Staying Tuned to Social Media

With public data gleaned from guests’ social media activity, resorts can be better marketers and investors.

Social media platforms can provide resorts with a wealth of real-time information. For example, Instagram users upload on average more than 80 million photos and dish out 3.5 billion likes per day. From this public data, resorts can learn more about their audience and consumers—what they care about, how they spend their time and what their purchasing preferences are.

“This information can serve to influence content to make it more engaging and relevant to consumers,” says Dave Thomas, associate manager of global e-commerce and marketing at RCI.

With insight into the types of content its fans are engaging with on social media, you can better determine which on-site developments would have the highest ROI. For example, if a resort learns that a majority of their Facebook users also post and like content related to Netflix, then the resort could offer the streaming service on in-room televisions to guests.

How should you tap into guests’ social media data? Jeff Soriano, senior director of demand generation at Offerpop, a user-generated content-marketing platform, says that in addition to using analytics tools such as Facebook Insights or Google Analytics, you can create your own customized campaigns to surface data. “This allows resorts to tie public social data to actionable consumer contact information collected through a social campaign,” he says.

Soriano recalls the instance when a hotel search engine promoted a sweepstakes by asking users to share a 30-second hotel-room video tour on social media for a discount on their next stay and the chance to earn an additional money voucher.

“With more than 300,000 engaged consumers and more than 1,000 pieces of user-generated content submitted, the brand was able to generate a more accurate depiction of who their customers are and what they care about,” he says.

Marketing what users enjoyed about their rooms, pinpointing which on-site investments would attract more guests and maintaining the line of communication between brand and participants will build relationships and brand loyalty. “There is a huge opportunity to segment audiences to serve the right message to the right person at the right time,” Thomas says.

Image credit: iStockphoto