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

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

Wombats Hostel Chain Opens in London

Wombat's launch in London this December with their former Victorian sailor hostel in the city's docks. Formerly known as the Red Ensign Club and home to Joseph Conrad, here's what they say about their new hostel: 

 "wombat’s CITY HOSTELS is now bringing the building back to its original purpose. With ensuite bathrooms, separate ensuite toilets, USB outlets with every bed, huge common areas, a great location, free wifi, etc. you can actually consider this hostel as a luxury hostel" 

http://www.wombats-hostels.com/london/

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!

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

How to Create Great 'Brand Positioning" for your Hostel

What does this mean? Well, your brand is not your product (in this case your hostel) – it is the perception of your product. So, you need to identify how you want people to see your product before you start your marketing campaign. Then you can work out effective and fun ways to achieve this.

The first step to creating your ‘brand positioning’ is to create a ‘Statement’. This means a lot of brainstorming, honesty about what your unique value and proposition are, and get all your team’s ideas together. Put together a list of everything that is important for your business, your team, for you and your customer. Synthesize your results to include everyone’s point of view, give it a couple of days to think about it, then come back and decide your ‘Statement’.

When you have all the information in front of you – it should read like this:
- Your Target Market
- Definition of the market you are in
- Your Brand Promise
- Reason to Believe (RTB) the brand promise

This sounds simple – your market is backpackers, the age range and demographic is mostly open, and you’re offering a place to stay that is hopefully safe, fun, friendly, clean and good value for money. And your reviews, ratings and testimonials on your website and social sites provide the Reason to Believe.

What are you really selling?
You and your competitors are all selling beds – but ultimately, what is the experience you are selling? What do you really offer that is different from other hostels? Is your demographic really ‘everyone’? Who are you targeting? What nationalities are you promoting to? What translations do you have on your website? Do you encourage group bookings? What are you known for? What activities do you offer or can you recommend? You must work out all of these things before you begin to market yourself. Also make sure you identify what you don’t want to be known as – if you’re a party hostel then make sure you tell people if they want to sleep, to stay somewhere else!

Stay focused. The more focused you are, the more individual and distinctive your brand will be.  Try to find your exact section of the market, your promise and one or two reasons why that promise is believable. Remember you are also positioning yourself against competitors, so make sure you have a good understanding of their positioning too.

Product Message
Once you have established your positioning, put together the following, and make sure everyone in your team knows about it:

- Key Statements:  your benefits/unique selling points in a couple of key statements. These will be repeated      like mantras in all your marketing.
- Differentiators:  In marketing speak – what makes you different from the rest?
- Positioning:  Make sure everyone knows what you want to be known as.
- 25 words:  This is one sentence about you that says it all.

Now you have you message and product identified, you can build your brand.

Build your Brand
Now you have created it, you have to make sure you use it. This means keeping your brand identity ‘true’ (don’t stretch your logo!) and populate it across everything from your facebook to your invoices. This should be consistent – you will want it to look professional in everything you do, and to remain clearly identifiable. Read our article on ‘Building your Brand’ to see the checklist of what to do.

Manage your Brand
Once you have decided on your brand positioning, and have begun to build it, make sure you keep it well managed. Your “Reasons to believe” come in here, because your brand makes a ‘promise’ that the experience will be positive, and as you described. If you tell your customers you have an amazing party atmosphere and when they arrive you bar is under refurbishment, they will be disappointed. You need to manage expectations when they differ from your usual promise (such as when you are having renovations done etc.) and if something goes wrong, as it sometimes does, you have to recover your customers’ trust by managing the experience. Things can go wrong and you can still get a good review, but only if you manage it correctly. If you had a bad customer experience with a well known brand, you know they will respond to it immediately and try to gain your brand trust again – usually with discounts, exclusive offers or something free. Decide your standard protocol for dealing with complaints at front desk, online, through social networks, and make sure you send out consistent, positive responses to manage your brand.

Also, don’t forget that managing your brand is also a positive experience, not just crisis management! When you get positive reviews, thank the customer, share it on your website or social channels, and make sure the customer feels it was worth telling people. Good reviews and feedback from happy customers are your best friends, remember 51% of people follow friend’s recommendations when it comes to where to stay.  Your customer will feel more inclined to visit again, recommend you, read your email marketing rather than thinking it’s spam, and remember it as a positive customer experience, even after their visit! This is marketing gold dust, so don’t think the customer experience ends when at check-out. Find out more about Positive PR in our free article online.

Good Luck!

If you have any questions about this article, feel free to contact us at hello@hosteldoctor.com