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Social Media is not the way to market your hostel

Internet Marketing

Rucksack Brian started this discussion 12 years 2 weeks ago

There is a lot of emphasis on social media as “THE way” to market to today’s consumer population. Here is a different take. This article says that social media is great when it comes to entertainment and news, but NOT the way to go for the travel industry.

When social media is the answer

Surprise: Travel and shopping aren't social when it comes to buying!

Hospitality and tourism online platforms exhibit an even slighter tendency traffic to follow social media links or links from friends. For example, in the second half of last year, less than 1 percent of visitors reported arriving at hotel or travel booking sites via a social media link or a link shared by a friend. Meanwhile, the fraction of visits prompted by a search engine result or typing the URL ranged between 55 percent and 61 percent.

Data aggregated from a selection of consumer electronics and household retail sites from August 2010 to March 2012 is consistent with the trends seen across automotive and hospitality websites -- an average of 67 percent of visitors reported arriving on the site via search engine or by typing the URL, while the corresponding figure for traffic referred from another site averaged 6.5 percent.

In summary: links from social media don’t drive sales in the travel industry.

Online consumers seem to be making a conscious (or unconscious) decision on how to reach a business based on the nature of the end product and the budget at stake. When it comes to spending money, whether picking a car brand or booking a holiday, consumers seem to be less attuned to "social noise," instead leaning toward informed, personally researched purchase decisions.

People still want to personalize their trip. Even if her friend Billy LOVES a particular hostel, Sara will still want to research the options and choose the best match for her.

So should you ditch all of your efforts on facebook and twitter? No. Use these channels for building loyalty, running promotions and contests, building an image or a brand, and keeping in touch with people who will continue to tell everyone they meet how much they love your hostel. Just don’t expect this to be the key to driving sales.

Instead, the article suggests that you should prioritize your time and online marketing money on your own website where they will give you the most financial return. Focus on:

SEO
Aggressive keyword optimization
A simplified booking process
Offering real-time availability
Prominent on-site promotions and deals

To this I would add:

Put a page with useful information about your area that guests will want to know (things to do, places to go, festivals and events, insider tips, how to get around)
Make your site pleasant to visit (simple layout, subtle colors, pretty pictures, nothing flashing or making noise)
Replace written text with photos whenever possible
Make your Book Now button prominent on every page

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gordo

11 years

THANK YOU!

The problem with social media is that it ISNT a search engine - in order to access a hostels information on FB/Twitter (and seriously, if ANYONE can explain WTF twitter is actually for, I'll buy them a beer. Really. Josh, I'm looking at you) you already need to know about the hostel! NOBODY jumps on FB and searches for hostels or anything they're not already acutely aware of. People 'like' hostels theyve stayed in but certainly not one's theyve never visited. I've never fully understood the emphasis on social media; the VAAAAAST majority of social media users use it to keep up with their friends, nothing more, nothing. WOOO, you have 1000 likes on FB... and? People get their news from news sites, shopping from shopping sites, travel from travel sites and socialise on social media; who'd have thought, eh?. I'm sorry to disparage anyone whos' livelihood depends on internet marketing but the ONLY people I see using FB/Twitter et al for commercial purposes are, oddly enough, internet marketers.

On a slight tangent, the business models of social media sites are built around their ability to conflate the data derived from users likes and surfing habits. Have you ever paid attention to the ads you see on facebook? No (I dont blame you), but start looking. Perhaps its just me but for all the information FB has on me their ability to target ads to my interests its utterly confounding. I get ads, for gays dating, straight strip clubs, used truck sales and skin care. Sure, some of them are in Greek, kudos to FB for looking at my current location.

Yes, these forms of media can be used to keep in touch with guests, build loyalty (arguably less relevant to hostels than most businesses but I digress) and encourage feedback - but in terms of attracting NEW customers/guests??!?!?

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Josh Hostels

11 years

Josh, I'm looking at you

in terms of attracting NEW customers/guests??!?!?

I agree with that to some extent. I'd focus more on business contacts than guests (though wouldn't ignore guests).

I see things a little bit differently than the author of that article. Social media is a helpful part of SEO and PR.

Some of the best marketing is word-of-mouth marketing. If a guest has a really spectacular time at a hostel, they tell all their friends about it, even if most of those people never go to the hostel. Social media is just word-of-mouth on a much bigger scale.

I think that every social network has a different purpose. On Twitter (and Google+), you can chat directly with just about anyone. Do you want to be able to send a personal message to a guidebook writer? Find them on Twitter and/or Google+. It's much easier than trying to meet people through email or other means. Twitter provides an opportunity to get to know people who have media reach like:

journalists
travel guide writers
travel bloggers
tourism agency employees
CEOs and key people at travel companies who might want to develop a business relationship
customer support departments that can't ignore people when public tweets are posted
Mavens (see Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point book, or the summary here)

Also, guests are talking about hostels on Twitter, even while they are inhouse. It's another opportunity to connect with the guests before, during, or after their stays. :)

I think that Facebook pages are a way to remind people that your business exists. Just don't do a lot of self-promotion, but keep it funny. If they click "like" or leave a comment, your posts will start appearing in their feeds. It's basically a spaced repetition reminder for your company's brand name.

For SEO, it appears that Google takes into account things like social media sharing. You can see it if you have personalized results turned on. See the screenshot below, which shows me a list of my Google Plus contacts who liked that website.

There isn't any conclusive proof from this article, but other social media sharing might directly affect rankings. It surely affects rankings indirectly, because if you know more people, more people will link to your website. People who are addicted to Twitter and Google Plus tend to have websites.

Also, if you setup your site to connect with your Google+ profile, you can get your picture in the search results, increasing the number of click throughs. (Screenshot below)

I think that it's true that success depends on "who you know", and websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus are great places to meet well-networked people. :)

Have you ever paid attention to the ads you see on facebook?

It sometimes the advertiser's fault. If they don't target the ads correctly, the ads will show up to people that aren't interested. Facebook doesn't mind when that happens, because they push advertisers to pay per impression, not per click. The more people who see the ad, even if they aren't interested, the more money Facebook makes.

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Josh Hostels

11 years

I think it all boils down to a site's SEO 'authority'. Google uses your site's backlink count (# and quality of linking sites back to yours) as a way to measure your site's 'authority'. 'Authority' is still supposed to be the largest part of ranking well on search engines. Now, your social media 'influence' (things like a Klout score Smile also seem to fit that description of 'authority' perfectly.

Google also has something similar to Klout, referred to in blogs as "Author Rank":
http://www.forbes.com/sites/denispinsky/2012/10/25/author-rank/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-prepare-for-authorrank-and-get-the-jum...
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/author-rank

So what exactly does Author Rank refer to? In essence it means your reputation as a content creator will directly influence your page rank within Google search results. Each content provider will have their work graded, and it’s these grades that Google will use as information about how useful one’s content is within the big Google engine.

Basically, Google is trying to keep track of every content creator by name and then using the author's influence around the Web to modify how their content ranking. Gaining following on social media sites might also affect author rank.

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Francis

11 years

You can see the magical results of gaining more number of Facebook fans by hiring the expert Facebook marketing professionals, as they know how to carry out branding through this social media site in a better way.

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CJ2418

9 years

Great Post!
Social media is really trending right now especially to the young people

Please be with us buy youtube subscribers

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