The ultimate objective of all marketing is to drive revenue. While selling on social channels is often less about direct sales and more about influence and driving loyalty, hotel owners, GMs, and directors of sales want to see social media marketing pay off with corporate accounts and group contracts. How can hotels navigate the complex world of tweets, posts, blogs, and more to position their properties for large group bookings? Here are some actionable ways that sales people can engage with strategic social media to learn more about potential customers and expand their social networks to drive sales.
The cocktail party concept
A recent story on NPR’s Marketplace made the analogy that social media marketing was like working the room at a cocktail party. “You don’t walk in with your megaphone blasting your marketing message and say buy my stuff,” says Jason Falls, CEO of Social Media Explorer. Doing so would mean alienating your fellow party guests, your customers. Instead, “you listen to conversations and find the ones that make sense to you and introduce yourself, network and grow relationships over time,” says Falls. The story goes on to say, “the value of social media is about getting people to trust you or think you're cool and -- when those people need something -- to think of buying from you because they trust you or think you're cool.”
Read full story at: http://blog.revinate.com/2012/01/using-social-media-to-drive-group-sales.html
