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2012 Social Hotel Award winners index


By Nathan Greenhalgh on 9/3/2012

To help hoteliers figure out how to better manage social media marketing strategies, HOTELS Magazine presents its first annual Social Hotel Awards — or as HOTELS editors refer to them, the SoHos.

Choosing the winners was tough, with more than 120 entries submitted. Judges included:

  • David Pavelko, head of travel, Google Inc., New York City
  • Henry Harteveldt, co-founder, Atmosphere Research Group, San Francisco 
  • Amy Jo Martin, founder, Digital Royalty, Las Vegas 
  • Burns Patterson, COO, Middleton & Gendron, New York City
  • Chris Jackson, president, GCommerce, Park City, Utah
  • The editors at HOTELS Magazine

All the winners established a point of view, as well as a bold and imaginative presence that serves to make a connection with guests that is so much more personal than ever seen before. Click here to read about them in the September digital edition of HOTELS Magazine.

best blog, brand

Thompson Hotels, New York City, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best blog, brand.

Thompson gave its Room 100 blog a makeover in the summer of 2011 to increase monthly unique visitors from 2,000 to 25,000.

Over three months, Room 100 underwent its transformation from a Flash-built, basic text and photo blog to a customized Wordpress website with dynamically randomized photo collages with featuring jewel-colored cocktails, red carpet events, vintage motorcycles, and the occasional bare breast. Biweekly newsletters with seven posts were sent to all past and present Thompson Hotels guests to promote its new, offbeat content that covers tastemakers and curiosities instead of the more typical destination information or hotel-centered content. Examples of coverage include a story about Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Rum Diary,” a spotlight on Pasadena’s The Curio Emporium, news about the expansion of New York City’s famous Magnolia Bakery, a look at the retro-stylings of a new camera by FujiFilm and highlights of the viral video series “Guy On A Buffalo.” Additional content includes Instagram posts and Facebook and Twitter chatter pulled into the blog through a customized feed. Also a direct booking widget was installed.

By January 2012 the newsletter open rates rose 57%. The blog subscriber list grew 25%, and revenue from the newsletter went up 3,017%. Monthly unique visitors also grew to 29,104, surpassing Thompson’s goal.

 

best blog, property

The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best blog, property .

The hotel created the Pfister Narrator program, in which a writer-in-residence is hired for a six-month stint to spend time in the hotel's lobby, speak with visitors and guests and share their stories on the Pfister’s blog with the goal of increasing website traffic and engaging guests on a personal level. The target audience was writers/journalists, business and leisure travelers, and potential guests who might be able to see themselves in the stories of others. The budget for the program is the Narrator's choice of three payment types: US$1,000 stipend per month, a scholarship for continuing education or a donation to a charity of choice.

Between January 1, 2011, and April 1, 2012, the website saw 569,051 visits, about 75% of which were new visits.

 

best Facebook page, brand

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Toronto, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Facebook page, brand.

Four Seasons launched its Facebook presence in May 2009. The corporate team trained public relations directors and social media specialists across the globe to launch their own presence on social media and create share-worthy content to engage with consumers — Four Seasons says its social marketing team includes 80 personnel. Training includes how to incorporate Facebook into existing marketing plans, how to respond to customer inquiries and how to participate in Facebook chats. Four Seasons’ target audience is men and women in their early 40s to late 50s with US$500,000 in median household income.

Facebook photo albums and applications are introduced for specific campaigns, and a tab was created to drive e-commerce efforts with the goal of nurturing deeper engagement with the Facebook community. It also focuses on qualitative measures like 24/7 monitoring for rapid response time, posting frequency, content structure and the development of quality imagery and media.

In Q2 2012, fan engagement on Facebook was up 42%. Of existing Four Seasons social platforms, Facebook is the number one referral source for visits to Four Seasons websites.

 

best Facebook page, property

The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, Florida, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Facebook page, property.

The property decided to revamp its efforts on its existing Facebook page to increase awareness of and affinity for the resort. The hotel targeted potential customers — men and women ages 35 to 65 with combined household incomes of US$150,000 living in major metropolitan areas in the Northeast, Midwest and southern Florida markets of the United States — with Facebook advertisements. It then recorded their likes and dislikes from fan interaction on the property’s Facebook page and began recognizing Facebook fans on-property. The page also featured live question-and-answer sessions with resort experts on topics including culinary, spa, fitness, healthy eating, wedding planning and event décor, as well as real-time posting of on-property photography.

