Skift Take

Lots of innovation in social media going on in hotel industry and lots of cross learnings to be had by highlighting the best.

Hotels have been at the forefront of using social media in the travel industry, in new and creative ways. And Hotels Magazine has come out with its second annual Social Hotels Awards, recognizing the best of these campaigns in 2013. We have extracted the winners, as the best case studies hotel industry can learn from.

Best Digital Video By Brand:
Hampton Hotels, part of Hilton Worldwide.
As part of its “Feel the Hamptonality” campaign, in September 2012 Hampton launched the “Hamptonality Moments” series of videos featuring real stories from guests that were recreated for the series.

Hampton reported three million video views in eight weeks and a 60% increase in Facebook fans since the launch of the campaign.

 

Best Digital Video By Property
JW Marriott Cancun Resort and CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort, Mexico
Five travel video bloggers were selected to travel to Cancun to each produce one original video highlighting the two sister resorts, where they were hosted for five days…vloggers were also asked to post their experiences on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, using the hashtag #gottequila.

The campaign generated media value of $378,280 and reached 1.8 million viewers.

Best Facebook Page By Brand
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Toronto
Four Seasons has refreshed its Facebook page’s tone of voice with a more conversational and personal approach it calls “the voice of the traveler,” which shares inspirational content and highlights one-of-a-kind experiences. Four Seasons employs a corporate social media marketing team of four and a dedicated social media monitoring/guest relations team of two, in addition to more than 80 property-level social media marketers.

Best Facebook Page By Property
W Taipei, Taiwan
W Taipei focuses on contests and posts about cocktails, cuisine, events and celebrities on its Facebook page, emphasizing images instead of text…To build followers, the hotel also tagged certain third-party fan pages, asked other fan pages such as Vogue.com to share information on the hotel and promoted the fan page with $2,000 in Facebook advertisements targeting Hong Kong and Singapore users.

Best Facebook Promotion By Brand
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Toronto

Four Seasons’ “Ignite the Spark” global promotion included an interactive Facebook application available on the brand fan page with localized versions of the app on property fan pages. The Facebook app invited all Facebook users to create their own personalized “countdown to romance” widget by filling in the details of a forthcoming romantic getaway, with the option of selecting their partner’s Facebook profile.

Best Facebook Promotion By Property
Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The “Stealth Stache” contest was created to launch and promote on-property gastropub The Handle Bar…challenged consumers to capture, share and submit photos of their own Stealth Stache (such as putting their finger over their mouth to make a fake moustache) for a chance to win a vacation for two to Four Seasons Jackson Hole.

Screen Shot 2013-10-20 at 2.13.00 PM

 

Best Integrated Digital Campaign By Brand
Hilton Worldwide’s brand DoubleTree by Hilton

The Little Things Project Tour and supporting social media campaign revolved around the message, “At DoubleTree by Hilton, the little things mean everything.” From May 2012 to November 2012 the campaign bridged the digital and physical world with the Swarm Car that asked travelers to send requests to DoubleTree’s Twitter account with the hashtag #LittleThings.

littlethings_FP

 

Best Integrated Digital Campaign By Property
InterContinental New York Barclay and The Terrace Hotel, Perth, Australia

While New York City was being battered by Superstorm Sandy, InterContinental New York Barclay promoted on-property events and posted frequent updates on Facebook and Twitter to increase awareness of the hotel’s positive programs and events for stranded and stressed guests.

Screen Shot 2013-10-20 at 2.20.08 PMIn Nov 2012, The Terrace Hotel held a Social Media Sleepover, hashtagged #SocMedSleepover, which brought together a cross-section of social media influencers to celebrate the launch of a luxury hotel by playing a roleplaying version of the popular Cluedo/Clue board game with 17 guests chosen to attend.

 

Best Use Of Twitter By Brand
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Toronto

Fairmont focuses on adding value for its Twitter followers through special offers and incentives such as an American Express Partnership that offered a free night for cardholders. Twitter followers that interact with Fairmont occasionally receive gifts and giveaways as a reward for following. Fairmont alerts followers to services and amenities as well.

Best Use Of Twitter By Property
Renaissance Blackstone Chicago Hotel

In 2012, the Blackstone was one of Sage Hospitality’s best properties reporting revenue from social media channels with close to US$5,000 from 33 room nights booked with a direct referral from social media.

Best Use Of Visual/Photographic Social Networks By Brand
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Toronto

Four Seasons’ Instagram campaign “Four Seasons Fotog” used the #FSFotog tag to share exclusive of-the-moment and behind-the-scenes photos designed to inspire wanderlust with the goal of building brand awareness and occasionally sharing user-generated content.

Best Use Of Visual/Photographic Social Networks By Property
Hamilton Island, Australia

The private island resort held the “Pilgramers Descend on Hamilton Island — The Ultimate Instameet” event in which Australian and American Instagrammers were hosted for a few days last November. The Instameet produced more than 640 images that reached more than 8 million people through social media, including 815,000 of the property’s direct Instagram followers.

Best Reputation Management: Social Media By Brand
ITC Hotels, Gurgaon, India

ITC Hotels has a real-time recording mechanism and four levels of criticality to classify each comment to ensure the most important ones are addressed first…Over the past year, ITC saw its ratio of positive to negative TripAdvisor reviews improve from 1,032:221 to 1,530:295. On Twitter, 43 negative tweets were resolved into positive tweets from guests.

Best Reputation Management: Social Media By Property
Royal Wing Suites & Spa, Pattaya, Thailand

The hotel’s Internet marketing team monitors reviews with software, summarizes the results and reports them to the hotel’s senior managers, sorting online comments from guests for the department responsible.

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Tags: social media

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