How The Hospitality Industry Has Embraced Social Media

With digital marketing taking great leaps and bounds as it has over the past few years, it would be difficult for any hospitality based business to get ahead without the professional services of a social media consultant in South Africa. 

It goes without saying that social media has overtaken all other forms of marketing and while the hospitality industry has always relied very strongly on word of mouth marketing, it still does - except now, that word of mouth marketing is happening online via social media platforms. 

Hospitality businesses should ensure that their marketing staff have sufficient social media training South Africa

Any social media marketing campaign has to be strategically planned and it’s with the help of professional and qualified social media consultants that so many hotels and accommodation establishments in South Africa have been able to engage with their guests on a level that’s rewarding and keeps travelers coming back for more. 

Interesting stats regarding social media and the hospitality industry

Before we take a closer look at how the hospitality industry has truly embraced the advantages of social media marketing, let’s consider the stats that caught the industry’s attention in the first place.

  • 33% of those using social media to book accommodation switched hotels before finalising their trip. This means somewhere along the way, their opinions were changed (According to the 2013 Nielson Survey).
  • 1 in 5 travelers use social media for inspiration (27% for destinations, 23% for hotels, 22% for holiday activities, 21% for attractions, and 17% for restaurants). 
  • Many travelers use Twitter for trip planning (33% access Twitter prior to the trip, 39% access Twitter during the trip, and 20% access Twitter to share feedback on their experience after the trip).
  • 72% of travelers will post information and updates on their holiday while they are experiencing it. This means that the good service has to extend long after the reservatiSocial Media Consultant South Africaon has been made.
  • 51.8% of travelers use a mobile device to finalise travel bookings. This is expected to rise to a whopping 86.4% by 2019! (According to eMarketer Survey)
  • 49% of all hotel searches take place on a mobile phone. (ThinkWithGoogle report).
  • 97% of Millennials share images and video clips of their travel experiences online. 
  • 89% of Millennials plan their travels and activities according to the content that their peers have posted on social media. 

We can thank the Millennials for their impact on the way things are done via social media these days, as they seem to be the driving force towards a more digital based user experience. 

Their objective is to access everything that they need as quickly and conveniently as possible, and to have the best possible travel experiences by relying on the advice and comments (there’s that word of mouth again) posted by their peers and influencers. If your business is to excel in the hospitality industry, it better have a social media strategy in place!

Advice from social media consultants in the hospitality industry

There are a few things to consider when you think about social media. The whole point is to be social, engage with your audience and make them feel like they’re important to you. You need to make it easy for guests to connect with you on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and LinkedIn. 

You need to respond promptly to complaints with sincere solutions (the fastest way to cause an online uproar is to ignore or delete an angry comment or complaint). You should be using social media to provide guests with as much information and tips and possible to make their trip easy to plan. The more information that they can find under one roof, the more likely they are to go ahead with their booking. 

Have conversations online with your guests. Most importantly, you need to know where your patrons are talking about you and where they are spending most of their time gathering travel information. If you don’t know where your guests are spending their time online, you’re going to miss out on many a booking. 

How the hospitality industry already uses social media and how should be doing so too

  • To improve customer relationship management: social media marketing provides measurable results thanks to analytical software. Businesses are able to easily determine which posts and campaigns are most effective, who their real audience is, what they enjoyed about their experience, and what they really want. Social media and the analytics it comes with can be used to really get to know the customer and to give them precisely what they want. 
  • For effective reputation management: hotels and accommodation establishments have to use social media for marketing campaigns as well as addressing issues raised by customers. If a traveler is unhappy with the service or the platform used for making bookings and aren’t assisted promptly and to their satisfaction, they can very easily damage the company’s reputation by sharing their complaints with the online audience on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s important for a business to use the instant communication that social media offers to continuously manage the reputation of the brand and this means handling complaints just as promptly as praise and being as transparent as possible about the process. 
  • To indulge in the sheer magnitude of the reach: by connecting with customers and using their influencers, a business in hospitality can reach a very broad audience in a matter of seconds. By engaging with customers, commenting on travel related content, sharing content and providing content that’s valuable enough to share, a business can reach thousands of people at a fraction of the costs of old or traditional advertising methods.

Social media training South Africa can boost marketing results for the hospitality industry

Working with qualified and experienced social media consultants in South Africa is the best way to tackle the challenges faced in hospitality marketing. With the right training and expertise, these consultants can help a hotel or any other accommodation establishment reach a whole new market. 

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