Social Media Best Practices in the Hospitality Industry

Social Media Best Practices Chinese Hospitality Sector

Nov 2010

sinotechgroup.com.cn

Topics

• Fast Facts- SinoTech Group

• Social media matters in hospitality!

• What can hoteliers do to get the most from social media

• What do we measure? Can social media give me insights about my property?


SinoTech Group - Fast Facts

• Heritage in software development

• 95 employees

• Global reach

• Travel & Hospitality Focused

• Offices in Beijing, Shanghai & Hong Kong


Consumer Insight

Our research has shown us that consumers have been inundated with news and information about hotel destinations.

Social Media can selectively connect with travelers and develop emotional connections with the hotel and hotel brand.

Further, the strategic embracing of a social media plan can provide the hotelier with prompt feedback on the guests stay; facilitating improved hotel operations or used to amplify the positive experiences of the guest.


Online travel in China is big business

• Estimated Online Travel Booking in 2010 is RMB5.47 Billion ($.75 Billion)

(Data Center of China Internet, 2010)

• The number of citizens taking internet as the main channel to get tourism information accounted for 66.7% of China’s total,

• Citizens who have made a hotel reservation by internet amounted to 70.2% of China’s total,

• Citizens who have booked air tickets by internet accounted for 70.7% of China’s total,

• Citizens who have booked holiday products by internet amounted to 20.3% of China’s total


And online discussions are very influential

56.3% of users said that they “got to know brands” through online

channels.

58.7% actually made purchase decisions based on user-

generated online info (compared to only 19% in U.S.).

Even when not making a purchase, 89.9% of users still pay

attention to online comments.

81% check online comments before purchasing a product.


and…. is growing as an online Influencer

Over the next 2 years Chinese will be significantly more influenced by online discussions

Source: Forrester Research


Chinese are active content creators… we like to share

Portion of Internet users who have published blogs, web pages, articles, stories, videos or audio/content on social technologies

Source: Forrester Research


Social Media Marketing


A social media framework for getting started

Identify Identify audience, set objectives, success

measures and your timeframe

Design Leverage a social media program that meets your

intended objectives. Remember no one size fits all in social media.

Execute Drive engagement through every touch point

Amplify Stimulate sharing of the experiences (remember to

use video, photos and personal commentary)

Evolve Adapt approach based on key learning's


A framework will help avoid common pitfalls

• Rush to action without a plan • Lack of objectives and measurement • No distribution and content strategy • Poorly targeted approach • Limited reach


• Business travelers (corporate accounts, sales, service professionals, international) • Leisure travelers • Travel agents • Associations, civic groups, conference organizers, event planners • Influencers: travel magazines, travel sites, travel bloggers • Competition

Identify who you want to reach


Design your program

Your program will be different depending on what you are trying to achieve. As a hotelier you may want any number of the following types of outcomes.

• Monitoring customer feedback. • Channel for response to customer feedback. • Increase property awareness and brand sentiment • Manage reputation and identify negative media. • Medium for suggestions on how to improve customer service

from customers. • Channel to monitor competitor activities


Depending on your social media plan you will have selected a number of channels to develop in order to reach your desired audience

Make sure you also have a communication plan that includes the themes and topics for your program

Execute


Fans also surf other websites, which will provide insights on the target audience and the related interests

Growing the follows on your fan page will lead to greater engagement

Images are used for higher impact in social feeding

Each message from the fan page or group will be delivered to the fans’ homepage. If feeding well, it will build the habits of fans viewing the news about your brand.

Execute: Developing Fan Pages


‘Sharing’ and ‘Liking’ are important indicators for a hotel to understand how feel about the property

Execute: Promoting the Fan Pages

Important for expressing intent about the hotel


Execution: Micro-blogging Service�

Months after Twitter was blocked, Chinese Twitter clones such as Fanfou, Digu, Zuosha and Sina started their own "micro-blogging service” �


Common Elements

Tips & Comments

Address/Venue

Friends

Check in & Points

Promotion

Execute: Using Location Based Services


Execution: rules to remember

Don’t ignore bad reviews – they are seen by hundreds, even thousands of people

Acknowledge the good – respond to positive reviews as well as negative ones. This shows customers that you care enough to listen to what they are saying

Be honest – if something needs to be addressed, then admit it and address it Be relevant – if someone complains about the quality or service of the

breakfast, don’t talk about new bedspreads Don’t blame others – take responsibility and say how you are working to fix it Always be courteous Welcome guests back to your hotel/brand NEVER argue with the customer! ALWAYS run a spell check over your response. Responses should look

professional and reflect the amount of time you have put into composing them.


