CHANGING HOW HOSPITALITY DOES SOCIAL
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In today’s digital age, social media platforms are not just avenues for communication; they’re evolving into powerful marketplaces. This new commercial reality, social commerce, holds significant untapped potential for the luxury hotel industry. Whether through direct purchasing within the app or leveraging user-generated content (UGC), every element on your social media platform can turn a simple post into a selling point.

WHY SOCIAL COMMERCE WORKS

One key question to ponder: when was the last time you booked a luxury hotel room without checking its social media platforms? By integrating social commerce strategies, hotels can increase customer engagement and loyalty. Although integrating booking engines in paid social channels is not 100% a reality, hotels can capitalize on other shopping streams, like the products they offer on the property. Allow your consumers not only to be delighted with lifestyle content but also allow them to buy products that enhance the brand experience and increase consumer loyalty. You just have to showcase those items.

MAKING THE LEAP

Integrating social commerce into luxury hotel marketing strategies has never been easier. In fact, every piece of social media content can now become sellable. Because anything showcased by a hotel or its brand ambassadors can be directly purchased by the audience. The technology behind adding purchase options to your posts is built into the content process, eliminating unnecessary steps in setting up and making the transaction process seamless.

HOW SELLING BUILDS BRANDS

When you add social media commerce to the equation, all the content, ads, and audience relationships you create can be exponentially more powerful from a business perspective. Luxury hospitality can use social commerce to amplify their brand prestige and increase their digital footprint. By leveraging the platforms where potential guests already spend much of their time, hotels can increase their reach and visibility. Importantly, social media provides an avenue to showcase their brand from a self-owned, earned, and paid perspective.

EXPONENTIAL ENGAGEMENT

One advantage of social commerce for luxury hotels is the opportunity for collaboration. User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool in this endeavor. When individuals tag your property or items in their posts, the search algorithms reward your popularity to boost the visibility of your content. When you make that content purchasable, you have a built-in endorsement engine that tracks the number of people buying your goods and services. Not only is your content available and shoppable, but you also have super fan engagement with UGC. And what could be more powerful than word of mouth 2.0?

SOCIAL CONNECTION & REAL REVENUE

There’s often a bond between a luxury property and its guests. There can also be bucket list-style bragging rights to tell the world about your great taste. Social commerce offers a significant opportunity for revenue generation based on both of these human emotions. It paves the path for amplifying sales and promoting brand engagement for luxury hotels. The immediacy of tagged or promoted items in social media can spur impulsive buying, subsequently increasing revenue.

THE IMPACT OF TARGETED ADVERTISING IN SOCIAL COMMERCE

The merging of social commerce with traditional advertising campaigns augments their effectiveness. Hotels can now convert their content into shoppable items, directly leading to sales. By targeting specific audiences like socially committed shoppers and harnessing the power of lookalike audiences, they can tailor their ad campaigns to those most likely to convert. This, in turn, boosts the customer base and drives revenue.

ENHANCING CUSTOMER INSIGHT THROUGH SOCIAL COMMERCE

Social commerce platforms prove valuable in gathering insightful customer data. Every engagement, purchase, or interaction is a chance to learn more about customer preferences and purchasing habits. This vast pool of information is crucial in shaping a hotel’s marketing strategy, adapting offerings to meet consumer behavior, and enhancing sales. Luxury properties well-informed about their guests’ desires and purchase patterns can efficiently cater to these preferences, subsequently enriching the guest experience and encouraging repeat business.

UNDERSTANDING NEW CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR

The continuous evolution of the digital landscape, fused with an influx of social commerce capabilities, is significantly altering how customers engage with brands. Luxury hotels must understand these changes to adapt their marketing strategies to meet these new customer expectations. The emergence of social commerce has made customers more informed, demanding, and selective in their choices. They want to see other guests’ authentic experiences before booking. This change in behavior provides hotels with a golden opportunity; they can carefully curate user-generated content to present their offerings in the most appealing way possible.

