If you’re in the hospitality industry, your most important goals are typically to increase the number of people who visit your business while getting more positive reviews from your guests. One powerful way to do this is by improving your social media presence.
1. Communicate Directly with Guests
Very often, people will have questions before visiting a business and they want to get answers as quickly as possible. Writing to a customer service email often takes too long. You can make it easier on them by being available to answer questions on Facebook, Twitter, or whichever social site your target market hangs out on.
By getting on social media and having conversations with your guests, your potential customer can find out more about what you have to offer. Be personal by responding directly to the person who originally sent out the tweet or posted the question on your Facebook page. Never copy and paste scripted responses because it will make you seem cold and less personable.
If you are receiving a lot of comments and questions, consider asking some of your staff members to help out with responding when they aren’t busy. For example, a front desk manager might be able to respond back to several questions during slow periods of the shift. Some sites like Facebook allow your business to earn a badge for fast response time because they know how much it matters!
2. Ask Your Guests to Share Their Unique Experiences
People love to talk on social media about what they are doing and where they are going. Why not ask your guests to share the experience they had while visiting your business? Encourage your guests to share and make it fun for them.
Many restaurants, bars and hotels have televisions already set up inside their venues. You can use display software to encourage guests to share on your social channels while they’re still in your venue. For example, a Holiday Inn location uses Enplug on a screen in their lobby to encourage guests to share TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook, and Twitter comments (case study). This is an excellent way to connect with your guests in real time, 24/7.
3. Schedule Engaging Daily Posts
You have to stay active on different social sites if you want to improve your presence. You can come up with ideas ahead of time and then schedule your posts throughout the day using a service like HootSuite or Buffer.
Do some research on topics that relate to the hospitality industry or even a trending news event. You can create memes, videos, or use engaging and fun images. Get people talking and interacting with your content to generate more followers.
4. Plan a Giveaway Contest
A great tactic that many businesses use is an awesome giveaway contest. A hotel could offer a free stay for a night to a few random winners, or a restaurant could offer a free dinner for two.
The best way to run a contest is to host it on only one social site where you want more traffic and promote it on other networks. Just be careful that there is only one site where contestants can enter the contest. Facebook is a great place to run a contest using a third-party app, and you can even use Facebook advertising to promote it. There are plenty of third party Facebook giveaway apps like Woobox to choose from, and they can make things much simpler to track and keep organized.
Be sure that you follow the rules for whichever network you use and be sure to decide how you are going to pick the winner before you start the contest.
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