Advertising on Facebook

Do you advertise on Facebook? Who and, more importantly, where, are your market?

According to the latest article from Mashable this makes a difference

http://mashable.com/2015/06/10/facebook-creative-accelerator/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-socmed-link

Copenhagen Downtown Launches New Bar and Creative Space

Launch of ‘Copenhagen Down Under’


Copenhagen Downtown is pleased to announce they are expanding their award-winning hostel. The number one hostel in Denmark and Europe’s Famous Hostel member is about to increase its current offering with a 300m2 new bar, Copenhagen Down Under.

Firmly on the backpacker map as the place to go, the new Copenhagen Down Under bar will provide a unique new space that will be a curious and authentic ‘must go’ experience for backpackers. This underground creative space will provide an atmosphere to stimulate and excite. The concept is to create a place for new experiences – exchanges, ideas, with the influence and creative input of travelers from more than 80 countries.

The new Copenhagen Down Under space is in addition to the existing lively bar and chill out area, taking the total space to 600msq; the largest in any hostel in Copenhagen. This means even more room for guests and locals to experience something unique to this hostel. It will have dedicated space for live music, pool tables, a lounge area and a 12m long bar, one of the longest in Copenhagen.

Excited about the 1^st May 2015 opening night party, featuring free champagne, live music, djs and more, Bar & Events Manager Luca Marson said “This will be a unique space showcasing upcoming talent with live bands, DJs and performance artists. It will be something very different to other places in Copenhagen, and the opening party will be a night to remember.”

The concept of the new exciting space has been created by Danish design gurus ArtRebels together with architects SpaceLab. Both companies have provided concepts for the look and design of the hostel space so expect more cool Scandinavian design but with an underground influence.

To find out more about the hostel or awards see www.copenhagendowntown.com

Facebook 'Likes' no longer offer organic reach

As Facebook 'likes' no longer offer businesses any organic reach, what do you need to do to market your business? The first answer is have a budget in place for strategic Facebook advertising...
This interesting article from Marketing Interactive looks at the options for marketeers and businesses and includes 5 key points.
"Ever since Facebook went public, it has made its stance clear about the saturation of the organic reach of branded content through Facebook pages." http://www.marketing-interactive.com/fbs-organic-reach-whats-strategy-now/ #facebook #smm #socialmedia #marketing

Fake Accounts on Facebook

With so many of Facebook's profiles being fake, how many are real 'likes'?

Well this infographic from Joyoftech.com might help explain!

Make sure you target the right audience with your posts and campaigns and beware of those fake accounts!

Top 5 Tips for Marketing with Facebook

Having trouble attracting the right audience on Facebook? Try these 5 tips to help market your business

Facebook is moving towards just being an advertising tool, and as such they're developing functions and models that help marketeers. Here are some of the ways to maximise your Facebook marketing.


1. Make a New Product and Boost it Announcement

Despite all the fake accounts on Facebook - boosting posts is still relatively effective as you will stay in the Newsfeed for longer. Use this for announcements, not advertisements - by keeping it to news you don't turn people off.


2. Make use of Your Newsfeed

How often do you look at pages? Most people on Facebook interact via the newsfeed - this is where the shares and likes are won from. Avoid writing updates that require people to go to your page and leave the newsfeed, such as entering a competition. Try using ActionSprout to allow someone to sign, join, enter from the newsfeed itself.

3. Customise your Marketing to your Audience

You can target your marketing on Facebook and reach specific fans. One such tip is using the 'Custom Audience' option, especially if you post in multiple languages. You can also customise it to people who have visited your website, so know your users and set a different marketing message for them. Essentially you're getting to know your market better and targeting them based on what they are looking at.


4. Don't Run the Same Adverts

To make the most of your advertising efforts and maximise your budget - run a trial of adverts and use different keywords for each. Use only a small portion of your budget and find out which adverts have the best engagement. It may sound a hit and miss way to find your return on investment, but split testing gives the best results to find exactly what segments of the market your reaching and with which keywords.


5. Use Audience Insights

These measuring functions are there to help you and should be used! Take advantage of the insights and check when your users are most active - times of day, where and what they're looking at. This should make you better equipped to target your audience so use this as a tool and engage with them.


For more suggestions on how to market your business check out www.hosteldoctor.com

How to deal with negative reviews

Top 5 tips on how to deal with negative reviews from customers and turn them to your advantage.

1. Don’t ignore them! Internet use now means that everyone has an opportunity to post about their experiences as customers, but it also provides a platform to answer these posts and create a meaningful response. Use this to your advantage to turn negative reviews around and show that you value their opinion.

2. See negative comments as constructive feedback on your business. There are always going to be customers who complain for the sake of it, but there will also be valid comments about how to improve your business. Take the comments on board about what experience your hostel offers your customers, and make changes based on this.

3. Thank customers for their feedback – good and bad. By acknowledging and improving on any problems you can create a better experience for the next customers walking through your door.