THE ROAD AHEAD

In conclusion, the rise of social commerce began a shift in the attitude and behavior of customers. Luxury hotels that acknowledge this shift and adapt their strategies accordingly can leverage these changes to their advantage. Social commerce is not just a trend; it is part of the future of marketing in the hospitality industry. It affords an unparalleled level of connection between luxury hotels and their clientele. This will require carefully evaluating user-generated content, creating engaging and sellable content, and strategic collaborations.

Those who embrace this new era reap the benefits of an innovative, interactive, and digitally forward marketing strategy. The future of the hospitality industry will be dominated by those who can effectively harness the capabilities of social media platforms to enhance the customer experience. And create new revenue streams.

BCV keeps a constant pulse on emerging consumer behaviors across the digital landscape to understand the impact on travel. Read more about the latest social media updates and trends in our August report.

As the hospitality industry evolves, so does its marketing strategies. One of the most effective ways to reach potential guests is through social media. But one of the most powerful uses of social media involves leveraging cultural trends—especially those trends that speak to your best audience. Do it right, and increase engagement, reputation, and revenue. In this article, we will explore how the hospitality industry can blend cultural and social media trends to improve their marketing strategies.

First, let’s talk about two significant cultural opportunities for hotels: Sustainability and Education

Sustainability Efforts in the Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry has taken note of the growing importance of sustainability and eco-friendly practices as consumers become more environmentally conscious. Hotels are implementing various initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint and attract eco-conscious travelers. Some of these initiatives include using renewable energy sources, reducing water usage through low-flow shower heads and faucets, and reducing waste through recycling programs and composting.

To effectively showcase these sustainability efforts on social media, hotels can create dedicated posts or stories that highlight their eco-friendly initiatives. They can also use relevant hashtags such as #sustainability or #ecotourism to reach a wider audience that is interested in sustainability efforts.

“Edutainment” Opportunities for Potential Guests

In addition to showcasing sustainability efforts, hotels can also use their social media platforms as educational tools for potential guests. By sharing information about the hotel and the local area, hotels can help guests make informed decisions about traveling to their destination.

Hotels can highlight their tenured employees as local experts. Their backgrounds can speak to the history of the local area, and tie in onsite activations that coincide with the local area such as nature walks or cooking classes featuring local ingredients. By sharing this information, hotels position themselves as experts in the local area and provide value to potential guests beyond just a place to stay.

Now that we’ve identified the cultural trends, let’s look at how to give them some extra punch by executing them with trending social media tricks.

Incorporating Memes and Graphics

Memes and graphics have become a popular trend on social media platforms. However, hotels should use them sparingly and strategically. When used appropriately, memes and graphics can help hotels showcase their personality and brand values. But overusing them can come off as unprofessional or unoriginal.

When incorporating memes and graphics, hotels should ensure that they align with their target audience and brand values. They should also use captions and hashtags to increase engagement on social media. Monitoring the performance of social media posts that include memes and graphics is crucial to optimizing their use in the future.

It’s also critical that a brand evaluate the timing of jumping on a meme. Trends can last 2 days or 2 weeks. Moving forward fast is to your benefit in creating a perception of your brand being a trendsetting.

Here’s a few examples of brands who successfully incorporated memes into their social media strategy:

Barbie Trend https://www.instagram.com/p/CqwLTywvQKW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Little Miss https://www.instagram.com/p/CgVd4KlOJ6U/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Using Trending Audio on Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels is a powerful tool for increasing reach and engagement on social media. Hotels can incorporate trending audio on Instagram Reels to increase their visibility on the app and showcase their brand personality. Here are some examples of the songs that are currently trending and available for use on Reels.

  • “Industry Baby” by Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow

  • “Levitating” by Dua Lipa

  • “Stay” by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber

Evaluating Trends for Hotel Brand Authenticity

While it’s important for hotels to keep up with social media trends, it’s equally important to evaluate each trend to see if it aligns with the brand’s values and message. Not all trends are ones to jump on, especially in the luxury hotel space.

