HotelsMag July-August 2016 | Page 55

SaleS & Marketing

Social Media :

TrAining , inTerAcTion

Contributed by Brendan Manley

Social media is rising so rapidly in importance to the overall hospitality landscape that many hotels and even broader chains are racing to keep up . For many , interacting with guests via social media presents a new and undefined demand , and a delicate one , at that .

According to Benji Greenberg , founder and CEO of Chicago social media consultancy BCV , focal points for hotels handling

keysocial media in-house include :

1 . Go ‘ Military ’ BG : It ’ s literally a communication protocol from the top down for every scenario . Everyone knows , ‘ If these things happen , we ’ re going to go to these departments .’
2 . type carefully
BG : If you empower employees to post on social , you need to make sure you always have a second set of eyes on everything because there are scenarios where people are disgruntled and they posted , and it ’ s a mess .
3 . privacy rules BG : Sometimes we see someone asking for private information in a public channel , like ‘ What room are you in ?’ Things like that should never , ever be answered in a place where anybody can see it . Always move conversations to a private medium .
4 . create content
BG : There ’ s always somebody in each department who ’ s seeing different angles of the hotel , who ’ s able to tell that story in a unique way . Having people onboard saying , ‘ Ok , I ’ ll take photos and send them to you when I find something interesting or relevant ,’ helps keep things moving .
5 . Be selective BG : Never post more than once a day per channel . I ’ d say three to five main messages on each channel is plenty a week .
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