4. Be polite and professional. Not all reviews will be either of these but your replies are there for all potential customers to see, so keep your tone professional and explain any questions or issues raised and what you can do to avoid these problems occurring in the future.

5. Admit when you are wrong. Things go wrong in any business, but it’s best to acknowledge this, apologise, and move on. Some customers may pursue a refund or discount, but most will just want to know that you have heard their complaint and will be taking steps to avoid these issues in the future.

Make sure you regularly check all platforms for feedback and comments – whether it’s tripadvisor or hashtags of your hostel. Many people use social media platforms to voice their experiences so check your channels are up to date and respond to messages accordingly. There will also be mentions in blogs and other forums, so make sure you have Google Alerts set up (it’s free) and can monitor any posts about you. Remember that your customer’s experience of your hostel doesn’t end when they check out!

Top 5 Tips for Branding your new Twitter profile

Top 5 Tips for branding on Twitter's new Profile

Twitter's much hyped new desktop look has arrived, and with it, the expected shift to more visuals and the opportunity for better branding exposure. For those not already using the new design, all profiles will be switched by May 28th. This new look profile means companies can take advantage of the prime real estate with increased corporate messaging and imagery, creating a more dynamic profile. Follow our top tips on how to make the most of your new profile.


1.The cover photo and profile picture

The new increase visual look includes a big header image, similar to Facebook, but so far without the rules on promotions. Not only can you update this with relevant brand messages, it also doesn't have to be one image with the opportunity to create a collage of images within the 1500x500 pixels dimensions. Make sure you are able to tell the story of your brand with this visual marketing space, and keep your cover image fresh. Also make sure your increased profile picture size is updated with a 400x400 pix image.


2.Using Multimedia

The increased prominence of multimedia tweets (and on the left side and right side of your profile page) means you can manipulate your tweets to stand out more in the feed. Use the opportunity for presenting photos, promotions and video messaging also, especially useful for blogs and articles. Beware that everyone else will be doing this so quality images and messaging only - if you flood your followers' news feed with branding messages it's likely to encourage them to unfollow you.


3. Pinning and prominence

With your column of tweets now comprising 50% of your page width, there is still the emphasis on your actually tweets. Still limited to 140 characters, the type is now double the font size, so can you get your message across visually while keeping it short. You can also now 'pin to the top', as with other social sites, meaning you can chose your most important branding message to stay at the top of your profile. When thinking about which one to use here - you can also chose a tweet that received a lot of engagement, even if it's an old one, or chose to swap it with another message as it starts to lose engagement. The sizing of favourited or retweeted tweets means that your page will 'shout' out the messages that have received the most engagement, so check through that existing ones are the ones you want to stand out.


4. Your 'Favourites' and 'Lists'

This function has been used to date in various ways - some people use it to bookmark or archive articles or tweets of interest to read later, others favourite to show appreciation or thank for retweets. Now the 'favourite' option is publicly displayed, so others can check through what you've favourited. You might want to check that these are all on-brand and nothing is there that shouldn't be. 'Lists' are also more  prominent, so check the lists you have, and the lists your featured on.


5. Who you follow

Twitter now adds who you've followed recently through your profile page feed, so check who you've added recently as it's now part of your public profile. As with all online profiles, make sure you regularly check through what is publicly visible and that your brand messaging is clear.

Will more changes take place? With Twitter rapidly losing share value and posting huge losses this April, watch this space.

If you would like to more about social media, check out our website at www.hosteldoctor.com

Social Media Marketing Tips for Hostels

Research shows that 51% of people are likely to book somewhere their friends have enjoyed. And the place they talk about this? Social networks.  Don’t underestimate how important your reputation online is – so follow our tips to keep your hostel profile healthy!

Make sure you use platforms that connect with your market and brand. A facebook page and Twitter feed are great multimedia platforms for interacting with your potential customers visually and creating shares. Facebook visitors spend an average of 20 minutes online each day, and Instagram users spend twice as much time as those on Twitter. Google offers great search and has a range of applications from Maps to Google +



Synchronise
Don’t become overwhelmed - you can synchronise most accounts and focus on your quality of content not just posting to keep up. Creating a schedule is helpful if you have events to promote and showcase.

Interact
Social networks are about being social, and everyone can see them. Interact with your users, connect with potential customers, respond to requests and posts, if someone asks for advice on your page, don’t ignore it!

Keep if fresh
Keep your page exciting and engaging. Use social networks for promotions, news and events. Post pictures and videos that are relevant to your hostel, ultimately you want people to share your posts. Don’t post every day, post when you have something to say.

Use Multimedia
Your post is 39% more likely to engage users if it’s visual, so make the most of showcasing your product with photos and videos. Adding your name to your photos will promote you when shared too.

Check out our blog for advice on Facebook shares, how to use Pinterest, Google+ and top tips for Instagram and Twitter.

DOs & DON'Ts for SEO marketing

Search Engine Optimisation is maximising your webpage to achieve higher recognition and listing on search engines through natural (unpaid) search. You should be taking into account all major search engines but Google has a 65% market share globally. If you’re marketing to Asia then there are differences; for instance Google only has a 17% share in China with Baidu having an 80% market share, so do your research on local trends.

