By Mike Murray CEO at TripCraft Mobile
Most hotels have at least one, sometimes two or more, staff devoted to social media, but ask what the ROI is on the social media effort and, generally, you’ll get blank stares. Everyone knows social media generates something, but rarely do they know exactly what. In a 2016 report on this topic, when asked whether or not they measure the room nights that are directly attributable to social media activities, 68 percent of hotel responses were “no.”
Making the time and money you spend on social media mean something—making it valuable—is all about making it actionable and measurable. Sending messages out into the ether, hoping that you can attribute some of that back to rooms booked isn’t enough. But unfortunately, it’s the status quo.
Actionable social media starts with understanding your audience or, more specifically, which prospective guests are valuable to your hotel. With TripCraft’s social influencer engine, hotels can track users on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that are talking about the property or about events near the property—all in one easy-to-navigate dashboard. Each influencer receives a rating based on clicks, follower counts, social post popularity, and social engagement with your hotel brand, making clear who the most valuable players are. The engine also helps you to identify and segment your target audience by identifying social VIP’s, potential brand ambassadors, and users who are most likely to respond to an offer.
While the listening aspects of the social influencer engine are unlike anything the hotel industry has seen before, they only have value when you take action. TripCraft’s social influencer engine enables hotels to use this information to push highly personalized offers and unpublished rates through their custom mobile app directly to these high-value social media followers for the highest conversion potential. One-to-one, relationship driven communication of this nature offers one of the most effective ways to leverage social influence to drive profitable direct business.
According to JD Power, among hotel guests who post comments to social media, overall satisfaction is 40 points higher than those who do not. However, blindly reaching out to a social media base is like sending the same offer to your entire database—it will only be seen by a few and is relevant to even fewer. Tailoring offers based on what you know about your social media followers is one of few manageable ways to personalize and direct your social media efforts. Fortunately, because you already understand the value of this new, targeted guest and you can definitively attribute the conversion, it is definitely worth your time to place your efforts in driving social engagement and relationship building.