Luxury hotels should still maintain an elevated social presence that accurately represents the hotel. However, incorporating trends can help add personality and relatability to the brand. It also could expand the potential audience, and ideally reach a younger demographic too.

L’Auberge vs Orchards Inn

Example of end of year recap:

In conclusion, social media is an essential tool for the hospitality industry to increase engagement, reputation, and revenue. By implementing sustainability efforts, using their platforms as educational tools, incorporating memes and graphics strategically, using trending audio, and evaluating trends for authenticity, hotels can improve their marketing strategies and stand out on social media. As the hospitality industry continues to evolve, keeping up with social media trends and incorporating them strategically can help hotels connect with potential guests and strengthen their brand image. With the right approach, social media can be a powerful tool for hotels to showcase their unique personality and values while reaching a wider audience.

Luxury Hotels Were Made for Social Commerce

In marketing terms, social commerce is an amplification of your e-commerce strategy across all social platforms. It builds on the fact that you already have a strong presence and big audiences engaged with your brand, property, and lifestyle. Through social channels, luxury hotels have huge new windows for brand product exposure and transactions. Basically, you can make anything in your content shoppable. This works in paid and organic. You can tag the products for discovery and purchase and drive people directly to your social e-shop. Even better, social channels reach people across multiple stages of the consumer journeys. When traveling, the shoppable content is very oriented to audiences who already trust the brand and property. Successful conversions are more likely because this revenue stream acts like a loyalty channel, exciting consumers and extending beyond rooms and amenities to tap into their pride of ownership.

Choose the Social Media Platform Best Suited for Setting Up Your Storefront

Location. Location. Location. The old real estate adage applies here too. Deciding where to build your storefront is all about your brand and your strongest social channel. All of the main social platforms are ready to integrate a social shop as a brand channel. However, we generally recommend that you choose a platform with the historically best user experience and proven sales performance. At the top of our list are FB, IG, and TikTok. These platforms make the shop set-up relatively simple, and if you’re already working with an e-commerce platform like Shopify, they integrate easily.

Revisit Your Overall Strategy to Include the New Components of Social Commerce

In setting up a social commerce program, you want to determine how it will fit within your larger strategy. When your portfolio of products becomes available to purchase through social e-commerce, your existing content and paid strategies might require a little re-alignment. Consider that these new campaigns will exist alongside all the different hotel goals, including social engagement, promotions, bookings, and food and beverage. Just as you do with your programs, the social commerce content has to be properly tagged to stand out and feel organically integrated with the hotel experience. Another alignment tip is to create a mini-funnel where specific audiences engaged with social commerce can be retargeted with e-commerce ads. It’s a great way to create a funnel in a natural flow.

One Big Factor to Consider Before You Launch Social Commerce

First, ensure you have a clearly identified portfolio or products to sell. This sounds obvious, but it helps start with items you know are coveted and readily available to stock, ship, and maintain. For first-timers, we recommend partnering with a shopping platform that will make the integration easier, faster, and more efficient–for you and your guests!

Learn From the Luxury Masters

The gold standard brands already do an amazing job in social ecommerce. For example, Four Seasons allows you to basically buy all the products you love from the property for your own space. Their content strategy focuses on the hotel experience, and the shoppable posts are only displayed when the product contributes to that experience.

Think of Social Ecomm as Marketing Feng Shui

You have a storefront. You’ve identified the luxury items most coveted by guests. They are available in reliable quantities. Now you’re ready for the perfect arrangement of products, channels, and media. Your brand will never aspire to be a commercial retailer offering BOGO sales. Instead, your strategy is infused with just the right amount of ecommerce, creating harmony and unity in your marketing world!

PART 1: The Start, Stop, Keep Strategy

What’s a social media audit? And what does a good one look like?

