Social Media Management For Hoteliers
In this episode, Patsy and Andy talk about the importance of keeping an up to date Social Media Policy, as well as a positive attitude in your social media message. Patsy also has her first Sotellio Resort Spotlight after her Staycation here in Orlando, FL.
Join Andy & Patsy as they discuss the main things we do wrong in Social Media, and why it makes us think Social Media doesn’t work.
Also in Episode #5 of Sotellio:
The bottom line is that your property needs to be on Google My Business. It’s what people see who are searching for things on their smart phones. It’s what allows people to easily get directions to your establishment, call your location, see reviews, and yes, even post reviews.
And while most hotel/motel accommodations are booked via a laptop or desktop computer, you want to be able to provide your guests with the easiest way possible to find your location once they’re in town – or if they get lost in our wonderful city. If your location is listed in Google My Business, you’re just a click away – and that’s a good place to be.
Listings on Google My Business get stale. People don’t update them on a regular basis. There isn’t an account manager who’s answering the questions from Google – they continually seek to validate the information listed about your business, and if someone isn’t there to respond to those messages, the account can be removed.
Google My Business is free. Listings don’t cost your company a thing. However, having one done right, and then maintained – well, that’s a different story.
At Sotellio, we have a proven method to keep the information on your Google My Business listing up to date and relevant. We insure that guest comments and reviews are dealt with in a timely and appropriate manner, we update site photos on a regular basis, and maintain information integrity within the listing itself.
We want to be your partner in success. Our plans start a low as $50 a month, and will ensure that your business is found when people are looking for you.
To find out exactly what Sotellio can do for you, ask about our free consultation. Just contact us today, and we’ll handle the rest.
In episode #3 of the Sotellio Podcast, I talk about ways to get back into your social media, I have a site report, and a fantastic ROI opportunity.
Save 10% Off Your Next Stay With Us! Free Room Upgrade! Free Buffet just for liking us on our Facebook page!
Your business operates on the happiness of your patrons. If they’re happy, they’ll tell a couple of their friends about the location and recommend that they stay there. If they’re unhappy, they’ll tell anyone who can listen about the problems they had – and they’re quite likely to exaggerate those issues.
Hoteliers will do everything in their power to ensure the guest has a pleasant and happy experience while staying at their location. If they’ve done their job properly, then there should be very little to worry about.
It’s important to capture that happiness via Social Media. Have them like your Facebook page, or leave a review and comment on Google, or just follow you on Twitter, or whatever social media platforms your business is on. Get a picture when them (don’t forget to have them sign a release) and display it proudly on your pages. Happy customers bring more happy customers.
You can easily provide an incentive for a guest to socially engage your location – you’ve got an arsenal of incentives right around you. Anything from a free meal, to a hat or t shirt, to upgrades, discounts, or comps. If you’ve spoken to your business neighbors, you may even be able to provide something from them as well.
While you don’t want to make the incentive the primary reason the guest is interacting with you, you do want to make their time to do so worthwhile to them.
Need some more ideas on how to engage your audience on Social Media? Contact Sotellio today, and we’ll take care of it for you.
Your Social Media Feed craves good pictures, and good pictures come from a decent camera. Adding a small phone camera lens can make a huge difference in the quality of photos your camera is producing. That difference can easily turn into a paying guest at your location.
We previously shared some Tips for using pictures in Social Media, and do recommend that you read that if you haven’t already.
One of the leading decision makers in people booking a room at a location is what the room actually looks like. People want to see pictures of where they’ll be staying or taking their family to stay. Hoteliers will know that getting a good room picture is one of the more difficult things to do. Choices seem to be pretty limited. Either you’ve got a decent camera and enough time and equipment to do it yourself, you can hire a professional photographer to come in and do a room shoot for you, or you just grab a picture with your phone and hope for the best.
That’s how it used to be.
With a phone camera lens, the world of photography tends to open up just a little bit more for smart phone users. That room picture that was so difficult to get now becomes painless with a wide angle lens attached in front of the camera on your phone. The front sign that looks great but is just too far away to get a good picture of? That’s taken care of with the 10x zoom lens. A picture from the edge of the pool comes alive with the fish-eye lens attachment. The possibilities become endless with the right set of tools for social media pictures.
