Although Social Media trends change like the tides, Facebook consistently remains at the head of the pack among platforms. Of the fifteen most popular social networking sites, Facebook has 38% more monthly active users than YouTube, 158.75% more than Instagram, and a staggering 527.27% more than Twitter. The truth is out there – if you want to reach potential guests, you need to be on Facebook.
*Photo Credit: dreamgrow.com
Of course, many hotels are already on Facebook. Below are the top ten hotel groups on the platform:
- Marriott Hotels: 2,581,172 likes
- Hilton Hotels & Resorts: 1,762,716 likes
- AccorHotels: 1,559,335 likes
- Sandals Resorts: 1,298,081
- Best Western Hotels & Resorts: 1,158,296 likes
- Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts: 1,123,893
- Holiday Inn: 953,946 likes
- Renaissance Hotels: 899,228 likes
- Courtyard by Marriott: 791,519 likes
- The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company: 695,300 likes
Does your hotel fall under one of these umbrellas? The top brands have hundreds of thousands of likes for a reason. Below, we will dive into how to make your Facebook Page thrive in 2018.
Personalize What You Post
Anyone who has attended a sporting event will tell you that seeing your face on the jumbotron can make for a winning game, even if your team loses. It is enormously simple to apply this principle to your Facebook posts and give your guests a smile. Sharing a positive review is a great way to highlight your hotel; make this personal by including the reviewer’s name and a “thank you” message. This invites future guests to share their positive experience for a chance to be featured!
Want to take thanking guests a step further? By using a tool like Picodash, you can pull user generated images taken at your hotel and credit the user in your copy. Calling out kind thoughts and great captions encourages further engagement. Encourage others to share their experience by adding something like, “Be sure to geotag your images at our hotel for a chance to be featured!”
It is important to note is that user generated content can serve to humanize your brand and make a hotel room feel like home. Additionally, sharing photos of your team at the hotel or volunteering in the community and pictures of on-property events can give your hotel a personality and encourage not only guests to engage with your posts, but your employees as well.
Draw Their Attention (And Keep It, Too!)
If you are on Facebook, you may have noticed that your posts are not reaching as many eyes, no matter how hard you try. According to Sprout Social, organic reach on Facebook saw a 52% drop in the first half of 2017. To avoid the drop, use short and simple captions to keep eyes from glazing over your content. How short is just right? Try keeping your post copy under 80 characters – you could receive 88% more engagement than longer posts!
Track Your URLs
One of the biggest questions we get at Blue Magnet is what the return on investment (ROI) of social media really is. If you use Google Analytics, you can easily track your ROI by adding campaign tracking to the links you share on social.
Google Analytics makes creating your custom URL fairly simple, but here are a few pointers. If you are sharing the post on Facebook, enter the Campaign Source as “facebook.com.” This part of the url identifies the source the link came from. For the Campaign Medium, you do not have to enter anything, but denoting social separates the URL from, say, an email campaign. Finally, the “content” parameter is a great way to differentiate your links. For example, if you were creating a post about a spring break special, but are linking to the general specials page, you could write ‘springbreak’ in the content space to note that.
Adding campaign tracking to your URLs allows you to see how users interact with your website after clicking through from Facebook. In Google Analytics, you will be able see what type of content is working and what you need to focus on onyour Facebook Page.
Tag Local Pages
There is a lot happening around your hotel, and your social media manager needs to highlight that! The first step towards emphasizing local area businesses, restaurants, and attractions is to create content that allows you to do so. Whether this means a weekly concierge recommendation or a monthly concert highlight, be sure to allow yourself an opportunity to mention other Pages on Facebook.
Tagging local attractions in your posts encourages them to engage with your content by liking, commenting, or sharing! Even if you are sharing an image you found on Instagram, if the photo was taken by someone that has a Facebook presence, you can give them photo credit by tagging their Facebook Page and, in turn, grow your organic reach. This is an especially useful tactic for smaller businesses, newer restaurants, or organizations that frequently host events on-property.
In the below example, a popular wedding fair the hotel hosts tagged the property in a comment. This shows that mentioning local Pages can be beneficial in bringing more traffic to your Page! We engage with the wedding fair page on a regular basis and they frequently mention the hotel in their posts. Seeing the hotel’s name repeated will not only draw attendance for the fair itself, but could earn you stays in the future if the event guests enjoyed their time at your hotel. Additionally, tagging Pages can increase brand awareness for your hotel, since people who like the Page you tagged may see the content you created in their feed.
The Most Popular Social Network is Yours to Conquer!
Mastering Facebook’s constant changes and helpful hacks can be daunting for one Marketing Manager, but it does not have to be. Utilizing these helpful Facebook hacks can boost your engagement, maximize your presence, and retain the attention of potential guests! If you need help enhancing your Facebook Page, our seasoned Social Media team can help.
