A Hotel’s Guide to Facebook

The Facts Behind Facebook

The Facts Behind FacebookFacebook has exploded in popularity past 600 million active users, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Every 20 minutes:

• More than 1 million links are shared

• More than 1.8 million status updates are made

• More than 2.7 million photos are uploaded

• More than 10 million comments are posted

These other statistics will be of interest to you as well:

•50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

• The Average user has 130 friends

• Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month

More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

• More than 70 translations are availableon the site

• About 70% of Facebook users areoutside the United States

• There are more than 200 million activeusers currently accessing Facebookthrough their mobile devices

• People that use Facebook on theirmobile devices are twice as active onFacebook than non-mobile users

From a marketing standpoint, the fact that people share more personal details about their identity on Facebook than anywhere else offers unique advantages. As brands, we have access to a depth of demographic information, providing opportunities such as ad campaigns targeted to employees at selected companies, or specific university graduating classes

Different Approaches to Facebook

Different Approaches to FacebookApproach 1: Facebook as an Exclusive SourceHotel Seven in Paris uses Facebook as the exclusive source of both hotel news and the lowest available room rate. By focusing attention here, they have attracted an audience of over 12,000 fans: significant for a single property of their size. This is undoubtedly an extreme approach, but the results are hard to argue with.If you want to make building your follower numbers on Facebook a priority, think about what exclusive content you can deliver through this site.

Approach 2: Facebook as a Local Community HubPoetʼs Cove Resort & Spa uses Facebook not only to connect with guests, but also to engage with the local residents of Pender Island, British Columbia. While local residents may not beinterested in staying at your hotel, they could be a valuable source of revenue for your restaurant or spa. Positioning your property as a local hotspot can be an effective strategy for your Facebook page.

Approach 3: Facebook as a Local GuideDistrikt Hotel in New York City uses Facebook to update their community on what is happening in the city. This is helpful because by becoming a resource for visitors to the city, Distrikt Hotel increases the likelihood of people passing the page along to others.

Approach 4: Facebook as a Sales Tool The Beacon in South Beach focuses on making sales by creating and promoting a special offer on their welcome tab: 2 free mojitos and a 15% off discount. As you saw from Hotel Seven, delivering an exclusive offer is a powerful way to focus attention. This does not have to be just discounts or coupons. Put together a value-added Facebook package that is compelling and only available through Facebook. Not only does this draw traffic to the page, but it gives you another way to measure results. Ecommerce is likely to become an increasingly important part of Facebook activity, with powerful integrated booking engines now available. We will look at this topic in more detail later in the guide.

Approach 5: Facebook as a Website One & Only Palmilla uses advanced design to create an experience like browsing their website. (This will become easier in the future because of some new changes to the page structure, which we will discuss later.) Experiment with some of the new Facebook functionality to show beautiful photography and video to your visitors that attracts them emotionally.

Facebook’s New Developments

New DevelopmentsFacebook has quickly evolved, rendering many prior marketing tactics obsolete or ineffective. Here are four of the most important updates:

1.New Page LayoutFacebook released a complete overhaul of the pages system. Among other things, you nowhave the ability to receive more advanced reporting on your community's activity.

2. Separate Business ProfilesPreviously, personal accounts and business profiles were linked, which made engaging in conversation an awkward mess.

3.Sponsored StoriesSponsored stories is a new ad format that takes your friends' actions - like checking in to a place - and turns them into an advertisement.

4.Booking Engine IntegrationRecent changes to the Facebook page structure are likely to make ecommerce integration with embedded booking engines increasingly common. From the time they began working on Facebook, Starwood Hotels and Resorts has provided booking functionality for all of its brands.

Designing your Brand Page

Designing Your Brand PageAn Inviting Welcome TabA custom welcome tab can serve several purposes:• Welcome people to the page• Explain your purpose for the page• Describe the benefits of your hotel• Invite visitors to Like the page

Your welcome tab is basically a landing page. Use the same best practices you would use for a landing page on your website: images that draw people into benefits-oriented copy, with a strong call to action.

Exclusive ContentWhy should someone join your page?

Smart marketers know the best way to drive action is to make perceived value exceed perceived risk.. Facebook allows you to create hidden content that is only visible when someone becomes a fan of your page. What incentives could you offer to encourage people to become a fan of your hotel's Facebook fan page? ……. Inside Access, City Guides, Discounts etc.

A Focus on Photos and VideoReferring back to the Seventh Art research study mentioned earlier, photos and video generate the most engagement from Facebook fans. Facebook is a platform that favours rich media, so make posting this type of content a priority.

The Feeling of Being an InsiderIf someone is engaged with your hotel or brand enough to become a fan on Facebook, then provide them with a little more insider access. Share upcoming news and announcements with your Facebook community first. Share the process you go through to create your experience. Share video interviews with key personnel at your property. For marketing research and developing new ideas, Facebook can be used to source new concepts and refine existing ones. This form of crowdsourcing also gives your fans the feeling of being an insider.

