Mobile Technology And The Hospitality Industry - Part 1

During the last several years there has been a global explosion in the technology and usage of mobile devices. According to figures from Google, 21% of all searches originate from mobile devices. This includes both tablets (7%) and smartphones (14%). These are 2012 figures and the numbers will be higher for 2013. For many types of businesses, especially the hospitality industry, it is crucial to embrace the opportunities presented by mobile and integrate the technology into everyday operations and marketing.

 

Hotel Mobile Marketing

Having a hotel app is the key to leveraging mobile technology for the hospitality industry. A specifically branded hotel app that is available from the app stores for each corresponding technology is the best way for hotels to take advantage of mobile technology. At the very least, websites must optimized for mobile users. This means it looks good and functions well when used on a mobile device. With many different sized devices, it is also critical that none are overlooked. Websites must be created for desktops, mobile smartphones, and tablets.

An important feature of mobile technology, from a hotel marketer’s perspective, is their geo-location capabilities. Location-based marketing has grown right alongside the mobile phenomenon. Hotels can easily distribute marketing messages and services to customers based on where they are. Having your hotel listed on local listing websites will steer customers who are already looking for a place to stay to your hotel, while being helpful at the same time. Special offers can be made through social media sites like Facebook or Foursquare with “check-in” features for guests who tell others about the hotel at which they are staying. Another facet of mobile marketing is the use of Quick Response or QR codes. QR codes can be used to steer mobile users to specific landing pages featuring more detailed information or for the redemption of coupons.

Hotels must meet their guests and potential customers where they are spending their time and increasingly this is on mobile devices. In part 2 of this series, we will look at the ways that mobile is transforming how guests experience a hotel and hotels conduct their day-to-day operations.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

 

 

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Social Media News For The Week Of 3/8/13

San Antonio chef sizzles on social media

Chef and restauranteur, Jason Dady of San Antonio, provides a perfect example of how restaurants can correctly engage in social media marketing. Jason, who now owns three thriving restaurants and a food truck, was an early adopter of social media. He has successfully grown his businesses by properly balancing a clear marketing strategy  with the personal interaction so necessary on social media. Full Story Here:


B2B Businesses and the Potential of Social Media Infographic

This interesting infographic offers facts and figures to explain the impact social media is having on business-to-business companies. The numbers provided in this graphic also present the enormous potential that awaits companies who have yet to integrate social media into their overall marketing strategies. Full Story Here:


Your Social Media Reputation Can Attract Employees

A study by the staffing services company, Spherion, has found that quality, professional employees are drawn to firms with good reputations on social media. Almost half of the employees surveyed, at 47 percent, believe online reputation to be an important factor to be considered when contemplating the acceptance of a job offer from a firm. This finding comes despite only 27 percent of businesses believing social media to be an influencer to their job candidates. The survey also states that almost 75 percent of employees who are pleased with their employer’s social media reputation, are satisfied with their jobs as well. Full Story Here:


Businesses Have No Real Plan For Facebook and Twitter

The management consultant firm, Altimeter Group, has uncovered a lack of strategy on the part of businesses and their social media marketing efforts. Only 12 percent of companies engaged on social media during 2012, did so with a clearly planned strategy. While just 34 percent reported having data connecting their social media marketing with goals for profit growth. Just 52 percent in the survey believe the top executives of their firms are in alignment with the social strategy of the company. Full Story Here:

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Driving Hospitality Revenue With Social Media - Part 10 - LinkedIn

The social network LinkedIn is sometimes overlooked, which is unfortunate since it has much to offer a hotel’s social media marketing efforts. LinkedIn’s purpose is to serve as a network for professionals to interact with their peers. LinkedIn’s value lies more in networking than in direct promotion and it is not a format for hard selling. With over 200 million members worldwide now, LinkedIn is however an extremely powerful network of professionals and a valuable resource for the hospitality industry.

 

The LinkedIn Company Page

For a hotel, or any business, the LinkedIn Company Page is the central key to the network. This is the place that LinkedIn has set aside where a company may talk about their business and offers your hotel the opportunity to openly promote itself. Here you can provide a summary of your hotel, showcasing all of its features, services, and products offered. Provide a link to your hotel’s website. Post news about upcoming events and promotions on the page, linking videos or images about everything new about your hotel.