I’m not discounting the need for a professional photographer, and highly suggest that you invest in at least one professional property shoot for your location. I’m referring to day-to-day social media posts that include pictures. Those are the ones you can spice up a bit with a phone camera lens and stand out among your competition.
You can pick up that lens kit pictured in this post right here on Amazon.
You’re busy running the business, you don’t really have the time or the “eye” for photography – but you know you need pictures for your social media feed. That’s where Sotellio comes in! We’ll handle your property photography, and can even post pictures on a regular basis to your feed. Want to learn more? Just Contact Us today to get the conversation started.
I’m not going to go into the staggering statistics about using pictures in social media, but if you’re interested, here’s an article you can read that has more than enough statistics to go around.
What I will comment on is my personal experience with pictures in social media posts; they work. Using pictures in social media is one of the top ways to engage an audience. Pictures tell a story in an of themselves. But don’t be fooled – you can’t just snap a picture with your cell phone camera and think that it will be the end-all photo for your social media. There are some tips you should follow.
There are several different types of attachments you can get for your phones – lenses, flashes, stands, remotes – all of which will help take your photography to the next level. We’ll cover that in a later post.
Don’t think you have the time to take photos of your property? Sotellio can help. Just contact us today to get the conversation started.
You should never mix your business social media accounts with your own personal ones. If your business doesn’t already have it’s own social media account, stop what you’re doing and go get them set up. (Need help? Contact us)
When someone is following your property on any Social Media, the last thing they want to see is anything personal. If you, on a personal level, just went and saw the latest movie – quite honestly nobody except your immediate circle of friends really cares. If you’re posting that information on your business social media account, you’re going to turn away prospective customers.
Recently, Sotellio had the privilege of working with a start up company. They had Social Media accounts and were actively posting to them. When we had the chance to review their social media postings we found things such as, “Sitting down to review the books”, “Stopping off for a Coffee on my way in this morning.”, and, “Living the Dream!” – with a picture of a pool and someone’s feet.
None of those posts had much, if anything, to do with the business. Worse, the vast majority of the posts made it feel like the owner was living the high life off the business in a rather nonchalant way.
Luckily, all Social Media Accounts have a delete button. While this doesn’t erase the posts from the archives of the Internet, it does clean up a time line quite well.
After we cleaned up the timelines on several of the Social Media accounts, we sat down and helped the business owner separate the business and personal accounts. Once that was done, the Hotelier was free to post about his personal successes on his own account, while we left the Business Success stories up on the business social media account.
Keeping personal accounts is all well and good – just make sure that what you’re posting about on your personal social media account doesn’t bleed over into your business account – and vice versa. Keep them separated and grow them both to their fullest potential.
We’re here to help you make sense of the Social Media Spectrum. We can sit down with you and sort out exactly what you need to do to get the best return on your investment of time, money, and energy in Social Media. Contact Us today and let’s get the conversation started.
In Episode #2 of the Sotellio Podcast, we cover
The vast majority of your customers have one thing in common: a cell phone. And those cell phones can all send and receive text messages.
Even if your guests are coming in from overseas and decide not to opt for a larger plan from their provider, they will likely get a pre-paid cell phone to keep in touch with their friends and family members while in the United States.
There are many services available for mass texting, however only a handful of them offer the metrics needed to conduct actual, viable marketing. When a property signs up for a texting service, they’ll be assigned a “short code” – a short, usually easy to remember number. They’ll also be able to use a keyword to categorize their groups. For example, the Restful Inn could sign up and choose the keyword “Rest” to keep all of their customers in one group.
Asking your guests to sign up to receive text messages is a pretty straight forward thing to do. “Text ‘rest’ to 101010” (as an example, don’t really do that). Now when the Restful Inn wants to text everyone in their group, they’re only composing a single text through the service that relays that text to everyone in the group.
The benefits are amazing. First and foremost, it’s pretty much instant (although some services do allow for text scheduling)
Some examples of when a property could use texting:
The use list of texting could pretty much go on indefinitely. There are some considerations to put in place; such as how often a location should text their guests. However, texting is still one of the more reliable forms of digital marketing available today.
Want to learn more about Texting as a Service? Contact Sotellio today. We’ll be more than happy to speak to you.
