Hotels and the Hospitality industry as a whole has undergone some changes due to the rise and growth of social media. This presentation provides some practical approaches for hoteliers to leverage social media marketing.

1. Social Media Best Practices Nov 2010
Chinese Hospitality Sector

2. Topics
• Fast Facts- SinoTech Group
• Social media matters in hospitality!
• What can hoteliers do to get the most from social
media
• What do we measure? Can social media give me
insights about my property?
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3. SinoTech Group - Fast Facts
• Heritage in software
development
• 95 employees
• Global reach
• Travel & Hospitality
Focused
• Offices in Beijing,
Shanghai & Hong Kong
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4. Consumer Insight
Our research has shown us that
consumers have been inundated with
news and information about hotel
destinations.
Social Media can selectively connect
with travelers and develop emotional
connections with the hotel and hotel
brand.
Further, the strategic embracing of a
social media plan can provide the
hotelier with prompt feedback on the
guests stay; facilitating improved hotel
operations or used to amplify the positive
experiences of the guest.
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5. Online travel in China is big business
• Estimated Online Travel Booking in 2010 is
RMB5.47 Billion ($.75 Billion)
• he number of citizens taking internet as the
T
main channel to get tourism information
accounted for 66.7% of China’s total,
• itizens who have made a hotel reservation by
C
internet amounted to 70.2% of China’s total,
• itizens who have booked air tickets by internet
C
accounted for 70.7% of China’s total,
• itizens who have booked holiday products by
C
internet amounted to 20.3% of China’s total
(Data Center of China Internet, 2010)
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6. And online discussions are very influential
81% check online comments
before purchasing a product.
56.3% of users said that they “got
to know brands” through online
channels.
58.7% actually made purchase
decisions based on user-
generated online info (compared
to only 19% in U.S.).
Even when not making a
purchase, 89.9% of users still pay
attention to online comments.
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7. and…. is growing as an online Influencer
Over the next 2 years Chinese will be significantly more influenced by online
discussions
Source: Forrester Research
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8. Chinese are active content creators… we like to share
Portion of Internet users who have published blogs, web pages, articles, stories,
videos or audio/content on social technologies
Source: Forrester Research
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9. Social Media Marketing
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10. A social media framework for getting started
Identify
Identify audience, set objectives, success
measures and your timeframe
Design
Leverage a social media program that meets your
intended objectives. Remember no one size fits
all in social media.
Execute
Drive engagement through every touch point
Amplify
Stimulate sharing of the experiences (remember to
use video, photos and personal commentary)
Evolve
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Adapt approach based on key learning's

