When someone asks me about social media in the hospitality industry, I usually mention the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, AJ Bombers restaurant in Milwaukee and the blog written by Hawaii-based Outrigger Hotels.
Then I wish that I knew more examples.
That problem was just partially solved by this excellent presentation on Slideshare by Lara Dickson, a designer and social media marketing expert based in Vermont. It’s also included in her own blog post, Social for Hospitality 101.
It covers all that any hotel or restaurant needs to know about getting started using social media tools for marketing, and it’s full of ideas and examples.
Thanks a bunch, Lara!
Direct link to the presentation Adding Social Media to Your Hospitality Marketing Toolkit.
Adding Social Media to your Hospitality Marketing Tool Kit
View more presentations from Deep Dish Creative.
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The truth is, for a hotel, Twitter and Facebook pale in comparison to Trip Advisor and other hotel booking services.
If I ran a hotel, traditional social media outlets would be secondary to making sure we got good reviews on Trip Advisor.
Gary and Lara, y’all both bring up really good points. I have to give it to Gary; purely from a raw search perspective, TripAdvisor is huge for hotels and Yelp/Urban Spoon are big for restaurants. We haven’t even talked about the growing impact of Google Local listings, and the reviews that go with those. Lara’s right, too – they aren’t as immediately shareable.
Dang, I really need to do a post or two on search, esp. the impact that TripAdvisor et. al. have on SERPs.
Thanks so much for weighing in!
Yep, Gary, social sites are just one part of an overall marketing reach. I think many would agree that TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc are less social, viral or immediately sharable than Facebook, Twitter, etc. More control and freedom with the latter. Two different animals there, with different reasons for using. Thanks for checking out the preso!
Terrific slide pack, Lara – really enjoyed it – particularly the end slide 🙂
I didn’t quite understand the list of topics at the bottom of slide 23 – could you explain? 😉
Andy, pg 23 just gives a brief glimpse at what folks can talk about and which social sites might be the best venue to do so. Its a short list, of course, because topics are endless. I often hear folks say “what on earth would I have to share that’s interesting?” from smaller biz like restaurant or inn owners. Hopefully these hints can help.