Who are we trying to reach? (Quantcast provides useful demographics information)
  
• What do we want from Facebook that we cannot get elsewhere?
• Is there exclusive content we can best offer on Facebook? (video interviews, photos, etc)
• Do we have the time to engage our fans?
• How does Facebook fit into our broader internet marketing strategy?

---
Josiah once denounced Facebook for hotel marketing, but later recanted...sort of.

Comments

[john conner]

I think for hotels that may be destinations or resorts, a facebook account would be worth while to announce events etc. But for most hotels, having a web site as a presence is enough. Having a facebook presence, twitter, hotel web site, tripadvisor and hotels.com etc has made it very hard to control what is being put out there about the hotel. It has also become a full time job to keep guests engaged. This is not for a small or even a medium sized hotel. Just my opinion.

[Josiah from HotelMarketingStrategies.com]

John, thanks for the comment...that's a valid point. Especially for smaller properties, there comes a point where maintaining an active presence on multiple social media sites isn't worth the time.

That said, I would be very careful of trusting your website to bring you traffic without any promotion. Sure, a few people will find it from industry publications, but the real power in building a web presence comes from engaging potential guests (even if that happens on a fairly infrequent basis).

If I was managing the marketing for a small hotel (as I have), I would focus one or two tactics that give you the greatest ROI. That's probably 1) TripAdvisor, and 2) a blog on your destination.

Every situation is different, so you need to test what is providing results and what isn't.

[Professor Dimitrios Buhalis]

I feel that one of the major benefit that facebook can give to hotels is to introduce customers to each other and create a community feeling that is then reinforced on site.

OK this is not for everybody but there is great scope for doing that and create a great atmosphere online and offline

Dimitrios Buhalis

[Jeff]

I'm not convinced that customers are lining up to be introduced to each other, but I think connecting past hotel visitors with prospective hotel visitors is a great thing. If your guest had a great time and they want to post about it on your Facebook fan page, that's great news, especially if prospective guests are reading those comments.

But that begs the question, are prospective clients checking it out in the first place? Or is a Facebook page more about stickiness (ie, repeat business, same ppl)?

[Tracy Tormai]

Thanks for the great analysis on some Facebook pages. It is interesting to see how engaging some hotels are.

I just wanted to add to Jeff's comment about "stickiness". We all know that repeat and referral business is easier than attracting new business, and social media such as a Facebook fan page helps hotels remind their fans what a great time they had.

The ability for guests to post their own photos also helps to spread the visibility of the page. Fans can post their photos and all their friends can also follow the trail back to the hotel's page.

Every little bit helps, as long as you can manage to keep up the interaction.

[Guillaume Thevenot]

Big thank you to Josiah for this insightful article on Facebook and hotels. If you are a hotelier and want to share your Facebook page, don't hesitate to share this on this page.

[Josiah from HotelMarketingStrategies.com]

@Jeff - I like that concept of social media existing to introduce new customers/guests to your existing (satisfied) ones. To answer your question, most Facebook pages I've seen have been a mix of these two groups of people.

@Tracy - "repeat and referral business is easier than attracting new business" <- very important for us to remember!

@Guillaume - Thank you for the opportunity...I enjoyed doing this

[Eric John]

I think face book provides a great platform for the hotels to promote their business online on a social medium. It helps customers to get the information about the hotel, their services and every single information about them. Old reliable and valued customers also post their memorable experiences they had the precious time they spent in the hotel.
Hotels websites can provide dynamic pics, videos, interviews, latest events on face book to attract and grab their customers. It is not a misuse according to me. In my opinion it is one of the largest online communities right now on the internet so hotels have a precious opportunity to grab their customers and getting back their previous customers.

[victorian inn bed and breakfast]

Face book is a great social medium hotels should use it to promote their business.

[Steven Dixon]

In response to John's initial comment,

We shouldn't be concerned with losing control of the web content. We as hoteliers provide a service, and if negative reviews appear it's a direct reflection on our delivery rather than a reflection of "bad media" or over exposure. Our job is to constantly exceed customers expectations so they walk away wanting to write only "good things". Complaints are inevitable, but resolving these in a fast efficient manor with a two way conversation shows we listen, and gives credibility. Transparency is a good thing.

[davidbaer]

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

[Discount Hotels]

I think that the hotels that may be focal or resorts, it will be worth the expense to announce events, etc.. But most of the hotels have their own web site on the Internet, as there are not sufficient. After attending a Facebook, Twitter, the site of the hote, and Thripadvissour hotels.com, etc. have made it very difficult to monitor what is going on around the hotel. Has also become a full time job to keep the guests involved. This is not a small or even medium-size hotel. Just my opinion.

[heritage hotel jaipur]

that's really a fantastic post ! added to my favourite blogs list.. I have been reading your blog last couple of weeks and enjoy every bit. Thanks.