Tips on Using Facebook for Hotels

By James E Toms

Facebook is a hugely successful social network that was started in 2004 by the current chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. The service was originally created to allow college students at Harvard University to communicate - the concept quickly expanded to other educational establishments before finally being opened up to the rest of the world. Since then, Facebook has gone from strength to strength and now boasts over 500 million active users with at least half of these using the service at least once a day.

Facebook's incredible growth has not been without controversy. In July of this year 100m Facebook users detailed were leaked online causing a mass of publicity over concerns of both the security and privacy of data with fears that Facebook was not doing enough to protect it's users personal information.

Despite a large amount of negative publicity surrounding Facebook, it's cult status has been sealed alongside Google as one of most powerful internet companies in the world.

Facebook's worldwide success and universal appeal has made it a prime target for hotel brands wanting to gain visibility in front of users of the service and now many of the world's top hotel brands have an active presence on the website.

Facebook has established itself as one of the leading online channels for brands to interact with consumers and it is important that your brand has a strategy in place to ensure that you are not missing out on the promotional benefits offered by the service.

How Are Hotels Using Facebook

Much like Twitter, Facebook should be considered as an extension to your existing customer service and communication functions rather than an outright sales channel. That being said, many hotels are using it as just that. Here are eight ways that hotel brands are using Facebook: 

• To promote special offers
• To promote special rates for Facebook "fans"
• As part of a competition
• To promote a portfolio of properties
• For Surveys
• To promote events
• To enable bookings
• To promote latest news

Recommended actions for using Facebook 

• Sign up to a Facebook account using your own contact details (these won't appear on the main brand page).
• Create a "page"; this will be the main point of contact with users wishing to interact with your brand.
• Brand the page using your hotels imagery, logos and colours, in its simplest form this may just involve uploading a logo to the page.
• Once your profile is set up, branded and ready to be made available to potential customers, ensure that the Facebook profile is integrated, where possible with other communication channels, this includes links on your website, email newsletters and your email signature.
• If you have a Twitter account, this can be linked with your Facebook page enabling anything posted on your Facebook account to be instantly available on your Twitter account.
• If you run any events at the hotel ensure these are added to your Facebook page under the events calendar found under the "edit page tab".

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