So the hotel you work for has asked you to start a blog, so how do you start? Well that’s easy go to either wordpress, blogger, tumbler, etc and open up an account and blog away.
Well it’s a little bit more complicated than that as
Social Media Guru Brian Solis explains in one of his blog posts,”Think about a blogging strategy. Sit down with the executive and marketing team, including PR and Web. Chart-out an official plan, identify prospective participants and writers, and dedicate time to making it happen! Work with sales and customer service to learn the real pain-points and needs of the market. Capture it, distill it, and publish often. Most importantly, read the comments and interact. It can only help. At the end of the day, any company reaching business customers should take the time to understand how their products and services can help them succeed. Blogging is about embracing this unique technology and strategically and carefully opening up windows to expose the corporate culture. Acquiesce the successes and failures of your corporate evolution, in order to prove that your experience and leadership skills are legitimate, respectable, and most importantly, in line with your customer’s objectives.”
A hotel needs to always keep 3 things in mind when blogging brand-building, keyword-rich and social media-integrated
For example if the brand of your hotel is to be known as expensive and luxurious then make sure all the blogs posts have that air of royalty meaning that the tone must be more formal or sophisticated. Your brand has a lot to do with the type of guest you tend to attract or would like to attract so remember your target audience when blogging, what should the tone be like.
Once all blog contributors understand the hotel’s brand and who it’s target audience is it’s then time to get creative. Running a hotel requires a large community of employees all working together to make sure each guest is satisfied. I’m sure employees have many stories about their interactions with guests so why not blog about them.
Also in a new Survey from Travelzoo found that 64% of people say hotel prices are more important than the destination when choosing holidays. The survey, which examined consumer behaviour, found that most holiday planning was based on price and user reviews.Of those surveyed, 93% compared prices before booking and 81% used hotel review sites.
So maybe instead of writing about destinations or food start including key words like, “deals, discounts, half-price, and contests” into the content of your blogs. Also link those key words to show others what kind of products, events or food they can get for the money they’re spending on the hotel. Not all blogs should be about deals but at least make sure a few posts are about them.
Before starting the blog take a month to train all blog contributors about the hotel, SEO (key words), and the frequency of posting. During that month have a brainstorm about topics, and also have the marketing staff from each of the hotels present so that the contributors know who to ask questions to about events, guests, etc.
After the training the blogger should have an idea what he or she will blog about for the first month and then for the next month both the blogger and the hotel marketer will discuss the topics for the next month.
Remember there are millions of blogs out there so make sure your blog is the one that stands out and clearly states the hotel’s brand!!!
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