When was the last time you evaluated your social media performance? If it was more than a year ago, or even more than a quarter ago, then there is no time like the present to give your channels a check-up. It is important to check in on your channels to see how your content is doing and whether or not it is resonating with people. Why is this important? If, for example, your fan count has been declining month over month, you need to consider a new strategy on social media. Similarly, if a restaurant you like suddenly changes in quality with your favorite dish, you will likely not visit again. So, if you want guests to keep coming back to your channels as their source for updates on your hotel and the local area – you need to ensure that your social media performance is up to snuff.
If you have not evaluated your channels in the past year, there is a chance that the numbers you see are not where you want them to be. If you are unsure of how or where to get started in improving your channels for the better, Blue Magnet is here to help. In addition to giving you a high-level overview of how the social media experts at Blue Magnet evaluate our own clients, we will also offer tips as to how to fix any lower scores that you see in your reporting.
Auditing Your Social Media Channels
For the purpose of this blog post, we will be evaluating Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We will compare “Blue Chicago Hotel’s” findings to three of “their” top competitors to get a better picture of how performance stacks up. With each channel, we have compiled results from various metrics to come up with a score out of 100%. We are using an in-house tool to perform our audit; however, we will give you insight as to how to compare numbers on your own while you follow along.
Auditing Your Facebook Page
Facebook is one of the first touchpoints for potential guests, as they may have friends who have visited a specific hotel, “like” the Page, and share the hotel’s content with their network. One of the easiest metrics to check is your likes count in comparison with your competitions’. Keep in mind, this number can largely vary depending on whether or not the hotel has run paid campaigns on Facebook; however, lower numbers are nothing to look down on. Should you wish to raise your numbers quickly, try running ads that are targeted towards new Page likes – even if your budget is small, you will see results.
Beyond Facebook Page likes, look to your number of recommendations and overall rating, which you will find in your “Reviews” tab. This can give you a quick glance at whether past guests have had enjoyable stays with you and present the opportunity to thank them for feedback or offer help if they had a negative experience. If you want to see more reviews on your Page or raise your overall rating, you can share positive guest reviews and encourage future guests to share their thoughts as well.
Less obvious metrics to evaluate include: post frequency, last activity date, and fan engagement. Your post frequency will largely depend on the hotel itself. For example, a boutique hotel in downtown Chicago with an array of amenities and an on-site restaurant has more to post about than a hotel in a small town that sees fewer visitors. That being said, you should be posting at least three times a week on Facebook to keep your fans engaged, and that, of course, drives the fan engagement rate. Engagement rate can vary depending on your hotel too, but what you can do is look to posts that people are commenting on and encourage further engagement by responding to questions and concerns in a friendly manner. Additionally, in order to see engagement rates rise, you can see which posts performed the best over the last quarter or so and focus on posting more content like that in the future.
Below, we have included the audit figures for “Blue Chicago Hotel.” Using the tips above, they can hope to see a rise in these percentages by the next time their Facebook Page’s performance is evaluated.
Auditing Your Twitter Page
Twitter is all about being in the moment, so knowing that your account is timely is imperative. As with Facebook, follower count is a key metric that can easily be raised by running paid campaigns. In addition to follower count, the number of accounts that you are following can be a reason for users to follow you or not. Users tend to assume that accounts who are following fewer accounts than follow them are more valuable, and are thus more likely to follow. Be sure to keep an eye on the accounts you follow every year or so and unfollow inactive/irrelevant accounts.
Tweet Frequency and Fan Engagement are important numbers to look at; however, with Twitter you will typically see a slightly lower engagement rate than on Facebook or Instagram. As with Facebook, you should be posting at least three times a week to keep your followers engaged. It is a good idea to sprinkle in a few retweets of local area accounts each week. This not only shows you as an authority on what is happening but also encourages those accounts to do the same with your content. Be sure to tag relevant accounts in your tweets as well to boost engagement, especially to give credit if reposting photos that have been shared by past guests on Twitter is part of your strategy.
Below, we have included the audit figures for Blue Chicago Hotel. Using the tips above, they can hope to see a rise in these percentages by the next time they evaluate their Twitter Page’s performance.
Auditing Your Instagram Page
With Instagram, the first step is setting up a Business Profile if you have not already done so. The steps are fairly simple, but the most important part is ensuring that your profile is connected to your Facebook Page. Connecting the two will allow you to do many things, from running ads in Facebook’s Business Manager to responding to Instagram comments. Once you have done this, you can also track metrics far more easily.
Similar to Twitter, Instagram involves looking closely at the Number of Followers compared to Number Following. Even more so than Twitter, users on Instagram will look at how many followers you have. If your following count is higher than your number of followers, they may not consider your account as high in value. Again, keep an eye on your followers and unfollow accounts if they become inactive or irrelevant to your hotel. You do not need to follow every guest that stays with you; however, you should be liking/commenting on their posts if you have the time to do so.
Post Frequency on Instagram should be, at a minimum, two posts per week. To keep fan engagement up, include well-researched hashtags on your posts that make sense for the content or are related to your hotel. For example, post about fun holidays like #NationalWineDay and use related hashtags so that wine fans will see your content and potentially engage with and follow you.
Along with hashtags, you should be tagging relevant accounts and locations in your posts as you would on Facebook or Twitter. If you want to take it a step further, comment on posts that are geo-tagged at your hotel or posts from local influencers. If you do so, keep your comments casual in nature; for example, “This looks like it was such a fun trip to Chicago!” as opposed to, “Stay with us next time you are in the city!”
Below, we have included the audit figures for Blue Chicago Hotel. Using the tips above, they can hope to see a rise in these percentages by the next time they evaluate their Instagram Page’s performance.
Evaluating Means Excelling
Evaluating your social media performance should happen at least once a year. An annual audit can ensure a few things: that you are improving as time goes on, that you are in line with – or soaring past – the competition, and that you are publishing the best content possible. We have shared screenshots that show small sections from our robust auditing tool, just one of the many ways that Blue Magnet evaluates social media performance for our clients. Want to get a full picture of how your social media channels are doing before we head into 2020? Send us an email.