Daily fan growth rate increased 201% from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012. The amount of daily, engaged users quadrupled from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012. Average daily organic impressions increased 178% from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012, and Facebook-referred guests delivered US$7,376 in incremental room revenue in 2011.

 

best Facebook promotion, brand

Best Western International, Phoenix, Arizona, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Facebook promotion, brand.

Through interacting with fans and following travel-related conversations happening on our Facebook page and Twitter feed with its 4-personnel corporate-level social media team, Best Western noticed a trend of frustration among business travelers with having to be on the road for extended periods of time away from family and friends. Further research provided more insight and showed that over 60% of frequent business travelers felt some sense of guilt for being on the road. Many times these travelers justify their time away by earning free nights and points that they can use for future travel.

The "Be a Travel Hero" promotion gave Best Western Rewards members the chance to win a free family vacation. Participants selected a dream destination and a name for their trip, and began sharing that trip with their friends and family. Each “virtual vacation” could be shared via a Facebook "share" function with anyone on their Facebook friend list. These friends were then invited to join the trip and suggest an activity for the group.

Growth in Facebook likes created by the "Be a Travel Hero" application was 283,617. The campaign resulted in a 20% year-on-year revenue increase in Best Western reservations over the previous year's spring promotion.

 

best Facebook promotion, property

Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Facebook promotion, property.

To create buzz about new burger offerings at its hotel restaurant, Café Causette, the hotel offered social media followers a special US$12 offer to try a platter of five different mini-burgers and then vote on their favorite, with the two most popular burgers being added to the restaurant menu. The hotel also offered a free burger dinner prize for three Facebook fans who best answered the question, “Who would you like to enjoy the burgers with, and why?” The property’s communication and F&B departments developed the promotion in-house and the only additional expense was the free burger prizes.

Over 520 people visited Café Causette to try the special five mini-burger platter, and the viral reach of the burger offer post was 370% higher than the average reach per post. Due to the response, three burgers instead of two were added to the menu.

 

best integrated digital campaign, brand

Hilton Worldwide’s brand DoubleTree by Hilton won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best integrated digital campaign, brand.

As part of the its 2011 rebrand from DoubleTree to DoubleTree by Hilton, the brand launched the The DoubleTree by Hilton Cookie CAREavan Tour, a U.S. bus tour to deliver cookies to create awareness and engage its target demographic of 30- to 45-year-old male and female middle-class business travelers and families. The campaign included a Facebook app with a real-time map of where the cookie CAREavan was, relevant tweets in a real-time Twitter stream, a sweepstakes entry form for free stays at the hotels, YouTube videos, Flickr integration and Facebook sharing capabilities. The campaign revolved around the message “At DoubleTree by Hilton, the little things mean everything.” The  goals of the tour were more interested in positive PR and sentiment than conversions.

The campaign garnered 29,261 new Facebook likes — a 125% increase — and 708 new Twitter followers, a 4% increase. The CAREavan sweepstakes received 10,525 entries and added 767 Hilton HHonors enrollments.

 

best integrated digital campaign, property

The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best integrated digital campaign, property.

The Pfister Hotel engaged social media fans to vote for an artist for the hotel’s annual Artist In Residence (AIR) program, in its fourth year. The hotel created six videos of the finalists and had its internal web team build a custom Facebook page application to cast votes.

The hotel received over 3,500 votes for the AIR finalists through combined digital and traditional methods, over 10,000 visits to the AIR Facebook voting tab and over 1,600 referrals from The Pfister Hotel website. The property saw a 71% increase of its Facebook community talking about our page and a 91% increase in its Facebook community’s virtual reach.

 

best reputation management, brand

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Stamford, Connecticut, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best reputation management, brand.

Starwood established a 29-member team to handle global social media activities related to its brands, hotels and loyalty program. This included monitoring and analysis, conflict resolution, service recovery and reputation management. The goal was to mitigate the risk and opportunity costs associated with not responding or recognizing guest feedback rather than a direct return on investment. The creation of the team included training and collaboration with public relations, marketing, brands and other internal teams to establish clear protocols and escalation paths.