Actively promote discussion and feedback, using the likes, comments and shares to tweak your content and gain marketing insights. Be sure to include hospitality industry relevant keywords throughout the page for effective search engine optimization (SEO) purposes and to aid searches by your target audience. Present your hotel properly by making sure the Company Page is as thorough and complete as possible. Ensure it fully represents your hotel.

 

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups allow professional industry peers to talk about their respective professions. There are literally thousands of groups related to the hospitality industry alone on LinkedIn. Join as many relevant groups as possible. LinkedIn groups can be an effective way to get marketing exposure for your hotel. Interacting and engaging in group discussions or sharing relevant information is a way of indirectly marketing your hotel.

Showcase your expertise by answering questions posed on the answers page. This will also help you connect with others in the group. To make sure you are on top of the current discussions in your groups, sign up for each group’s daily digest. If you have joined many groups, only subscribe to a weekly digest. Whenever you get the email update, take the opportunity to read it and then dive into the conversation on the site and engage.

LinkedIn provides an opportunity to use your expertise and experience to highlight and present your hotel in new and creative ways. The professional social network is an excellent tool for leveraging customers from among your connections on LinkedIn.

 

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Driving Hospitality Revenue With Social Media - Part 9 - Flickr

The photo sharing website, Flickr, is another social media website that can be successfully leveraged by hotels. Once again, the highly visual nature of the hospitality industry easily lends itself to social media marketing via Flickr. Blatant and direct marketing is strictly forbidden on the website and its most active users are photographers, both professional and amateur. However, Flickr is a powerful tool to gain global exposure for images shared on the network. Being a part of the Yahoo network affords Flickr a considerable web presence, resulting in greater search engine optimization (SEO) attention by Google.

Images may be shared in a “slide show” format and link back to the hotel’s website, which helps SEO rankings as well. Hotels could include high quality images taken of their location and showcase what makes their destination unique and desirable. A few images may be included of the hotel property in a classy way, without the slideshow becoming a direct marketing message.

A definite advantage to the Flickr platform is its low cost. Basic accounts are free and upgrades are nominal. Flickr shares its images with other websites also, therefore spreading your hotel’s visual message even further. The artistic emphasis of Flickr has resulted in the network having a truly international audience that transcends language.

Interaction with the audience takes place most effectively in two ways. Commenting on photos shared by others results in exposure for your account username and associated links to your images and information. The second way is through Flickr Groups. These groups are a collection of people interested in a particular subject or topic. The members of the group share relevant images with the rest of the membership and discuss them. For example, a hotel could join a group related to their city and find plenty of opportunity for engagement and sharing with other members of the group, who can then share the hotel’s uploaded images outside the group. Flickr Groups can provide a powerfully viral element to a hotel’s photographic efforts.

As with other visually oriented social media websites, the images shared should be of the highest quality and resolution possible. Your hotel’s Flickr images will become a reflection of your hotel and should always be complementary to your reputation. In the last part in this social media series, we will see how the hospitality industry can benefit from the social network LinkedIn.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Driving Hospitality Revenue With Social Media - Part 9 - Flickr

The photo sharing website, Flickr, is another social media website that can be successfully leveraged by hotels. Once again, the highly visual nature of the hospitality industry easily lends itself to social media marketing via Flickr. Blatant and direct marketing is strictly forbidden on the website and its most active users are photographers, both professional and amateur. However, Flickr is a powerful tool to gain global exposure for images shared on the network. Being a part of the Yahoo network affords Flickr a considerable web presence, resulting in greater search engine optimization (SEO) attention by Google.

Images may be shared in a “slide show” format and link back to the hotel’s website, which helps SEO rankings as well. Hotels could include high quality images taken of their location and showcase what makes their destination unique and desirable. A few images may be included of the hotel property in a classy way, without the slideshow becoming a direct marketing message.

A definite advantage to the Flickr platform is its low cost. Basic accounts are free and upgrades are nominal. Flickr shares its images with other websites also, therefore spreading your hotel’s visual message even further. The artistic emphasis of Flickr has resulted in the network having a truly international audience that transcends language.