A social media audit is a top-to-bottom review of your social media efforts. At first glance, it might seem obvious. You know what channels you use. You post and look at the results. That’s an audit, right? Yes and maybe not. Taking the audit a couple of steps further allows you to have a solid overview of what’s working, what’s not and what could be improved.

I like to implement the feedback process known as “Stop, Start, Keep”. I learned about this process during my training to become a yoga instructor. It is a great way to make sure that when in the feedback process we are not stuck too much in either the positive or the negative. It gives balance. When working with others it’s beneficial in giving the good and the bad.

Sometimes one of the three is harder to identify. Evaluating based on Stop, Start, Keep encourages you to take a deeper look at all aspects of the social media audit.

Start

The Start relies on an understanding of trends and a willingness to be on the cutting edge of the platform. Over the past year, the application of Reels on Instagram created a need for research and education to be on the forefront of that trend. It wasn’t chasing trends, it was auditing the new opportunities and evaluating the benefits.

Stop

For Stop, I look at the performance of content over the past 3-6 months and evaluate the lowest performing content. It is very tempting to concentrate on reports that only feature the top performers. Rarely do the lower performers get noticed–and we know why! However, to evaluate them is a great way to learn more and identify what caused it to underperform–and maybe try again. Or not.

Keep

Keep is tricky. It doesn’t always imply what has the strongest upward trends. Over the past year of data, let’s look at, say, Reels again, and if over the past year there is an increase in engagement then you want to keep implementing and improving. Keep isn’t about staying where you are and being stagnant. It is identifying the trend that is working and taking it further.

Why is it Important?

Social media audits are important because the platforms, trends and algorithms are constantly changing. Without regular review, a process that worked for you last year could be tanking your performance in the current year.

Ready to get started? Check out this detailed Hotel Social Media Audit Checklist in a separate blog post.

Coming soon: An incredibly thorough (but easy) checklist!

64th Annual HSMAI Adrian Awards Announced

In a year of masks, swabs, and wipes for travelers, there were also tremendous challenges for marketers in the hospitality category. This year, the HSMAI Adrian Awards focused on Recovery Campaigns that succeeded in spite of the pandemic. BCV is proud to have two Social Media Campaigns recognized among the best work from top hospitality brands and agencies recognized for creativity and innovation in advertising, digital marketing, and public relations. This is like the Golden Globes of digital marketing in hospitality, and BCV aren’t exactly strangers to collecting trophies–with 37 previous wins, this brings the total to 39.

The Ritz-Carlton, Bacara, won the Silver in Social Media Campaigns. With the Bacara-By-Day campaign, we ran an A/B Test Website Click advertisement involving a video creative and an Instant Experience Ad. The Instant Experience Ad enticed users to select activities based on their interests including wine tasting, water activities, resort relaxation, and more. After making their selections, the advertisement recommends an itinerary that best aligns with the type of traveler the user is. Both the video and Instant Experience advertisements included a call-to-action for users to book their stay at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara.

Through the A/B Test, we found our video advertisement resonated best with The Ritz-Carlton Bacara, Santa Barbara audience, garnering over 2x more clicks and 5x more impressions than the Instant Experience Ad. The Cost per Click was also $0.30, outperforming the industry benchmark. Having gained this insight from the A/B Test, we were able to allocate more budget to the video advertisement, increasing reach and overall results nearly 2x more than our previous 2020 Collections Advertisement. These results show the effectiveness of the creative Video Advertisement and interactive Instant Experience Advertisement.

The Ritz-Carlton, Denver, battled for the Bronze in Social Media Campaigns. As spacious, outdoor destinations had the advantage of greater appeal to travelers during the pandemic, a perfect collaboration was formed between The Ritz-Carlton, Denver & The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch. The campaign told the story of a pre-ski urban stay at The Ritz-Carlton, Denver, and then took travelers up the mountain to The Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch, where the perfect luxury ski vacation was highlighted. To achieve the hotel’s goals around awareness & consideration, 24 Hours on Mountain Time leveraged in-feed content & Instagram Stories. Instagram carousel posts were designed to highlight custom itineraries that would appeal to a variety of traveler types. 24 Hours on Mountain Time also partnered with influencers for an authentic, first-person’s perspective of a Denver vacation.