Do use meta descriptions, keywords and tags
Use a few concise meta descriptions, tags and keyword for your pages- then repeat them in your content. Don’t use too many – this counts for all search engines. If you have Chinese translation pages, Baidu has a website tool that tells you trending keywords so you can include these in your descriptions to maximise exposure – but you must use keywords relevant to your page. Try to register with search directories – some take a while and some (Yahoo) you can pay for, but they will immediately improve your ranking.

Don’t use ‘black hat’ tactics
If you stuff website with irrelevant keywords, cloak them, and add links to spam sites - Google will punish you. You are also preventing people from finding the relevant material they are searching for. You can even be removed from searches for this, so keep your content relevant and true – you will attract less visitors; but the right visitors. This goes for Social Media too – don’t buy likes, it won’t increase your bookings.

Do Optimise
Add ‘alt’ tags and a title for your images so they load faster, reduce them in file size so they are optimised for the space, and keep your page sizes under 100kb throughout the site – search speed has been incorporated into ranking for search results. Make sure you have a ‘contact us’ page and site maps for both users and search engines.

Do write great content
Despite many changes to Google with the latest algorithm - Hummingbird, overall content is still the most important factor for search. Big changes were made to keyword searches which anyone using Google Analytics will be aware of, but the purpose is to value the content of the whole site for relevance, and provide better search results for users. Focus on useful content for your users – tourist information, places to see, places to go, and information on your hostel. If your bounce rate is high, your content is not that relevant.

Don’t forget your key business
Yes, you need good content on your areas and activities for guests, but your website should be a booking tool and point of information about your hostel primarily. The rest of the information is great, but secondary. Make sure you are marketing yourself as a great place to stay and have an intuitive site that leads to booking. You want people to read about you, book and share positive reviews. Make sure your social pages all use your url also, it’s better for your brand and counts on search too.

Hostel Health Tip
Beware that on China’s Baidu search – Flash and JavaScript don’t work!

To find out more about changes to Google search with Hummingbird
see our blog article HERE.

How to Get More Facebook Shares - by Mari Smith

Mari Smith is an excellent Marketeer who created a great infographic to help you get more 'shares' on facebook.  Follow the advice below and you can't go wrong!

14 ways to get more facebook shares

Is Google+ the Best Discussion Forum?

Google+ is trying hard to be what all forums (back when the internet was invented) have always hoped to be. Relevant. Forums and chat rooms have been around in one way or another since the internet was invented, but so has spam and an overwhelming amount of irrelevant material from prolific users and sharers. The idea behind forums being to share relevant information and start topical discussions has taken a backseat for years.

Overwhelmed with sales pitches and dancing animals? LOL? With so many different mediums now, it's almost impossible to know where to make your posts and read other people's posts, let alone get genuine advice. The biggest sites, such as facebook groups and LinkedIn face constant spam postings and self-promotion instead of being used as a tool for discussions. And for asking questions or seeking genuine advice, you will certainly receive replies that sell you something. I know that my inbox has become full of updates that aren't relevant to me. Is this perhaps where Google+ can step in?

Being the behemoth company they are and ranked #1 in the world, Google had an obligation to create something to challenge or better the existing forums out there. Google+, Google Circles, Google Hangouts, Google Talk, Google+ Communities - what is it all about?!
Well Google+ allows you to create a topic or community or discussion, and talk about it - the same as the other platforms. You can follow what you like, join in what you like, and see a whole host of recommendations for you. You can also have private and two-way conversations as it incorporates Google Talk network directly, as does Gmail. You can also use its instant messaging function, or one of the many IM third party services out there, such as Pidgin. If you want to interact by video or watch youtube clips as a group, then you can use Google hangout. This is essentially a chat session for up to 10 people, with the usual requirements of a webcam and microphone. To be used with select circles or users even.

Google+ Communities focuses on just that, the community. So instead of a category for film that includes documentaries and horror, it's broken down further to find what is relevant to you. You have the ability to create Categories within your Communities (but the Community itself has an owner), so you can drill down to issues that you're interested in, and avoid irrelevant material (and perhaps even less spam due to the 'moderator' function). Being Google there is high tech monitoring taking place, and repetitive content and multiple posts are weeded out and deleted, so this should keep your Community as spam free as possible - better for user experience. Then there is even a community for moderators, a group if you will, to report back on issues. This sounds like prefects in school, but if there are people willing to monitor and keep clean the Communities, then it should work.
Where facebook and LinkedIn groups fall down is control of the groups postings. The are also generic postings that discourage other members from joining discussions as they're not focused enough to engage people. The online community welcomes new platforms, and Google has recognised and embraced this. With millions of users and the easiest member engagement, could Google+ create value in forums rather than playing the numbers game? It's for the user to decide.

Do you use Google+? Do you find it a happier place to avoid spam and interact?
Let us know your thoughts! hello@hosteldoctor.com