Starwood’s team has had an average response time of under two hours across all major social channels and has seen a 37% increase in positive social sentiment across each of its brands and loyalty program. The number of successfully resolved customer files increased 71% and the number of monthly surprise and delight cases increased 120% since the pilot period.

 

best reputation management, property

Le Méridien Chiang Rai Resort, Thailand, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best reputation management, property.

The hotel instated a policy requiring its general manager to reply to all TripAdvisor comments personally and use TripAdvisor as a platform for receiving feedback with a strict response time of 48 hours for every comment — positive or negative.

As a result, the hotel has held the number one position on TripAdvisor out of 98 hotels in Chiang Rai since February 2011 and recently won the TripAdvisor's 2012 Travelers' Choice Award for the Top 25 Luxury Hotels in Thailand.

 

best Twitter account, brand

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Toronto, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Twitter account, brand.

In addition to engaging customers and followers with content, Fairmont gives exclusive offers via its Twitter account to drive revenue such as Twitter-only rate discounts as low as C$119 (US$118) at hotels like The Fairmont Empress in Victoria, complimentary appetizers and free music downloads. Fairmont partnered with EMI and Random House to offer Twitter followers new books and music. For example, the brand worked with EMI to give 500 fans a free download of Coldplay's song “Paradise.” The purpose is to “surprise and delight” followers to build loyalty and strengthen the idea that Fairmont hotels are places where memorable experiences happen.

Discounted social media rate offers created about US$12,000 in revenue from bookings and added 8,000 new followers in response to the offer.

 

best Twitter account, property

Four Seasons Hotel Austin, Texas, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Twitter account, property.

The hotel’s Twitter account is monitored seven days a week by the in-house social media team, which creates content such as “Concierge Recommends” showcasing events around the city, and behind-the-scenes details about the hotel. The team produces an average of six to seven tweets per day. The hotel also used the account to address concerns or complaints posted via Twitter and leave care packages to Twitter followers staying at the hotel.

The hotel has grown its @FSAustin followers to more than 5,000 in three years, with an 81% upsurge of 2,200 followers from January 2011 to March 2012. The account receives on average 20 to 60 retweets per day and 10 to 40 mentions per day. It maintains a Klout score between 50 and 56 and averages nearly 125,000 weekly impressions.

 

best Twitter promotion, brand

Best Western International, Phoenix, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Twitter promotion, brand.

Best Western hoped to grow its Twitter following by 2,000 and increase engagement levels by sparking travel conversation among friends. “Wanna Go, Wanna Bring” was designed to be an organically shared Twitter promotion that would allow followers to tell friends where they wanted to go on a trip, who they wanted to go with and what they wanted to do after arriving. Participants would tweet the answers to these questions using the promotion’s hashtag, #wannagobw, so other Twitter users would see a common link and join in.

Over 18,000 tweets were written with the #wannagobw hashtag. Best Western’s Twitter following also grew from 14,000 to over 17,000 in less than a month, which exceeded its goal. Previously accumulating about 30-40 new followers each day, average growth during the campaign was over 100 followers daily. Engagement levels increased to the highest levels to date.

 

best Twitter promotion, property

Marquis Los Cabos, Mexico, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best Twitter promotion, property.

The hotel initiated an international tweetup event for Travelers’ Night In (#TNI), which is a Tweetchat of travel experts and avid travelers to create a buzz about the resort and mitigate negative headlines about travel in Mexico. The event was themed as a “Mini-Indulgences” remote #TNI weekend at Marquis Los Cabos, and top Twitter influencers with large followings were invited to give the event maximum credibility. The hotels also secured other luxury brands — such as Hartmann Luggage, Luxury Avenue Los Cabos and Virgin America — as co-sponsors to contribute to added chat content. The hotel formulated 10 #TNI questions for tweeting to travelers around the globe, including asking what their favorite hotel amenity is, the most impressive hotel service and fantasy travel experiences. It also steered #TNI discussions around the topic that Mexico is a safe and family-friendly vacation.

With a budget of US$3,500 for the promotion, the event saw more than 14 million impressions that corresponded to more than 1.4 million unique impressions. Close to 4,500 tweets were sent during the 90-minute event.

 

best use of digital video, brand

ITC Hotels, Gurgaon, India, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best use of digital video, brand.