In total, 24 Hours on Mountain Time generated over 4,600 clicks to the hotel website with an average cost per click of $0.66, exceeding our original click goal by double. The campaign reached over 326K unique users, garnered 647K impressions, and contributed to a 57% surge in the brand’s Instagram followers.

CHECK IT OUT ON INSTAGRAM

About The HSMAI Adrian Awards 

The HSMAI Adrian Awards embraces every segment of the industry, including hotels, airlines, cruise lines, car rental companies, destinations, and more. Winners are selected from a field of nearly 1,200 entries by senior industry and media experts and honored at the Adrian Awards Celebration. The 2021 Competition Adrian Awards Celebration will be held March 30 at The Boca Raton.

Social media is an essential element of any hotel marketer’s playbook, and creation of a strategic social plan has become more critical than ever in order to drive awareness and consideration and stay ahead of competition. Evolving consumer behaviors are showcasing a rise in social usage, including the evolution of ecommerce; social shopping has become prominent, and platforms have become the new go-to marketplace. This is an important note for travel brands, as many platforms have developed capabilities that allow consumers to book reservations directly through social apps – a trend that will continue to gain popularity.

As the travel industry continues to move into recovery, hotel marketers can optimize their social presence now in order to create more opportunity to capture future bookings. However, determining which social platforms are ideally suited to meet specific business goals can be a daunting task; determining a social media mix takes careful consideration and an understanding of each platform’s demographics, reach and functionality.

There are currently hundreds of social platforms available globally, with new and emerging features popping up to meet the growing demand of online audiences. So how do you strategize? Within this article we’ll provide a top-level view of best practices for building a social media platform strategy in order to maximize your marketing potential.

This takes a bit of planning, followed by strong execution. With the right social strategy, marketers can achieve effective content placement, ROI-rich advertising spend, and increased opportunities to drive demand. Here’s how to get started.

Defining your hotel’s platform strategy

Defining a clear platform strategy is often overlooked but is a critical component for success. A smart approach can ensure that marketing dollars are utilized effectively and provide a return on investment, especially when adding a new platform to your marketing plan. It is imperative to craft a strategy and test audience sentiment to inform future marketing spend.

A few key items to consider as you begin your planning:

1. Who is your ideal audience? Understanding the specific demographics you would like to reach in order to achieve your overarching marketing goals is important. Since social is largely pay-to-play, narrowing your target can assist with maximizing marketing dollars, by reaching the consumers that will be the most driven to book.

2. Where are target audiences spending their time online? Once you have determined your target consumers, understanding where they are spending their time online and how they are consuming social content is critical. As an example, if your key goal is to target business travelers, LinkedIn provides an incredible opportunity for awareness among Millennials and Gen Xers, who are the most inclined to return to business travel first following recovery.

3. How are audiences using each platform? Understanding the behaviors across social platforms is also important. LinkedIn has become the space to not only seek employment opportunities and grow professional connections, but to also read thought leadership articles from authorities within an industry – creating a fantastic ground for relaying company culture and attracting qualified talent. TikTok, along with being a platform for quick entertainment and fun, is now becoming an educational area for Gen Z’s to explore travel destinations virtually. Meanwhile Pinterest is the place for travelers to plan future trips and gain inspiration through imagery, creating a valuable data mine for brands to tap into for trendspotting.

4.Does the platform offer eCommerce opportunities? The ability to provide direct links or shoppable content on a platform can equate to a seamless booking opportunity for consumers, offering travel marketers increased benefit. Additionally, several platforms are now offering enhanced monetization structures for paid influencers – which can be a compelling reason to prioritize your brand’s presence.

