Ultimate Guide To Maximize Guest Lifetime Value By Social Media Marketing

Posted by Erric Ravi on January 7th, 2020

Are you sorted with your social media marketing strategy? Are you using your social media presence to keep your customers engaged so that they make more purchases and more often?

Today, 80% of the guests use social media before booking a stay at a hotel, and 84% of people expect a brand to respond within one hour. Research also suggests that a 10% increase in review scores can affect bookings by an average of 11%. This clearly shows the power and influence of social media in today’s world.

The right social media marketing strategy will help your brand fulfil its goals. We’ve sorted down some key points for you in order to identify goals, engage audiences, and optimize your results:

Clarify your goals

Before anything else, you need to figure out what you want out of social media as a whole.

Maybe it’s more social-savvy customers, or it’s a larger share of voice in your target audience. Either way, clarify what you expect from social media.

Moreover, you should strive to set goals that are actually attainable. For instance, shooting for a million new Facebook followers in 3 months isn’t going to happen. By tackling smaller, realistic goals, you can scale your social efforts in a way that’s both affordable and reasonable. And on another note, your goals will influence everything starting from your budget, to which social networks you’ll handle.

Furthermore, you should make a framework for your goals, such as:

• Increase ROI
• Increase Brand Awareness
• Create loyal customers
• Increase in-person drive sales

And many others! Any combination of these goals is fair game and can help you better understand which networks to handle, too.

Research Your Target Audience

Making assumptions is a risky game when it comes to marketing. And thanks to the continual demographic data and social media analytics tools out there, you really need not make assumptions. What you need to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already out in the open, so no extra efforts. 

See what percentage of your target audience is using the internet to book the hotel rooms, what percentage is directly going to the hotels and what percentage is going through the agents. Then plan accordingly, to achieve your goals more effectively.

Know what strategies your competitors are using

Looking at your competition’s social media presence will directly help you to design your own promotion strategy. The goal here isn’t to copy or steal your competitors’ ideas. Rather, it is to determine what’s working for them and how you can design your own campaigns accordingly. For instance, see what they’re posting on Facebook. Contrast your Twitter engagement with them. Find out how they’re tagging their content and posts on Instagram. Optimize your strategy. Rinse and repeat.

Make timeliness a top priority

Timeliness is a two-way street. As you need a speedier result, customers also expect quicker responses from brands. And not only speedier responses but also meaningful conversations regularly. 

Your brand can’t ignore these core elements of “networking.” It takes a lot of effort to ensure conversations or engagement opportunities aren’t left unattended. Through social media, you gain respect and loyalty as a brand by just being present and talking to your audience. That’s why customer care is so critical to brands, especially for those who want to increase audience awareness. It’s all about engagement. The quote “Atithi Devo Bhava” which means “Guest is God” should be in mind of all hotel brands.

Various hospitality software companies have introduced specific software for social media management. One such company is BCV, a Rategain company (leader in providing solutions for the travel and hospitality industry). BCV social media helps maximize guest lifetime value by elevating brand experience. Moreover, it manages negative reviews 24*7 by recommending certain solutions. Furthermore, it provides social media consulting about offers and sales. This software makes perfect sense in a day and age, where social media is continually evolving.

And with that, we wrap our social media guide. To know more you can also attend a hospitality seminar by Mark Haywood from RateGain (best travel technology company) on 8th January 2020 at Hotel Market Seminars.