Interaction with the audience takes place most effectively in two ways. Commenting on photos shared by others results in exposure for your account username and associated links to your images and information. The second way is through Flickr Groups. These groups are a collection of people interested in a particular subject or topic. The members of the group share relevant images with the rest of the membership and discuss them. For example, a hotel could join a group related to their city and find plenty of opportunity for engagement and sharing with other members of the group, who can then share the hotel’s uploaded images outside the group. Flickr Groups can provide a powerfully viral element to a hotel’s photographic efforts.

As with other visually oriented social media websites, the images shared should be of the highest quality and resolution possible. Your hotel’s Flickr images will become a reflection of your hotel and should always be complementary to your reputation. In the last part in this social media series, we will see how the hospitality industry can benefit from the social network LinkedIn.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Driving Hospitality Revenue With Social Media - Part 8 - YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing social media website that offers tremendous opportunities for the hospitality industry. Being a highly visual business, hotels can leverage the maximum benefit of marketing themselves through videos shared via YouTube. There are nearly limitless topics around which a hotel can create videos. Everything from travel tips about your area, cooking videos from your chef, staff profiles and interviews to sightseeing around your destination or tours of your hotel’s features and amenities. You are only limited by your imagination and creativity.

 

Here are a few tips to get the most benefit from video sharing on YouTube:

 

1. Make Videos Compelling

In order for your video sharing marketing effort to gain any traction, you must create videos that people will want to watch. Just like all of the other social networking sites, compelling content is required.  A tour of your hotel restaurant is great, but may not inspire people to share it with others. Whereas a video of your head chef sharing some of their culinary secrets is extremely share-worthy.

 

2. Make Them Short

The majority of videos on YouTube, especially the ones that are likely to be shared, are less than 5 minutes in length. If your subject is going to require more time, break it up into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Remember, many people have a very short attention span.

 

3. Make It Your Own

There are many different types of YouTube accounts available. Explore your options and choose one that fits your hotel’s goals and agenda. When you sign up for a YouTube account, you need to spend some time being creative with your YouTube channel. The network generates this automatically when you sign up, but there are many options for customization. Make it reflect the unique character of your hotel.

It is just as important to monitor and respond to comments left by your audience on YouTube as it is on other social networks. Also, linkage between your YouTube account and other social media outlets is crucial to success. YouTube presents the hospitality industry with the perfect forum for showcasing your hotel with the world.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com

Driving Hospitality Revenue With Social Media - Part 7 - Tumblr

Tumblr is a social blogging tool that has gained in popularity over more traditional blog hosting websites like Wordpress and Blogger. It is both a social media network and a blog hosting platform. The simplicity of Tumblr makes it a perfect choice for a hotel just starting out with blogging. However, Tumblr is not effective until a following has been built up. This is not a problem, because a hotel cans simply share or “re-blog” relevant content from other sources in the hospitality industry. Some blogs to follow and share content with may include travel and food blogs for example.

The idea behind a blog on Tumblr should be to share rich, longer form hospitality content, in addition to high quality images. You can showcase your hotel in the context of its location as a destination in travel blog, or start a blog about food in hotel restaurants, for example. You must start out following other blogs and sharing their content. Then they will follow you and re-blog your content. In this way, after establishing your hotel’s blog over time and building up your audience, you will reap the benefits of Tumblr’s viral nature.

Some advantages to using the Tumblr platform include:

 

•  Tumblr is easy to use - The Tumblr interface is extremely simple and straightforward. Your page can be set up and you can be on your way within minutes.

•  Tumblr is low cost - You can save money by not having to pay for a domain name. There are also a large variety of custom themes available for your page, most of them free or for very little cost.

•  Tumblr has a viral element - Users can share your content by “re-blogging” it and each time your posts are re-blogged, your hotel will be cited as being the original source of the information. In this way Tumblr can really help your hotel’s expand your social presence.

 

Another factor to keep in mind about Tumblr is its visual nature with half of its content being images. The hospitality industry lends itself well to visual treatment and you have access to high quality images related to your hotel, so Tumblr could be an effective platform for your social marketing efforts. In the next part in this series, we will examine the potential role of the video social network, Youtube, in hospitality social media marketing efforts.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

Posted via OnFast - http://www.OnFast.com