Social media platforms such as Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube have transformed marketing possibilities for the hotel industry, providing new and unprecedented opportunities to communicate with potential guests and clients. 

 

In these testing times for Ireland’s hotel industry, making your hotel brand stand out presents enormous challenges, given high level of competition, price sensitivity of hotel rooms bookings and an excess capacity of 10,000 rooms, built during the boom. Buying an impactful advertising campaign is out of reach for most.  Social media provides an alternative and cost effective way of initiating conversations about your brand, creating new advocates, securing new visitors and keeping in touch with clients.

 

Business travellers are amongst the highest users of mobile and social media applications are integral part of communication; from taking care of personal items, exploring the local area and connecting with friends and family.

 

Social media is a ‘must-have’ in any strategic brand PR programme and has been proven to boost business, reach influencers and impact on the bottom line. Those hotels that ignore social media stand do so at their peril and risk becoming irrelevant.

 

 Here are 5 things that social media can do for hotel brands:

  

1.    communicate at point-of-need and create new business

2.    reinforce your brand message and help it go viral

3.    project and communicate your hotel brand’s personality

4.    real-time, two-way communication

5.    improve your online reputation

 

 

 

Nothing has been more radically transformative for brand or corporate communications than social media. The early adopters, tech-savvy teens quickly embraced pioneering social networks like Bebo, Friends Reunited and My Space.  In hot pursuit, they were followed by the critics, the content creators and the collectors.  As tech native PR colleagues and younger friends ventured into cyberspace, those of us who sat firmly in the spectator’s camp, watched on dubiously, believing it to be a fad.  How wrong we were.  

The scarifying pace of social media’s march from niche to mainstream has brought about a seismic change in the media landscape.  Social media is not a fad; it’s a paradigm shift in communication that’s happening right under our nose.  It is both simple and accessible and with each passing day it soars, becoming more dynamic, more diverse and ever more compelling for PR practitioners.  Facebook now has almost 1.5 million Irish users, more than half of whom are active on a daily basis. More than 150,000 Irish people Tweet and LinkedIn has networked 25,000 Irish professionals.  Ireland, while slower to catch on, not aided by our dire broadband access has entered a new phase in communications.  Your boss is on Facebook, our Politicians are on Twitter and your younger sister is a Facebook celebrity. 

 

Given social media’s potent ability to replace corporate or brand monologue with a true dialogue, its’ cross divisional application from HR to PR from customer service to new product development, combined with its’ relative low cost application, it is surprising that Irish business still has not fully embraced social media.  Only 15% of Irish SMEs have a company Facebook page. Only 25% of business people belong to a business/professional social media site and only 10% have a Twitter account.  Adoption rates by Irish business hinge on corporate culture and market sector – and have been hap hazard - some are doing it well, others have tried it, or are trying it. 

 

So what are the essential tips for successful integration of social media into your communications strategy?

 

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1.    Firstly create a social media strategy.  To be used effectively it should be aligned firstly with your broader business plan and then within the overall communications strategy and plan.  Define success metrics and measurement. A good social media strategy should work to demonstrably increase relevance of a brand, corporate or service amongst its different stakeholder constituencies.

 

2.    Social media requires internal stakeholder buy in. It needs visible championing by senior leadership too and prioritising and positioning across all functional departments and business pillars in order to achieve long term success and real stakeholder engagement.  It also needs corporate staff policies, guidelines, training and education too.

 

3.    Being savvy at social media requires ongoing monitoring and research.  Tap into and watch out for emerging trends.  Research widely and deeply and locate where influential dialogues for your brand or company and plug in them.  Social media tools change quickly too, so your strategy should allow for ongoing refinement.  Once you have embarked on rolling out your social media plan, actively listen and observe closely for favourable, negative and neutral commentary too as well as tracking trends in responses. 

 

4.    Content really is king and relevance of content is key too.  Your content needs to be interesting to secure attention.  Random chatter is not as effective as strategic and focused communication.  So make sure you have something to say and say it often. Create a social media persona for your brand or company that’s credible and authentic and builds affinity and trust. Language and tone are important here too.  Stay focused - dialogue should reinforce organisational goals and objectives.  Be patient - it’s about creating affinities first and selling second.     

 

5.    Strategic visibility.  Be visible.  Create your social media business platforms.  You don’t have to be everywhere to have presence, just in the social media sites that are relevant to you business, brand or services.  Social media is far more than Face book, blogs or twitters so really research to find the right podiums for your business.

 

 

Firstly there were boutique retailers, then boutique hotels and boutique banks and then along came a new wave of boutique PR and ad agencies.

So what is a boutique PR consultancy and what distinguishes a boutique PR firm’s proposition from the larger and smaller PR companies?  There are a number of features that give boutique PR consultancies a strong competitive advantage over their peers.  First and foremost, a good boutique PR consultancy’s most compelling point of difference is that they will typically combine the best from both the large and the small PR consultancy.  The founders will be highly experienced and will often have worked in the larger agency environment where they will have held senior roles.  They will therefore have demonstrable experience, industry insights and the best practice methodologies found in larger PR firms, along with the strong creative ethos, the client servicing excellence and entrepreneurial approach found in a smaller PR firm. 

The founders will be the day to day contact for clients and will be fully actively immersed and hands-on with every client’s business.  While they may have experience of working in several different industry sectors, they will bring a strong track record, expertise and focus in one or more industry sectors.  The boutique PR consultancy will also bring strong skills in core PR practice areas such as media relations, new product launches or event management. 

Boutique PR firms are generally more cost effective.  Unencumbered by the overheads of a larger consultancy, they are able to charge retainers, hourly or daily fee rates at more competitive rates than the bigger international network players and yet they add more value than a niche PR operator. 

Another area that often sets a boutique operator apart is their media relations skills.  Being hands-on, they're in touch with the media on a daily basis. They will know the sector media, the industry, the competition and the marketplace and the key industry influencers intimately. 

Five Reasons to Choose a Boutique PR Consultancy:

1. Greater access to expert and senior PR advice – each client gets regular access to senior consultancy advice and industry expertise. 

 

2. Great client servicing– the boutique PR consultancy’s founders will be the account manager/director for every client, thus creating strong client and consultancy relationships.  

 

3. More cost effective – because they carry less overhead, they can charge more reasonable and competitive fee rates and represent excellence value for PR investment.

 

4. More responsive and flexible – the boutique PR consultancy can quickly scale up with additional resource depending on a client’s requirements. 

 

5. More passionate about delivering results for a client – each client really matters and like the smaller PR firms, they are prepared to go the extra distance to exceed client’s expectations.