Continued from part 1
Social media platforms spread awareness of products, can announce the launch of new products, provide customer support, answer customer queries and receive customer feedback. Sites such as Twitter can also update customers on fresh promotional campaigns and events and let customers really engage with their brand on a level never seen before.
Social media allows businesses to spread industry knowledge and transmit time-sensitive information. The recent ban on flying because of the ash cloud is just one example of a situation in which critical facts could be got to customers quickly and effectively online.
It also presents an opportunity to know your customers better by presenting a forum for their comments. Given the relatively intimate nature of most social media communications, customers are arguably more likely to give their views freely and frankly.
Using social media creatively, you can promote your hotels and other products by building up an image of a unique, individually tailored destination which people want to make reservations for.
Of course, it helps to use more than one social media channel as a Facebook fan page alone could make a huge difference if created and maintained correctly, consider combining a strong Twitter following with some YouTube videos and some good-looking property shots on the photo sharing site Flickr.
Smaller, independent providers may benefit more quickly from social media marketing strategies than large chains which may found themselves laden down with corporate policy guidelines. For these organisations, return on investment is particularly important, and social media marketing is extremely cost-effective.
It’s important to monitor which social websites are most helpful. You can do this by integrating tracking software into your website and reservations software which track reservations from Twitter, Facebook and similar sources.
Equally, your social media marketing must be consistent, and tightly targeted at the people you want to reach, with quality prioritised over quantity. And don’t forget there are potential pitfalls. You need to understand the power of social media and how it works, or it can backfire badly.
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