NB:This is a guest article by Ally Dombey, director and co-founder at Revenue By Design, a small chain and independent hotel consultancy service.
We recently – working with hotel technology intelligence company RateGain– completed the first in a series of reports to understand more about how hotels use, engage and monitor social media.
The survey attracted responses from a broad background of hotels with over a quarter of respondents representing international brands, and a further 23% representing independent hotels. Just under half the respondents came from Europe and one third representing Asian hotels or groups, giving the feedback a broad international flavour.
Found within the results were a number of key takeaways from the 600 hoteliers:
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80% of respondents manage social media in-house.
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“Ownership” of social media sites within the marketing department.
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A third use some form of technology and reporting tools.
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Success is measured in number of “soft” stats such as number of comments, follows and likes.
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65% will invest less than $5,000 in social media in 2011.
Read the full story at: http://www.tnooz.com/2011/04/11/how-to/nineteen-tips-for-an-effective-social-media-strategy-in-travel/