5. Do the advertising options fit your budget? Most of the major social platforms are consistently evolving their advertising features in order to allow businesses both large and small an opportunity to play in the paid space. However, it’s important to understand the return on investment that specific ad formats can yield; the creation of a branded filter is a much larger investment than a simple post boost but can achieve much different results. Integrating a strategic paid strategy to complement your social presence is a valuable way to ensure your approach is the right one for your goals.

6. How large should social presence be?
Creating a comprehensive social strategy can help to reach consumers at more than one point along their online journey, which can produce heightened awareness and consideration. However, being present just to be present can create an unwanted effect; consumers expect to see authentic, consistent engagement from brands. If your budget does not allow for adequate content creation, advertising, and community management efforts, it may be best to stick with three primary platforms as opposed to presence across six.

Building a Backbone

At BCV, we consider three giants within the social space as forming the core of any strategic mix: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Together these platforms create the perfect synergy for a travel marketer, as they offer the largest global mindshare – meaning, your target guests are likely using one if not all of them every day. Let’s break them down a bit more.

  • Facebook and Instagram offer the highest potential to garner reach and engagement based on the sheer size of their global audience presence. Specifically for the travel industry, these two platforms support one another: Instagram provides visual inspiration that drives consideration for travelers, who then turn to Facebook as a home base for information. This often creates a traveler journey path of dreaming and discovery driven by Instagram leading to planning and purchase action driven by Facebook.

  • Twitter serves a different primary purpose, as it’s less about visual interest and more about real-time engagement. This platform is where social users often go to ask questions and share experiences through immediate conversation, which has become essential for building trust and advocacy among consumers.Twitter can also be a vital tool for mitigating negative sentiment. Many travelers turn to the platform to share complaints, offering hotels an incredible opportunity to turn bad experiences into positive ones through social interaction. Overlooking this platform could equate to these opportunities being missed or worse, becoming escalated by lack of response by the brand.

Once you have established presence on these priority platforms, additional social success can be achieved through the inclusion of supplemental platforms chosen for your specific goals.

Beyond the Big Three

Creating a comprehensive social strategy that goes beyond Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be key for driving impactful results and intersecting consumer consideration journeys to drive bookings.

Below is a high-level breakdown of six additional platforms that can work hard to support a larger social strategy. An important note: when stepping into platforms that are new to your brand, it can be imperative to test audience sentiment first before allocating resources to build an owned presence. This is especially true for emerging platforms that are rapidly evolving, such as TikTok; at BCV, we typically recommend creating paid partnership or advertising opportunities to test audience reactions towards brand messaging in order to ultimately determine future marketing spend.

  • LinkedIn is largely a networking and recruitment engine but is quickly becoming a source of news and education for many consumers. The platform currently boasts nearly 740 million users worldwide, creating an ample space to reach industry professionals who typically have higher disposal incomes than other platform audiences for larger purchases such as travel. Hotel marketers have the opportunity to build authority, brand reputation, and display thought leadership among a valuable demographic across the platform – many of whom travel for work.

  • YouTube is the world’s second most popular search engine after Google and has quickly skyrocketed into the most-used social platform globally, recently surpassing Facebook. It’s a valuable tool for brands to seed messaging across audiences as they immerse themselves in an ongoing feed of video content providing entertainment, education, inspiration, and news. As video consumption continues to rise in general, brands that create a presence on YouTube through strategic ad placements will be able to drive valuable reach across key audiences.

  • Pinterest is a platform for visual discovery, trendspotting, and planning – creating a perfect fit for travel and hospitality. The strong focus on visual content attracts consumers who are actively seeking inspiration for future travel. Because Pinners typically seek and save content three months ahead of an event, such as hosting a party or taking a trip, Pinterest is incredibly valuable for identifying trends to inform future marketing content planning. Bonus: Pinterest has continued to roll out sophisticated marketing features beneficial for travel brands, including their eCommerce capabilities, Creator Studio, Premiere video ad product, and Trends and Conversion Insights.