ITC Hotels introduced a video blog where original videos were filmed and published expressly for the ITC Hotels Lifestyle and Travel blog — WelcomZest Lounge. The high-definition videos were crafted to capture the cuisines, moods and ingredients used by the chefs at ITC Hotels including the kitchens of West View, Pan Asian and Dum Pukht. The goal of the video campaign was to engage food connoisseurs and generate awareness about ITC Hotels’ food and beverage offerings. Each chef’s table video was supported with a blog post with details on the food prepared as well as an exclusive recipe and preparation specifications of the dish being showcased.

Videos were uploaded to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Over 1,300 views on YouTube and numerous comments were received.

 

best use of digital video, property

Trump International Beach Resort – Miami, located in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, won the 2012 Social Hotel Award for best use of digital video, property.

The hotel decided to expand its digital media beyond property tours and began actively listening to guests to create videos that responded to guests’ most favorable experiences, providing insights on how to duplicate them in their own homes such as how to make a kosher cocktail. Prior to the commencement of the digital media program, the resort’s digital media content consisted of Trump Miami property tours and past media coverage. Suggestions and requests made by guests were the main drivers of the digital video campaign.

The property uploaded the content to YouTube and shared the content across social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+. It typically produced one video a month, which averaged 600 views.

 

best use of emerging platforms, brand

Thompson Hotels, New York City, won the Social Hotel Award for best use of emerging platforms, brand.

After noting that photos created the highest levels of engagement on the brand’s Facebook and Twitter pages, Thompson started utilizing Instagram in June 2011. Starting from zero, it aimed to gain an initial 700 users (100 per month) and generate an average engagement of 30 likes per post by the end of 2011. It did so by giving followers intimate looks at Thompson properties with creative photography of hotel-centered content and integrating Instagram content with its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Hotel staff at all eleven Thompson properties took charge of creating content that reflected their hotel and its surroundings. To reach out to potential followers, Thompson frequently searched Thompson-related geotags and hashtags to follow potential fans and then asked to feature their Instagrams in the brand’s #bestofthompson gallery. The brand also covered live events like New York’s CMJ Music and Film Festival in October 2011, using event hashtags and geo-tagging to join the larger conversation.

Thompson exceeded its goal by acquiring 1,018 Instagram followers by the end of 2011, hit an average of 31 likes per photo with comments increasing 71% from July to December 2011, and received media coverage from HotelChatter.com.

 

best use of emerging platforms, property

Four Seasons Hotel Austin, Texas, won the Social Hotel Award for best use of emerging platforms, property.

In January 2012 the hotel established itself on Pinterest. Its in-house marketing team eschewed directly promoting the hotel and instead made a goal of establishing Four Seasons Hotel Austin as a resource for Pinterest users on topics like Austin, weddings, cuisine and luxury travel. It created contests and encouraged repins that linked back to its website.

The hotel’s Pinterest account garnered over 300 followers, with the hotel’s most popular boards — Quintessential Austin, Bucket List Adventures and 2012 Wedding Trends — each boasting over 600 followers. Since January, the hotel’s pins have been re-pinned more than 900 times. The hotel can verify one Four Seasons bride who is planning her wedding with inspiration from the hotel’s “Say I Do” and “2012 Wedding Trends” Pinterest boards.

 

best use of Foursquare, brand

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Stamford, Connecticut, won the Social Hotel Award for best use of Foursquare, brand.

Starwood’s loyalty program, Starwood Preferred Guest, targeted global frequent travelers with a Foursquare integration program to drive enrollment and awareness. The initiative was part of the company’s Starwood Social Currency Platform, launched in May 2011, which aimed to provide a scalable solution for all 1,100+ of our hotels to easily set up location-based offers and reward its loyalty program members. Starwood created a site where members could link their loyalty program and Foursquare accounts to facilitate rewarding designated check-in behaviors on Foursquare check-ins. The company also built a custom back-end platform to connect the Foursquare API to its Starwood Preferred Guest member database in order to fulfill offers within seven days of the Foursquare check-in. The platform also included a central submission form for the hotels, divisions and brands to be able to submit Foursquare offers.

Starwood gained 8,000 new Foursquare followers as a result of the campaign, and monthly Foursquare check-ins across all hotels rose 92%.


 
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