An Example of an Engaging Brand Page is TreasureIsland Hotel (Las Vegas):

http://www.facebook.com/TIvegas?sk=app_230092780361018

Integrating Facebook with your Website

Integrating Facebook with your WebsiteWhat should you do once you have your Facebook page set up? Integrate it with your website. This is where we see some of the most creative innovation and remarkable results from companies using Facebook.

Like Buttons

Perhaps one of the simplest integrations, placing a Facebook Like Button on your website allows people to share that with their friends. It is recommended you add this to your homepage and select pages on your website that contain the best content.

Like Box

The Facebook Like Box can be placed on any webpage, allowing your visitors to become fans of your Facebook page without leaving the website.

Social Plugins

It is powerful because you can take advantage of the huge social network that exists on Facebook, and use it to enhance the web experience you provide.

Facebook Promotions

Facebook PromotionsThere are three primary categories of promotions that can be conducted on Facebook: contests, advertisements, and deals.

ContestsContests can be run through your page with no charge from Facebook. Tools like the ones from Involver and Wildfire make the process easy, and help you navigate Facebookʼs tight policy on contests. When planning a contest, configure it in a way that attracts the right type of fan for your page – people who will stay engaged long after the contest is over. If the wrong incentives are used, you will end up with people who enter just for the chance to win, and then leave the page after the contest is done.

AdvertisementsThe power of Facebook advertising is the ability to reach highly targeted segments of people based on demographic criteria. You can filter the distribution by age, location, gender, hobbies and interests, employer, and many other criteria. If pay per- click advertising in search engines is for “what,” on Facebook you are advertising for “who.” The downside is that many people on Facebook ignore advertisements, so the click through rate can be low. Additionally, it is debated whether people are looking to make hotel reservations while browsing Facebook. This is something you need to test and see if it works for you. It could be that the call to action on the advertisement should be simply to attract people to Like your page.

Facebook PromotionsDealsFacebook is creating pages for each business address in order to give the business an opportunity to offer deals. When a customer checks into a place on Facebook Places via their mobile phone, businesses will have the opportunity to offer coupons or discounts to them. While it is unclear how Facebook Places will fare among their geolocation competitors, this remains an area to watch and experiment with.

Case Studies: Outside Your Industry

VolkswagenVolkswagen created individual pages for each of their vehicles, and then wrapped these up into one corporate page. One particularly innovative feature they offered was an application that analysed your profile, taking all the demographic information you posted, and then used that to recommend a vehicle it believed was best suited to you. What if you created a similar “Hotel Selector” tool?

Coca-ColaCoca-Cola has developed a reputation for running creative photo contests. This works well, since photos are viewed more often than anything else on Facebook. By encouraging fans to upload photos of themselves with Coca-Cola cans, hundreds of thousands of potential new fans will be exposed to the brand as the uploads appear in the news feeds. What photo contests could you run? Running a contest like this for your hotel can be a powerful way to make the campaign viral.

Red BullRed Bull has a solid understanding of their audience, and does a great job of delivering rich media content that attracts new fans. Look at their creative use of design on the welcome page. As a hotel, make sure you understand what your audience expects (and wants) you to provide. Use videos to share interesting content that people will pass along and introduce your brand to others.

Planning Your Facebook Strategy

Your Facebook Strategy1. Decide on your Purpose for Facebook:• Is it website traffic, community engagement, brand building, or something else?• What will success look like for you? Will you know once you have reached it? To recognize success, you must have metrics establishedfrom the beginning.• What key performance indicators (KPIs) will you be tracking? Number of fans is a starting point, but also monitor how many people engage with the content you post – clicking the Like button or leaving a comment. Additionally, some measure that leads back to sales, such as Facebook website referrals, is helpful.

2. Setup your Page• Register an account, then fill out your business profile.• Customize your welcome tab with a graphic that encourages people to interact with the rest of your page.• Decide on some exclusive content such as news, inside information,and special offers that will drive attention to the page.

3. Establish a Community Management System• Who will be involved in managing the page? Make sure this person is someone who understands the brand you are trying to build, and can be trusted with posting content and interacting with your fans and customers.• What will be posted? Put together an editorial calendar for the types of content you want to share through Facebook: news, videos, photos, offers, and contests.• How often will you post? How often will you check for comments? It is important to publish consistently, but not too frequently. Once or twice a week is often a good starting point.• What alerts system will you have in place? Be sure to have a listening tool setup to be aware of what people are saying about your hotels on Facebook.

4. Integrate with your Web Presence Elsewhere• Use some form of Facebook website integration as described earlier to expand the awareness and helpfulness of your Facebook community.

Your Facebook Strategy