Karen Thorne

Hopton House B&BB&B Academy

www.shropshirebreakfast.co.ukwww.bedandbreakfastacademy.co.uk

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR TOURISM BUSINESS

USINGSOCIAL MEDIA

WORTH STARTING WITH A FEW DEFINITIONS

• Advertising• Public Relations

• Marketing• Social Networking

• Social Media

Advertising

Advertising generally involves paying for an advert in a local tourism guide, an association

magazine, on a website etc. You write the words ( the copy ) and they place

the ad as it is. You have control over where it goes and what it says and you pay for that

control.

Public RelationsYou encourage the media to cover your products

or service.

This can be in the form of an article, review, “Top 10...”, interview, competition or feature.

Marketing

• Marketing is best described as identifying your market and then defining its needs and wants,

and finding out the best way to sell to it. • The practice of marketing can take many

forms such as direct mail-shots, regular newsletters for your customers, networking on

and off-line, social media.

Social Networking

All about connecting with other people, sometimes with common interests

Social MediaRefers to online tools that are used to help people network & interact. It relies on individuals contributing & interacting.

Your Marketing Plan• Who are my customers?• What do they want from a holiday?• What do they need from holiday

accommodation?

• How does what I’m offering meet my customers needs?

• What actions do I need to put in place?• How much will you spend and where?

Create, Update and REVIEW!• Create a plan – back of a matchbox if you like!• Collect information on how people are finding

you• Update your Plan regularly

Target Market ExerciseYour Customers

• Brainstorm some niche markets• Take one and describe them

• What do they need from a holiday?

How Does That Story meet their needs

How do You reach them?

Target Market ExerciseYou

What Story Are You Telling Your Customers?What Picture Are You Painting?What Experience Are You Selling?

Who are my customers

What do they want from a B&B

What are my competitors offering

How does what I’m offering meet my guests needs

What actions do I need to put in place

How much will I need to spend?

Dog owners

•Dog Welcoming•Somewhere safe for dog to exercise•Room appropriate for dog•Things to do with my dog•Somewhere to eat that will take dog

•Outside kennels•Dog sitting•Few dog friendly places

•Dog Biscuits on arrival•Rug for dogs•Ground floor room•Enclosed garden•List of local places to eat that accept dogs•List dog friendly walks

•Dog Friendly Page on Website•List of walks & eating places on website •Google Adword for dog friendly•Advertise with dogpeople•Article in dog magazine about local area•Spend time on dog forums•Talk about dogs on Twitter

•Free ( if CMS)

•Free

•£10 a month

•£25 a year

•Free

•Free

•Free

HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR TOURISM BUSINESS

USING SOCIAL MEDIA

TOURISM OWNERS HAVE ALWAYS RELIED ON WORD OF MOUTH TO

PROMOTE THEIR BUSINESS

SOCIAL NETWORKING IS THE ULTIMATE WORD OF MOUTH

Social Networking for Business – How Can It Help

• Build Relationships

Social Networking for Business – How Can It Help

• Manage your Online Reputation

Social Networking for Business – How Can It Help

• Link Building• Information

Social Networking for Business – How Can It Help

• Social• Attract Customers

Get Your Website Right First!

Social Networking Strategy

• Be Clear on.......– What you hope to achieve from Social Networking– How you are going to measure its success

Google Analytics

No. Of Links

Mentions on Radio

Newspaper Magazine Articles

New Suppliers

Direct Customers

Be clear on your voice!How do you want to perceived by your suppliers, competitors, clients, friends customers?

What Story Are You Telling?

Why Blog?

• Blogging helps you to build relationships, to get people to like you – people buy from people they like!

• Blogging adds fresh content to your website and this is the key to search engines;

• Blogs provides the public with the current "happenings" in your area/ B&B

• Blogs need to be hosted on your website, so that the fresh content is associated with YOUR website and not Blogger or WordPress

• Blogs need to be written with key word rich content

• Blogs need to be updated at least once per week, and more is better.

Social Networking with Facebook

Create a fan page

Add pictures, videos, links, recipes, events

Don’t get into all the fluff!

Use it to drive traffic back to your website

Update once a day

Suggestions for successful social networking- people need a reason to find you outWrite your blog / facebook update / Twitter message. Then read, reread and reread from your customer’s perspective

Have 4 or 5 topics that you talk on

Engage in conversation

Share and become a source of information

Don’t sell e.g. on Twitter 1 sales tweets to 10 non sales tweets

Reputation Management

• Know what people are saying about you online and manage that

• Tripadvisor or similar• Twitter Search• Google Alerts

What can you do?

What’s stopping you?