Jul
16
Using social media networks, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter - or even your own blog, is a good way to develop and talk to a community of people (followers) who might buy your products and services one day. You can build a community for your short breaks, a community for your restaurant and you can tell them all about what you're up to and where the great deals are to be had.
A hotel owner contacted me recently, he was quite excited about the possibilities of developing his presence on social media websites. He was all set to reap the benefits of tweeting and blogging. However he wasn't ready for this...
It's not free.
Nor is it instant.
It takes time and effort. Sure, you can automate bits of the process. But someone has to create the content, interact with the community and make it go.
The hotel industry in general made a proper pills of what we now know as "web 1.0", because it failed to understand what was going on until it was too late - the travel agents had grabbed all the high ground.
Let's not make the same mistake with webs 2.0 and whatever follows after that.
You should have seen the look on my man's face when I explained what it would cost to have someone create the content alone. "This is very expensive", he blurted.
"Well, what do you expect to get in return?" I asked.
"A moment ago you had convinced yourself this was going to fill your hotel - did you think you were going to be able to do that for free?"
Social media can be very good for your business. Just remember that word "social" implies that there are people involved and you'll need to reach out to them and interact with them. Reaching out and interacting costs money. Every time. You can have your own staff do it or you can hire someone to do it for you. Either way - it's not free.
A hotel owner contacted me recently, he was quite excited about the possibilities of developing his presence on social media websites. He was all set to reap the benefits of tweeting and blogging. However he wasn't ready for this...
It's not free.
Nor is it instant.
It takes time and effort. Sure, you can automate bits of the process. But someone has to create the content, interact with the community and make it go.
The hotel industry in general made a proper pills of what we now know as "web 1.0", because it failed to understand what was going on until it was too late - the travel agents had grabbed all the high ground.
Let's not make the same mistake with webs 2.0 and whatever follows after that.
You should have seen the look on my man's face when I explained what it would cost to have someone create the content alone. "This is very expensive", he blurted.
"Well, what do you expect to get in return?" I asked.
"A moment ago you had convinced yourself this was going to fill your hotel - did you think you were going to be able to do that for free?"
Social media can be very good for your business. Just remember that word "social" implies that there are people involved and you'll need to reach out to them and interact with them. Reaching out and interacting costs money. Every time. You can have your own staff do it or you can hire someone to do it for you. Either way - it's not free.
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