This document provides an overview of how hotels can effectively use Facebook for marketing purposes. It discusses Facebook user statistics to demonstrate the platform's large user base. It then outlines five different approaches hotels have taken to using Facebook, from using it as an exclusive source of information to integrating it throughout the customer experience. The document also covers best practices for designing brand pages, promoting content, and integrating Facebook with a hotel's website. Finally, it provides examples of creative Facebook strategies used by companies outside the hotel industry.

1. A Hotel’s Guide to Facebook

2. The Facts Behind Facebook

3. The Facts Behind Facebook
Facebook has exploded in popularity past 600 million active users, and shows no signs of
slowing down.
Every 20 minutes:
• More than 1 million links are shared
• More than 1.8 million status updates are made
• More than 2.7 million photos are uploaded
• More than 10 million comments are posted
These other statistics will be of interest to you as well:
•50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The Average user has 130 friends
• Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month

4. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums,
etc.) are shared each month.
• More than 70 translations are available
on the site
• About 70% of Facebook users are
outside the United States
• There are more than 200 million active
users currently accessing Facebook
through their mobile devices
• People that use Facebook on their
mobile devices are twice as active on
Facebook than non-mobile users
From a marketing standpoint, the fact that people share more personal details about their
identity on Facebook than anywhere else offers unique advantages. As brands, we have access to
a depth of demographic information, providing opportunities such as ad campaigns targeted to
employees at selected companies, or specific university graduating classes

5. Different Approaches to Facebook

6. Different Approaches to Facebook
Approach 1: Facebook as an Exclusive Source
Hotel Seven in Paris uses Facebook as the exclusive source of both hotel news and the lowest
available room rate. By focusing attention here, they have attracted an audience of over 12,000
fans: significant for a single property of their size. This is undoubtedly an extreme approach, but
the results are hard to argue with.
If you want to make building your follower numbers on Facebook a priority, think about what
exclusive content you can deliver through this site.
Approach 2: Facebook as a Local Community Hub
Poetʼs Cove Resort & Spa uses Facebook not only to connect with guests, but also to engage with
the local residents of Pender Island, British Columbia. While local residents may not be
interested in staying at your hotel, they could be a valuable source of revenue for your restaurant
or spa. Positioning your property as a local hotspot can be an effective strategy for your Facebook
page.
Approach 3: Facebook as a Local Guide
Distrikt Hotel in New York City uses Facebook to update their community on what is happening in
the city. This is helpful because by becoming a resource for visitors to the city, Distrikt Hotel
increases the likelihood of people passing the page along to others.

7. Approach 4: Facebook as a Sales Tool
The Beacon in South Beach focuses on making sales by creating and promoting a special offer on
their welcome tab: 2 free mojitos and a 15% off discount. As you saw from Hotel Seven,
delivering an exclusive offer is a powerful way to focus attention. This does not have to be just
discounts or coupons. Put together a value-added Facebook package that is compelling and only
available through Facebook. Not only does this draw traffic to the page, but it gives you another
way to measure results. Ecommerce is likely to become an increasingly important part of
Facebook activity, with powerful integrated booking engines now available. We will look at this
topic in more detail later in the guide.
Approach 5: Facebook as a Website
One & Only Palmilla uses advanced design to create an experience like browsing their website.
(This will become easier in the future because of some new changes to the page structure, which
we will discuss later.) Experiment with some of the new Facebook functionality to show beautiful
photography and video to your visitors that attracts them emotionally.

8. Facebook’s New Developments

9. New Developments
Facebook has quickly evolved, rendering many prior marketing tactics obsolete or ineffective.
Here are four of the most important updates:
1.New Page Layout
Facebook released a complete overhaul of the pages system. Among other things, you nowhave
the ability to receive more advanced reporting on your community's activity.
2. Separate Business Profiles
Previously, personal accounts and business profiles were linked, which made engaging in
conversation an awkward mess.
3.Sponsored Stories
Sponsored stories is a new ad format that takes your friends' actions - like checking in to a place -
and turns them into an advertisement.
4.Booking Engine Integration
Recent changes to the Facebook page structure are likely to make ecommerce integration with
embedded booking engines increasingly common. From the time they began working on
Facebook, Starwood Hotels and Resorts has provided booking functionality for all of its brands.

10. Designing your Brand Page

11. Designing Your Brand Page
An Inviting Welcome Tab
A custom welcome tab can serve several purposes:
• Welcome people to the page
• Explain your purpose for the page
• Describe the benefits of your hotel
• Invite visitors to Like the page
Your welcome tab is basically a landing page. Use the same best practices you would use for a
landing page on your website: images that draw people into benefits-oriented copy, with a strong
call to action.
Exclusive Content
Why should someone join your page?
Smart marketers know the best way to drive action is to make perceived value exceed perceived
risk.. Facebook allows you to create hidden content that is only visible when someone becomes a
fan of your page. What incentives could you offer to encourage people to become a fan of your
hotel's Facebook fan page? ……. Inside Access, City Guides, Discounts etc.

