Social Media for the Savvy Hotel Salesperson

My latest for eHotelier....

In this economy, hotel sellers need to use every possible tool in the shed to drive business results. Here are some ideas for using social media to help make your booking goals.

Step One - Get on board; social networking is not a fad.

Get yourself set up on your network of choice. Carve out a rainy Sunday and play around with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. If you like to take pictures or make videos, add Flickr or YouTube. All of the sites make it easy for you to import your Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail contacts. You don’t need to be especially technically-savvy to do this, and I promise you can’t break the site or your computer.

Also, don’t feel like you have to do everything at once. It’s better to do a great job of networking on one site than to do a mediocre job on three. Take your time and figure out what you like best.

Step Two - The requisite cautionary note.

Understand that everything you do or say online lives forever. Forever is a long time, so be careful what you say and who you copy. You’ve heard that before about email. Multiply that by infinity, and you’ll get an idea of who can ultimately see what you’ve said or written on the web. Check your company’s policy, and try to get your boss as a follower/friend/connection for a bit of CYA. Your clients are watching, as are your future employers.

Horror story: You whine to your Facebook friends that your boss is a huge pain. One of them comments in sympathy, which shares what you said to all of their friends, many of whom you don’t know. Unbeknownst to you, one of your friend’s friends is married to your boss. Opposite of a brilliant career strategy.

Step Three - Do something! Here are some ideas:

Prospect. Using search.twitter.com, set up a search for “bride,” “wedding planning,” or “engagement” within 15 miles of your ballroom. Reach out to brides in the planning stages. Caution: lighten up on the spam-attacks. Try a low-key approach, like, “Hi, I don’t want to get too spammy, but I see on Twitter that you’re planning your wedding. I work at the Wedding World Hotel. Let me know if you’d like to talk more.” This can work for meetings and other events, as well, if you tweak the search terms.

Promote special events. Having a client event or industry networking happy hour? Use Twitter to get the word out to your local tweeps, and invite people be creating an event on Facebook. This is also a great way to test the waters before you invest. Ask for feedback on possible attendance to see if it’s worth your time.

Establish expertise. Post links to articles that relate to your business niche. If you sell association business, talk about the new badge swipers you saw. If you focus on entertainment business, tweet about concerts coming your way.

Follow key clients and hot prospects. Follow and retweet your customers to build or strengthen strategic partnerships. Set up searches to understand what’s happening in your best account’s industry so that you can match your solutions to their problems, before they even ask you to. Learn your new contact’s likes and dislikes before you meet. Get the real scoop on a competitor’s top client to help build your share-shifting strategy.

Watch the competition. Follow your competitors – both the hotels and the sellers. Not only can you stay on top of what they’re doing, but you may get some great ideas to try. Either way, you’ll know what the playing field looks like from a different perspective.

Make people laugh. In between tweeting great industry-related articles or posting pictures of your ballroom, be sure to be funny. Be non-controversially funny, maybe, but be funny. If you put something good out there, it will spread, and you’ll be known as that funny sales manager at Awesome Inn and Suites.

Memory Lane Monday: Surprise Potty

The first hotel that hired me was, uh, modest. I mean, to me it was the freaking Plaza, but looking back it wasn't that fab. Luckily, I knew nothing about hotels at that point, so I was totally convinced that I was selling the best product imaginable. I was like the love child of a crackhead cheerleader and an ADD kid sans Ritalin about that place.

In my eagerness and excitement about the (tiny but who knew) bonus I was earning, I volunteered to lead a tour of extremely important people through the hotel. I can't exactly remember who they were - there were, like, eleven or twelve of them - but I do remember that we planned the tour for weeks. We had meetings involving all the departments, and we staged staff members at every turn of the tour to delight our guests with their cheerful attitudes and helpful happiness. There were special shuttles arranged, delicious foods prepared, and even a champagne toast planned for the end of the experience.

We met them in the lobby and proceeded to our first stop. We saw the restaurant, the lounge, the ballroom, and the five meeting rooms. We visited the pool, the fitness center, the gift shop, and the hair salon. We talked about the jogging trail, the shopping center, and the nearby creek. And finally, finally we headed up to look at guestrooms -- our most important commodity, the thing we had planned the best. First we saw a room with two beds - a double/double. Next we looked at a king room. And last, we went to the top floor to our best suite.

I slipped the key card into the lock, chattering all along about the last movie I had seen. I faced the corridor, pushing the door open with my shoulder. My guests were gathered around, hanging on my every word, laughing, thoroughly charmed. I led them in. And there, to our left, with the door wide open, was an Asian man noisily - nay, angrily - dropping every kid in China off at the pool.

photo credit: davefigley via creativecommons

My Latest Article for eHotelier

This article is about how hotels can make their Facebook fan pages more engaging, and it came out today. You can see it in its original format here (including one annoying typo), or read the copied in text below.

10 Ways for Hotels to Engage Facebook Fans

After you’ve set up a Facebook fan page, you still have to have something to say! As you build your community of fans, keep in mind that relentless pitching will get you laughed off the virtual stage. Remember, today’s fans just might turn into tomorrow’s customers, or, even better, your unpaid word-of-mouth sales force. Make sure that you’re talking about what they want to hear.

1. Set up comprehensive Google Alerts to deliver the latest news to your inbox. Try topics like “business travel tips,” or “things to do in [your city.]” Everything you get won’t be wort posting, but you’ll get some tidbits that will interest your fans.

2. Use an aggregator site like AllTop. This site pulls together tons of resources on tons of topics, and it lets you build a page of content feeds that interest you.

3. Encourage fan photos, videos, and stories. It’s often illuminating to see your property through someone else’s eyes, and people love to tell their own stories. Think about a free night for the best photo or story featuring your hotel.

4. Put yourself in your fan’s shoes. Don’t post something that you would be annoyed to read from your least-favorite business, much less your most-favorite. More than a couple of posts per day, and more than a couple of sales pitches per week, and you will get ignored.

5. Schedule 30 minutes a week for content brainstorming. Put it on your calendar, and spend the time writing down as many things as you can come up with to post about. Take notes in your Blackberry when you think of things, and ask your co-workers to help.

6. Use your page for value-added promotions. Don’t just ask your followers to visit your new website; give them an exclusive discount rate code to use for upcoming soft dates. Your fans should benefit from paying attention to you – with first dibs on news, offers, and events.

7. Ask questions. The fans of your hotel want to help you determine your next steps. Ask them to help you choose which charity you’ll support this quarter. Take a poll about what time the pool should close. And, PS, actually care about the answers.

8. Don’t be afraid to court controversy. Take an issue that inspires passion – like resort fees or early departure charges – and ask your fans what they think. Create a space where people can debate – just try to keep yourself above the fray.

9. Be funny. Everyone appreciates a mental rest stop. Post occasional links to diversionary sites that you like, or tell crazy stories about the hotel – there’s no shortage. Don’t be afraid to court hoteliers as fans with inside jokes, either; every time a front desk clerk comments on your posts, they get spread to people you might never reach.

10. Don’t fake it. Your fans can tell whether you are sincere about being part of their online community. Social media is at its best when it lifts the curtain to show the human side of a business. Cut the corporate speak, and connect.