11. A framework will help avoid common pitfalls
• Rush to action without a plan
• Lack of objectives and measurement
• No distribution and content strategy
• Poorly targeted approach
• Limited reach
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12. Identify who you want to reach
• Business travelers (corporate accounts, sales, service professionals, international)
• Leisure travelers
• Travel agents
• Associations, civic groups, conference organizers, event planners
• Influencers: travel magazines, travel sites, travel bloggers
• Competition
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13. Design your program
Your program will be different depending on what you are trying
to achieve. As a hotelier you may want any number of the
following types of outcomes.
• Monitoring customer feedback.
• Channel for response to customer feedback.
• Increase property awareness and brand sentiment
• Manage reputation and identify negative media.
• Medium for suggestions on how to improve customer service
from customers.
• Channel to monitor competitor activities
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14. Execute
Depending on your social media plan you will have
selected a number of channels to develop in order to
reach your desired audience
Make sure you also have a communication plan that
includes the themes and topics for your program
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15. Execute: Developing Fan Pages
Each message from the fan page or group will be delivered to the fans’
homepage. If feeding well, it will build the habits of fans viewing the news about
your brand.
Growing the follows on
your fan page will lead
to greater engagement
Images are
used for higher
impact in social
feeding
Fans also surf other
websites, which will
provide insights on the
target audience and the
related interests
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16. Execute: Promoting the Fan Pages
‘Sharing’ and ‘Liking’ are important indicators for a hotel to understand how feel about
the property
Important for expressing
intent about the hotel
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17. Execution: Micro-blogging Service
Months after Twitter was blocked,
Chinese Twitter clones such as
Fanfou, Digu, Zuosha and Sina
started their own "micro-blogging
service”
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18. Execute: Using Location Based Services
Common Elements
Address/Venue
Check in & Points
Promotion
Friends
Tips & Comments
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19. Execution: rules to remember
 Don’t ignore bad reviews – they are seen by hundreds, even thousands of
people
 Acknowledge the good – respond to positive reviews as well as negative ones.
This shows customers that you care enough to listen to what they are saying
 Be honest – if something needs to be addressed, then admit it and address it
 Be relevant – if someone complains about the quality or service of the
breakfast, don’t talk about new bedspreads
 Don’t blame others – take responsibility and say how you are working to fix it
 Always be courteous
 Welcome guests back to your hotel/brand
 NEVER argue with the customer!
 ALWAYS run a spell check over your response. Responses should look
professional and reflect the amount of time you have put into composing them.
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20. Amplify
delicious - Share your content through
bookmarking. Great way to share with teams
Some sites to help you amplify
Slideshare - Upload your PowerPoint
presentations for all to see. your hotel’s social media
YouTube - The #1 video sharing site. program.
Youku- an alternative to YouTube
Tubemogul - Distribute your video to them and
they'll spread it to other video sharing sites for
you.
StumbleUpon - Randomly generates content for
users by interest area.
Digg.com - Content sharing site (great for tech
and news).
Marketwire/PRWeb - Distribute your content
using social media online news releases.
Scribd - Share original writings with others Tweetdeck- my favorite multipurpose
Flickr - Share/upload/find photos platform for sharing
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21. Evolve
No (successful) social media program
is static and you should consider it
a living program.
Just as you would feed and water a
plant you need to constantly feed
and grow your social media
program.
Leverage your measurement platform
and constantly evaluate what is
working and what is not. This is
about long term engagement
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22. Social Media Analytics
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23. The evolution from listening to understanding
v1.0 Monitoring v2.0 Mining v3.0 Analy3cs
Volume
Word counts/tag cloud Sen4ment Bench Marking
Entry 4meline Topics and themes Scorecards
High‐level topics Key influencers Forecas4ng
Venue analysis Geo ‐ Loca4ons Predic4ng
Influence
Drill‐down to entries
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24. What are the things I should measure
• Analysis of audience feedback
for neutral, positive and
negative attitudes and
emotions (Sentiment)
• Analysis of keywords that
people use to discuss your
hotel
• Analysis of the authors that are
influencing the online
discussions
• Analysis of the social media
sites being used.
• Customer reviews
• Location of the media (where
in the world are they talking
about you)
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25. Automatically understand the sentiment of your hotel
This hotel saw a
number of sentiment
fluctuations around
the time of their new
renovations.
Some of the
underlying comments
related to the noise of
the work and others
about the nicer
environment
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26. Who is saying what & where
Social Channels Authors
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SinoTech Group Confidential

27. Map Overlay
Where are people talking about us ?
The map overlay identifies the location of the media source. The larger the
marker, the greater the number of hotel mentions from this location.
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SinoTech Group Confidential

28. Brand Sentiment Indexing
Chengdu has
the greatest
online brand
sentiment in
China vs.
other Chinese
cities
You can benchmark and trend to
determine where you rank
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29. Dynamic score cards
Score card can give
you a great insight
about your
performance against
your competitors
You need to evaluate your brand position
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30. Consumer Review Analysis
Hoteliers can
simply and
quickly review
what is being
said about their
property (or
that of their
competitors)
You need to listen and understand what is
being said.
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31. Social Media Analytics
SinoBuzz™ is the leading social media analytics platform; a
powerful tool for monitoring and managing online brand,
measuring public awareness, sentiment, influence, and tracing
authoritative sources.
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31

32. What the experts are saying about social media…
“As the online travel market matures, users are no longer content just to find the lowest price
or read destination information written by marketers. Now more sophisticated online users
are looking to take control and identify the perfect trip. Along with the rise in popularity
of social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, and the virtual-reality site
Second Life, the travel industry is spawning a slew of 2.0 websites specifically designed for
travel discussion forums and information exchange …”
David Grossman, Business Traveller columnist, USA Today
___________________________________________________________________
“Lots of brands are finding out the hard way that there are plenty of conversations taking
place about them online. For good or bad. Many brands choose to ignore this. But hope
is not a strategy.”
Paul Dunay, Marketing Profs
___________________________________________________________________
“…mediums like consumer-generated media put customers in the driver’s seat. No longer
can hotel companies expect to just talk to customers; today they must facilitate – and
influence – conversations.”
Karyn Strauss, Senior Editor, Hotels
___________________________________________________________________
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33. My parting thought
“Our research prompted us to develop this
presentation for hoteliers to understand that the
era of social media is upon us and that it is not
coming … but is here.
The choice to participate or not in social media
is still being debated by many hotel groups but
my message to you is don’t wait. This is not a
passing fad and the longer you delay, the
further behind your hotel competitors you fall.
Dr Mathew McDougall
CEO, SinoTech Group
Follow the simple principles outlined in this
presentation, set realistic, measurable goals and
time frames then you will soon be on your
journey”.
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34. Thank you -
Dr Mathew McDougall | @sinotechian
sinotechgroup.com.cn | @sinotechgroup
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