Luxury hotels and resorts seem to be a little slow and pokey to embrace social, and sometimes it’s hard to get them in a groove as a client. I wanted to showcase a luxury resort we are not affiliate with, and hopefully inspire your team to get caught up. What I liked about the Miramonte, besides its location and amenities, was it’s social media efforts on a plethora of social platforms. I also wanted to get across that not everything needs to be viral or link bait, but just solid content that gets your message across. Hopefully the folks who run the Miramonte don’t mind me using them as an example, but I couldn’t resist as they’re doing a damn fine job.
When you’re a luxury resort of sorts, you’re already a sought after experience that hopefully alone is enough to get a viral effect going. Strutting your stuff across a few of the top social media platforms should be a kick start to an easy social marketing campaign. Your pictures, HD video, deals and celebrity visits are all bases you should have covered. The Miramonte has a great thing going on with their social media efforts, and while it may not be of rock star status yet, they’re heading down the right path. Let’s take a look at just some of the efforts that are driving them businesses through social interaction.
The Blog:
Of course a good blog is in order and the Miramonte is doing an ok job on their blog. While I think a good dosing of images and video could be added to make it more vibrant, they’re getting in solid content for the search spiders. It seems their Facebook Page is getting all the pictures, videos and social interaction and that’s a trend we’ll see more of down the road. We all know more people spend their time on Facebook than any other site, so this may be a sign of the times for blogs (in certain industries).
What they do different than almost all other resorts we’ve seen or worked on is offer people to guest blog. This was a nifty feature to have found and I think it’s a brilliant step to better selling their service. Just imagine your blog getting free great content from the people who pay to stay…just awesome!
Youtube:
Just about any luxury resort is worthy of video marketing mainly because each place is usually stunning. The Miramonte has a crazy nice location just two hours outside of LA, and they took advantage of this with a great mini video. You’ll see below that it’s nothing crazy, just shows off what they’re all about and even some summer deals. This kind of video marketing should lead to a lot of sales if they keep it up! This one was done by Point 7 West.
Twitter:
A lot of people struggle with Twitter, especially if they don’t have a dedicated marketing team. I can see how people don’t get involved, but in the hotel world that can be a huge mistake. The more social you can be the better off your business will be as well. The folks at the Miramonte have definitely been active here and what I liked especially about their Twitter stream was the direct interaction. Most companies just stick to tweeting their latest blog post or a deal, both of which there is nothing wrong with, just don’t make this your bread and Twitter butter.
Twitter is a great way to bridge the gap with your customers, both potential and past. It’s also a great way to get people to return by constantly being in their brain. We’ve even had a lot of success by firing off special deals and coupons to individual Twitter users…and it bloody works!
Facebook:
I really really liked what they’re doing with their Facebook Page. It goes beyond the normal wall posts and they seem to be really embracing a lot of features. You’ll see from my amazing Photoshop skills on all the features they’re taking advantage of(such as Reviews, Book a room, Youtube, Photos, Blog, Active Wall). This is all really good stuff and this is an area I want our hotel clients to take note of, as well all you hoteliers reading this post.
Since I’ve never been in contact with them I have no idea how that Book A Room feature is working for them from the Facebook Page. I can safely say that not including this feature will leave you at a loss, even if you only make one sale a month. From what we’ve seen on our end with other clients, the direct social contact through Facebook leads to a way higher conversion rate.
Foursquare:
Last but not least on the list to mention is Foursquare, and I honestly didn’t expect to see the Miramonte so active on here. Bravo! Their hip clients are checking in at a very good rate here and that’s all you can really hope for. If I were to offer any advice here it would be to jump on the mayor deal marketing opportunity. Besides that you can get a link from your venue page so why not utilize that and add a little more diversity to that link profile?
Foursquare doesn’t take much effort and if your mayor deal is attractive enough, you can pretty much set it and forget it. Make sure you befriend people who check in as well which goes to show you’re a company with real people behind it, and that you actually care.
Well I hope this inspires, helps and encourages a lot of you folks out there. As always, I’d love to hear comments, suggestions and tips regarding anything talked about here. If anyone from Miramonte wants to pipe in then we’d be more than thrilled! For the rest of you folks who are near LA and need a pampering, then check out their spring specials and deals.