12. A Focus on Photos and Video
Referring back to the Seventh Art research study mentioned earlier, photos and video generate
the most engagement from Facebook fans. Facebook is a platform that favours rich media, so
make posting this type of content a priority.
The Feeling of Being an Insider
If someone is engaged with your hotel or brand enough to become a fan on Facebook, then
provide them with a little more insider access. Share upcoming news and announcements with
your Facebook community first. Share the process you go through to create your experience.
Share video interviews with key personnel at your property. For marketing research and
developing new ideas, Facebook can be used to source new concepts and refine existing ones.
This form of crowdsourcing also gives your fans the feeling of being an insider.
An Example of an Engaging Brand Page is Treasure
Island Hotel (Las Vegas):
http://www.facebook.com/TIvegas?sk=app_
230092780361018

13. Integrating Facebook with your Website

14. Integrating Facebook with your Website
What should you do once you have your Facebook page set up? Integrate it with your website.
This is where we see some of the most creative innovation and remarkable results from
companies using Facebook.
Like Buttons
Perhaps one of the simplest integrations, placing a Facebook Like Button on your website allows
people to share that with their friends. It is recommended you add this to your homepage and
select pages on your website that contain the best content.
Like Box
The Facebook Like Box can be placed on any webpage, allowing your visitors to become fans of
your Facebook page without leaving the website.
Social Plugins
It is powerful because you can take advantage of the huge social network that exists on
Facebook, and use it to enhance the web experience you provide.

15. Facebook Promotions

16. Facebook Promotions
There are three primary categories of promotions that can be conducted on Facebook: contests,
advertisements, and deals.
Contests
Contests can be run through your page with no charge from Facebook. Tools like the ones from
Involver and Wildfire make the process easy, and help you navigate Facebookʼs tight policy on
contests. When planning a contest, configure it in a way that attracts the right type of fan for your
page – people who will stay engaged long after the contest is over. If the wrong incentives are
used, you will end up with people who enter just for the chance to win, and then leave the page
after the contest is done.
Advertisements
The power of Facebook advertising is the ability to reach highly targeted segments of people
based on demographic criteria. You can filter the distribution by age, location, gender, hobbies
and interests, employer, and many other criteria. If pay per- click advertising in search engines is
for “what,” on Facebook you are advertising for “who.” The downside is that many people on
Facebook ignore advertisements, so the click through rate can be low. Additionally, it is debated
whether people are looking to make hotel reservations while browsing Facebook. This is
something you need to test and see if it works for you. It could be that the call to action on the
advertisement should be simply to attract people to Like your page.

17. Facebook Promotions
Deals
Facebook is creating pages for each business address in order to give the business an opportunity
to offer deals. When a customer checks into a place on Facebook Places via their mobile
phone, businesses will have the opportunity to offer coupons or discounts to them. While it is
unclear how Facebook Places will fare among their geolocation competitors, this remains an area
to watch and experiment with.

18. Case Studies: Outside Your Industry

19. Volkswagen
Volkswagen created individual pages for each of their vehicles, and then wrapped these up into
one corporate page. One particularly innovative feature they offered was an application that
analysed your profile, taking all the demographic information you posted, and then used that to
recommend a vehicle it believed was best suited to you. What if you created a similar “Hotel
Selector” tool?
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has developed a reputation for running creative photo contests. This works well, since
photos are viewed more often than anything else on Facebook. By encouraging fans to upload
photos of themselves with Coca-Cola cans, hundreds of thousands of potential new fans will be
exposed to the brand as the uploads appear in the news feeds. What photo contests could you
run? Running a contest like this for your hotel can be a powerful way to make the campaign viral.
Red Bull
Red Bull has a solid understanding of their audience, and does a great job of delivering rich media
content that attracts new fans. Look at their creative use of design on the welcome page. As a
hotel, make sure you understand what your audience expects (and wants) you to provide. Use
videos to share interesting content that people will pass along and introduce your brand to
others.

20. Planning Your Facebook Strategy

21. Your Facebook Strategy
1. Decide on your Purpose for Facebook:
• Is it website traffic, community engagement, brand building, or something else?
• What will success look like for you? Will you know once you have reached it? To recognize
success, you must have metrics established
from the beginning.
• What key performance indicators (KPIs) will you be tracking? Number of fans is a starting point,
but also monitor how many people engage with the content you post – clicking the Like button or
leaving a comment. Additionally, some measure that leads back to sales, such as Facebook
website referrals, is helpful.
2. Setup your Page
• Register an account, then fill out your business profile.
• Customize your welcome tab with a graphic that encourages people to interact with the rest of
your page.
• Decide on some exclusive content such as news, inside information,
and special offers that will drive attention to the page.

22. Your Facebook Strategy
3. Establish a Community Management System
• Who will be involved in managing the page? Make sure this person is someone who
understands the brand you are trying to build, and can be trusted with posting content and
interacting with your fans and customers.
• What will be posted? Put together an editorial calendar for the types of content you want to
share through Facebook: news, videos, photos, offers, and contests.
• How often will you post? How often will you check for comments? It is important to publish
consistently, but not too frequently. Once or twice a week is often a good starting point.
• What alerts system will you have in place? Be sure to have a listening tool setup to be aware of
what people are saying about your hotels on Facebook.
4. Integrate with your Web Presence Elsewhere
• Use some form of Facebook website integration as described earlier to expand the awareness
and helpfulness of your Facebook community.