ocial media has become more than a nice accessory for hotel brands and individual properties looking to engage guests and drive business. More than just producing a “like” or follower, such programs are increasingly becoming revenue generators, or will need to do so in the near term.
With a similar focus on ROI, HOTELS revised its 5th annual Social Hotel Awards judging criteria based on evolving trends in social media and the importance of better proving ROI beyond “likes.” Today we continue presenting the awards with the winners of Best Use of Twitter.
By brand: ITC’s dual-pronged strategy
ITC Hotels has a dual-pronged Twitter strategy. Brand handle @ITCHotels is used to communicate promotions and offers along with holding tweet chats and other engaging campaigns. @ITCHotelsCares serves as a Twitter concierge that addresses guest feedback and queries in near real time. ITC is still working to reduce its average response time and is beginning to track social media handles of guests making reservations to enhance customer engagement.
“Responsiveness is the key for being successful on Twitter,” says Baldev Dhir, head of digital marketing, distribution and brand operations at ITC Hotels. “Real-time engagement and quick resolution of guest queries goes a long way in creating brand loyalists. We have been able to successfully deploy robust process that enable us to track relevant brand conversations and engage with our customers in near real time.”
ITC resolved more than 4,000 queries and enabled 1,334 positive experiences through proactive assistance, all with an average response time in the past year of under 65 minutes.
Runner Up: Rotana Hotels
Celebrating its first birthday in Chicago, Virgin Hotels created a set of videos primarily featured on Twitter using guest reviews from TripAdvisor. The objectives of the campaigns were to animate real reviews from guests who stayed at the property during its inaugural year. Past, current and potential guests have been interacting with the videos by leaving comments and sharing across their own social media pages.
“The success of this campaign ties back to the authenticity and whimsical nature of each video,” says Doug Carrillo, vice president of sales and marketing for Virgin Hotels. “We featured real people and their real reviews—we didn’t manipulate, adjust or change any content. Instead, we gave guests an even bigger platform to share their thoughts. And because of that, the series continues to provide real insight for future and current guests at the hotel.”
Since the video series’ inception, Virgin Hotels Chicago rose to the top 10 ranking on TripAdvisor within the Chicago hotels category. Virgin reports more than 1,400 clicks to VirginHotels.com throughout the month-long campaign, and engagement rates reached 3.8%.
Runner Up: Rosewood Mayakoba