Martin Kubler is owner, director, and chief cook and bottle washer of Iconsulthotels FZE, an ultra-boutique hospitality consultancy in Dubai
It’s worthwhile to look at some of the often easily forgotten sides of your property’s social media presence and if the summer months mean a slightly slower daily pace, why not spend some time to complete your Facebook timeline?
Recently launched, the timeline feature allows you to show off your property’s history on Facebook — regardless of when you started your Facebook page. You can use your timeline to showcase the construction process of your property (e.g. facebook.com/bonningtontowerfans) or to highlight awards your hotel has won in ‘pre-Facebook’ times (e.g. facebook.com/innatthemarket).
You can also use it to show how your brand has evolved over the years and to let your fans smile at the now somewhat cringe-worthy marketing photos from the 1970s — one of the best examples of this is Accor Hotels: facebook.com/Accor — populating your hotel’s Facebook timeline will give fans a unique behind-the-scenes look at your property or brand.
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Summer is also a good time to review the basics of your hotel’s presence on social media and to check things like your Twitter profile and background pictures (are they up-to-date and compatible with the latest layout of the site?) and your Google Places listings (do you have listings for all your outlets as well as for your property? Have you eliminated all duplicate or out-of-place listings? Do your listings include the latest photos and videos? Are you making use of Google’s free-of-charge ‘public announcement’ feature on your places listings?).
If one of your New Year’s resolutions included being more proactive in regards to online guest reviews, now too is the best time to start. Don’t just focus on replying to reviews on TripAdvisor, though — sure, it will help your TripAdvisor ratings, but there are other sites that also allow for responses, e.g. HRS.com and Expedia, and there are a number of more local review sites, which may contain comments about your hotel or your outlets, e.g. yadig.com (see case study).
While we’re talking about TripAdvisor: Do you have a TripAdvisor business listing? If so, are you making the most of all its features? Check that your hotel’s listing includes an up-to-date offer and make use of the recently added ‘announcement’ feature.
TripAdvisor sends out weekly emails to users who have looked at destinations like Dubai or at your hotel and special offers are always highlighted in these emails. Just by including an enticing special offer in your TripAdvisor business listing you may get additional exposure to more than 55,000 people per week (average figure based on a five-star hotel in Dubai, April 16-23, 2012).
If you really have nothing else to do, you could also put your hotel and outlets on Google Earth (via www.maplandia.com).
On the other hand, Ramadan is coming up, so now is an excellent time to make sure you have all your offers ready and online. If you're thinking of using ‘group-buying services’ like Groupon, LivingSocial or YallaBanana to push iftar business, book your slots now, because the better slots tend to go quickly and, as always, the early bird catches the worm.
Then again, why not save the commission you’d be paying to such sites and do it yourself? There are several very cost-effective group-buying applications available for Facebook pages which, used together with targeted Facebook advertising, can drive considerable traffic to your Facebook page and enable you to run group-buying offers exactly the way you want to without worrying about time-slots or commission payments – check out wildfire.com or contussupport.com to get started. Whatever you do this summer: Keep it social!
Martin Kubler is owner, director, and chief cook and bottle washer of Iconsulthotels FZE, an ultra-boutique hospitality consultancy in Dubai. info@iconsulthotels.com / facebook.com/iconsulthotels
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