Some sites to help you amplify your hotel’s social media program.

Amplify

delicious - Share your content through bookmarking. Great way to share with teams Slideshare - Upload your PowerPoint presentations for all to see. YouTube - The #1 video sharing site. Youku- an alternative to YouTube Tubemogul - Distribute your video to them and they'll spread it to other video sharing sites for you. StumbleUpon - Randomly generates content for users by interest area. Digg.com - Content sharing site (great for tech and news). Marketwire/PRWeb - Distribute your content using social media online news releases. Scribd - Share original writings with others Flickr - Share/upload/find photos

Tweetdeck- my favorite multipurpose platform for sharing


No (successful) social media program is static and you should consider it a living program.

Just as you would feed and water a plant you need to constantly feed and grow your social media program.

Leverage your measurement platform and constantly evaluate what is working and what is not. This is about long term engagement

Evolve


Social Media Analytics


The evolution from listening to understanding

Volume Word counts/tag cloud Entry 4meline High‐level topics Venue analysis Influence Drill‐down to entries

Sen4ment Topics and themes Key influencers Geo ‐ Loca4ons

Bench Marking Scorecards Forecas4ng Predic4ng

v1.0 Monitoring v2.0 Mining v3.0 Analy3cs


What are the things I should measure

• Analysis of audience feedback for neutral, positive and negative attitudes and emotions (Sentiment)

• Analysis of keywords that people use to discuss your hotel

• Analysis of the authors that are influencing the online discussions

• Analysis of the social media sites being used.

• Customer reviews • Location of the media (where

in the world are they talking about you)


Automatically understand the sentiment of your hotel

This hotel saw a number of sentiment fluctuations around the time of their new renovations.

Some of the underlying comments related to the noise of the work and others about the nicer environment

sinotechgroup.com.cn 26

Social Channels �

SinoTech Group Confidential

Authors �

Who is saying what & where


Map Overlay

The map overlay identifies the location of the media source. The larger the marker, the greater the number of hotel mentions from this location. �

SinoTech Group Confidential

Where are people talking about us ?


You can benchmark and trend to determine where you rank

Brand Sentiment Indexing

Chengdu has the greatest online brand sentiment in China vs. other Chinese cities


You need to evaluate your brand position

Dynamic score cards

Score card can give you a great insight about your performance against your competitors


You need to listen and understand what is being said.

Consumer Review Analysis

Hoteliers can simply and quickly review what is being said about their property (or that of their competitors)


Social Media Analytics

SinoBuzz™ is the leading social media analytics platform; a powerful tool for monitoring and managing online brand, measuring public awareness, sentiment, influence, and tracing authoritative sources.

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What the experts are saying about social media… “As the online travel market matures, users are no longer content just to find the lowest price

or read destination information written by marketers. Now more sophisticated online users are looking to take control and identify the perfect trip. Along with the rise in popularity of social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, and the virtual-reality site Second Life, the travel industry is spawning a slew of 2.0 websites specifically designed for travel discussion forums and information exchange …”

David Grossman, Business Traveller columnist, USA Today ___________________________________________________________________

“Lots of brands are finding out the hard way that there are plenty of conversations taking place about them online. For good or bad. Many brands choose to ignore this. But hope is not a strategy.”

Paul Dunay, Marketing Profs ___________________________________________________________________

“…mediums like consumer-generated media put customers in the driver’s seat. No longer can hotel companies expect to just talk to customers; today they must facilitate – and influence – conversations.”

Karyn Strauss, Senior Editor, Hotels ___________________________________________________________________


My parting thought

“Our research prompted us to develop this presentation for hoteliers to understand that the era of social media is upon us and that it is not coming … but is here.

The choice to participate or not in social media is still being debated by many hotel groups but my message to you is don’t wait. This is not a passing fad and the longer you delay, the further behind your hotel competitors you fall.

Follow the simple principles outlined in this presentation, set realistic, measurable goals and time frames then you will soon be on your journey”.

Dr Mathew McDougall CEO, SinoTech Group


Thank you - 谢谢 Dr Mathew McDougall | @sinotechian

sinotechgroup.com.cn | @sinotechgroup

Social Media Best Practices in the Hospitality Industry

Technology

Transcript of Social Media Best Practices in the Hospitality Industry