Mark Zuckerberg recently announced users number about 2 billion worldwide, spending roughly an hour a day on a combination of application including as Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
But Facebook is much more than a just social media outlet.
Today’s social media users are not only connecting with Friends and Family on Facebook but also using it to search information about businesses, events, 2nd hand sales or just as their default search engine.
The important thing to note is that Facebook is evolving. And they’ve found ingenious ways to keep users engaged for longer and in more ways than ever before.
Hotels wise to the trend – can see the potential of harnessing the power of social media as a way to compliment and boost their overall sales and marketing strategy.
For hotels wanting to use social media to target new guests or interact with existing ones – they’ll need to setup a “Fan” page to establish their Business listing.
Fan pages are slightly more sophisticated and different from how individuals connect with Facebook.
News and information from Facebook Business listings are automatically fed to fans who have “Liked” or requested to “Follow” the listing.
For fans … whenever information is updated about promotions, packages or special events – Facebook sends out information electronically through news feeds.
By offering news, promotions and packages periodically – the hotel cleverly creates an on-going vibe of news to different focus groups with interest in the hotel. Importantly it’s this information flow that keeps people coming back to the hotels Facebook page. By creating a vibe and peppering it with call to action prompts - the hotel is able to create a successful e-commerce platform from social media.
Popular with Hotels is the “BOOK NOW” (call to action) prompt, allowing fans to complete their reservation with the hotel in real time through an instant booking process on Facebook.
Call to action prompts that spur Facebook fan’s to take action on the hotels Facebook page is almost always going to guarantee a higher conversion to sales when compared to other social media websites that don’t offer the same functionality.
Undoubtedly, Direct Bookings are an important feature of the hotels social media page and its ability to maximize the “touch-points” opportunities available.
But beyond Direct Hotel Bookings - there are a number of other ways the hotel can use its Fan page (business listing) to drive business from Social Media.
1. Conduct Social media advertising campaign – similar to Google’s Ad words, which engage fans and provides them an incentives or reason to visit its social listing;
2. Run Hotel Contests - contests promoted through Advertising (No. 1 above) or e-Mail shots (No. 4 below) which incentivize fans to visit and “Like” their page. For example - the hotel can provide an incentive “Like” (a free coffee or dinner etc..) giving more weight to an offered package or promotion the hotel offers through social media;
3. Build Reviews – allow guests to use their Fan page to recommend the hotel to others through star rating with other guests (for example);
4. Collect e-Mail addresses – enabling email signup, such as through a “Newsletter” the hotel can capture addresses directly from social media (linking it back to No. 1 above);
5. Run Events - Use Facebook as a PR platform to disseminate information and “get the word out” about the hotels promotions and events targeting its existing fan base.
Hotels wishing to use social media to help drive direct bookings, will find the Hoteliers.Guru Direct Booking Engine a useful companion in guaranteeing a higher level of conversion from the hotels Facebook page.
Convert your social media fans to hotel guests with our simple and easy to use Facebook booking engine that’s backward compatible with your Channel Manager and Property Management System.
