Facebook Alive and Well for Hoteliers

“Facebook is still the main platform that we use to engage with our audience,” said Nancy Deck, VP of marketing for full-service brands at Hilton Worldwide. “We have actually continued to see steady growth for DoubleTree by Hilton on the site.”

“Facebook is a very important channel still,” said Felicia Yukich, social media and marketing manager for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. “But it’s very important to be in all channels. The people who will win are those who are integrating these channels together.”

According to data from social media monitoring company Socialbakers, the number of monthly U.S. Facebook users fell by nearly 1.4 million in early December of last year. But the platform is still growing, just at a slower pace, said Douglas Quinby, principal analyst at PhoCusWright.

Rather than labeling Facebook’s slowed growth as a sign of fatigue, Maria Miranda, creative director at Miranda Creative, said the platform is behaving much like any other media: It’s maturing.

“(We’re) not seeing ramp-up growth like the second half of the last decade,” Quinby said. “What we are seeing now is a platform that is becoming mature and sophisticated, and the users (are becoming sophisticated too).”

The more sophisticated social media user is increasingly vocal on review sites as well, which can either help or hurt a hotel. On TripAdvisor, monthly users who sign in with Facebook have 27% higher engagement on TripAdvisor and contribute more than one in three new reviews, according to a news release. TripAdvisor sees 39 million monthly active Facebook visitors to its Facebook app, and its users have published more than 1 billion Open Graph stories since integrating with Facebook.

Why the slowdown?
Users are leveling off in the U.S. for reasons including the addition of advertising, other social media platforms, privacy issues and employer issues, sources said.

To combat Facebook’s slowdown, hoteliers are reevaluating their Facebook strategies by integrating other platforms, specifically Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, into the social media site.

For example, Four Seasons launched a top “pin” of the week campaign on Facebook. On Instagram, the brand has weekly themes for followers to participate in like #FSFotogFireworks, which allowed users to hashtag their photos during the Fourth of July.

“As more channels come into our portfolio, we just need to spread our resources,” Yukich said. “It means we don’t put all our eggs in one basket.” Hoteliers who are experiencing a significant drop off of Facebook users most likely put all their eggs in that basket, she added.

“Anyone who adopted a pure-play media approach to Facebook, they’re not going to see the (return on investment),” Yukich said. “People think of (the value of a fan) from a dollar amount, but we see it as an opportunity to have a meaningful Four Seasons experience with them. It’s a pretty high price tag to have a travel experience, so the ROI on converting someone to booking is rather high.”

DoubleTree by Hilton is seeing the most success with YouTube, Deck said. The brand launched the DTour site, a YouTube channel for the hotel industry created in partnership with Google to offer travelers a new way to plan and share their trips.

“The platform uses a technology that integrates all major social media networks in one place, making it easy for consumers to share their memorable moments from their own travels, whether it’s a photo snapped on Instagram or a video uploaded to Facebook,” Deck said.

Since going live on 1 May, the DTour site has received over 3.5 million video views totaling more than 2.2 million minutes of video watched, according to Deck.

“The time people are spending on the site, and the videos being watched, show us that video in travel is definitely a key piece of what we do moving forward,” Deck said.

Yukich has also seen increased interest on visual platforms, which is one reason Four Seasons recently began engaging with guests on Vine, Twitter’s six-second video-sharing app that has gained traction in the last few months.

“When we started seeing guests posting Vines at our properties it took days for us to have a Vine,” Yukich said, adding that she doesn’t know any other hotel brand that has established themselves on the platform yet.