  • TikTok is all about fun, engaging, and immersive short-form video content; popular content themes include dance challenges, remixes, hashtag challenges, behind-the-scenes peeks, and humor/memes. However, there’s also a more serious side, with topics such as FinTok leveling up the conversations. The primary user age for this platform is the younger Generation Z, which can be a critical audience for brands as this audience holds influential power within their households for purchasing decisions, such as family vacation destinations.

  • Snapchat is the original platform for real-time, disappearing content. It’s designed for communicating as we would in person, without the focus on saved content or aesthetically arranged feeds. The platform has continued to evolve its capabilities for brand marketing and offers strategic placements according to user data; as an example, specific ads can be served to audiences who are within a few blocks from a specific location, like a restaurant recommendation received during a trip. Another area to watch: within countries that are currently banning TikTok, such as India, audiences are vastly turning to Snapchat – creating mega opportunity for reach.

  • Clubhouse is an audio-based platform that allows users to listen to and participate in conversations across various topics. Currently in beta mode and invitation only, Clubhouse features chats that are often moderated by celebrities and thought leaders, designed to educate and inform global audiences. As with any emerging platform, we are closely monitoring how travel brands could utilize this space, and what competitive platforms are developing in response to the growing popularity. Watch-out: with the current lack of advertising options, Clubhouse’s limited reach could be a major detractor for brand play.

Bringing it all together

Understanding how to navigate the social space can be challenging; if you’re wondering how to effectively choose your own strategic path, you’re not alone. Social media is a far-reaching landscape that is constantly evolving, and it’s not always obvious how to approach each platform and create a seamless, hard-working plan.

The most important actions are to dedicate the time necessary to build a social strategy, followed by consistent testing and optimization to find the perfect mix. Your brand’s social media mix should build awareness and directly impact your larger marketing funnel. From awareness to purchase, a multi-dimensional social presence will intersect consumer journeys multiple times to drive consideration and incite action, ultimately leading to increased revenue.

And as always, BCV is here to help! Our team of savvy social media experts can craft strategic support in order to ensure that your marketing budget is applied wisely. We love what we do and love to see increased revenue as a result of our work.

If you’d like to receive further information about BCV’s approach to social or to begin building a customized strategy to produce efficient ROI, BCV can help.

As you’ve surely noticed, customer service has made its way to social media. And, the vast majority of today’s consumers have communicated with a brand on social media. So how can you, as a hotel, take advantage of this?

When it comes to communicating with guests via social media, time is of the essence. BCV recommends actively monitoring social pages and responding quickly—ideally within the hour.

The best customer service goes above and beyond, and social media makes no exceptions. If a guest posts about staying at your hotel for their birthday, why not surprise them with a handwritten happy birthday note and a treat in their room? Those small gestures always mean the most.

Furthermore, social media is public, so exceptional customer service reaches far beyond the individual guest you interact with. People love sharing stories of unexpected acts of kindness. Not only will the customer be happy, but it can also boost the overall image of the company. Whether 100 followers see a guest’s jubilant tweet about their stay, or a photo of a happy birthday treat is shared across multiple channels, your one positive guest interaction can have a ripple effect and leave many people with positive feelings toward your hotel.

In contrast, there are some matters that should be handled privately. If someone posts about a negative experience at the hotel, it’s usually best to respond by requesting they message you directly. Then you can resolve the issue without attracting too much publicity.

It’s important to develop a strategy in order to maintain consistency. While each customer exchange is authentic, the tone must uphold the brand’s voice and values. Moreover, each social media platform offers its own unique communication opportunities, so it is imperative that strategies are catered to each. Keep in mind that the best communication is conversational; your posts should engage your audience. And don’t forget to have fun with it! Customers respond best when messages are genuine, personal, and sometimes even playful.

At the end of the day, customer service on social media matters. That’s why many companies are turning to professional social media providers to cultivate and monitor their online pages. BCV works closely with leading hospitality brands to formulate unique social media strategies that align with the client’s objectives. Through innovative technologies, BCV is able to identify, target, and engage specific audiences in order to yield the best results.