IN-DEPTH: For Best Western, its social media strategy is all about engaging in authentic conversations with travellers, says Dorothy Dowling, SVP Sales and Marketing. It is all about sharing the love of travel, not just promoting brand specific initiatives.

By Ritesh Gupta

Best Western International recently unveiled its new Facebook booking capability as part of its plans to engage with its customers via social media. The company took this initiative as it believes that its important to make it easy for its customers to research, book and share travel experiences through their preferred channels.

In February, the company also launched its “Be a Travel Hero” promotion on its Facebook page in an effort to remind everyone that road warriors are heroes to the people back home.

Best Western is among the most active companies in this arena right now. And the company says it is taking such initiatives as customers are increasingly integrating social media into every part of their personal and professional lives.

“So much is happening right now in the social media space that it’s tough to point out one specific development, but looking at it from a macro level I think the biggest development is just how fast the use of social media is growing. That growth is manifested not just in the explosive number of users globally but in the breadth of ways in which people can share, shop and interact through social media channels and how much time they spend doing so,” Dorothy Dowling, Best Western SVP Sales and Marketing told EyeforTravel.com’s Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

Best Western understands that social media has to be a primary focus because that is where conversations about its brand, and travel in general, are taking place with consumers and travellers.

“When we look at our social media strategy, it is all about engaging in authentic conversations with travellers. Whether that is creating a Facebook contest to recognise “Travel Heroes,” asking our fans about their favorite state parks, or responding to customer feedback – social media channels are at the front line when it comes to engaging with our customers, in the same way the front desk plays a role at our hotels,” said Dowling. “Social media is a vital component of our brand marketing plan for 2012 and this year is our biggest ever for the brand in terms of social media efforts.”

Long-term vision

“Our long-term vision has been to build a loyal community of fans on Facebook, engaging with them in authentic conversations.  We evolved our conversations to include Facebook-exclusive promotions, which award these members of our Facebook community with bonus loyalty programme points or loaded Travel Cards,” shared Dowling.

Building the ability to book travel on Facebook, without ever leaving the platform, is the next phase in the company’s social media evolution.

“We recognise that more than ever, Best Western’s customers are integrating social media into every part of their personal and professional lives. It’s imperative that as a brand we answer the call from our customers to make it easy to research, book and share travel experiences through their preferred channels, which for millions of travellers is on Facebook. This, along with building a loyal and engaged community on Facebook, is part of our greater long-term goal of being an industry leader when it comes to reaching and creating dialogue with our fans and travellers,” added Dowling.

Integrated Approach

Consumers are using social media in every phase of the travel planning process now -- during the dreaming and planning stages, on to the booking phase and once they are traveling.  They are using social media channels to not only plan their trips, but to share ideas, their experiences and travel feedback. This means that social media plays a key role in marketing, customer service and distribution for travel brands.

“Our strategy is to ensure our social media plans address opportunities within each phase and that our tactics drive the messaging and engagement necessary to make us successful, build the brand loyalty and advocacy that is key for our brand.  Simply put, our plan it to be engaging, relevant, rewarding and influential,” said Dowling.

Best Western has been an active leader in Facebook since 2006.

“And whenever we are in the planning stages of a brand initiative such as a seasonal promotion or new feature or development with our 4,000+ hotels we think about how it can be implemented via Facebook,” Dowling said, adding that the company’s Travel Hero campaign is a tremendous example of this integrated approach.

The campaign kicked off with a unique contest on Facebook to find and reward the real Travel Heroes out there, but it also has a layer connected to Best Western’s Spring Promotion and its Best Western Rewards loyalty programme. The promotion also ties into a survey the company recently conducted to identify the travel habits of frequent business travellers who are considered to be Travel Heroes due to their time on the road away from friends and family.

“To execute this type of initiative you must stage a completely coordinated effort between our IT team, our eCommerce, Best Western Rewards, marketing and sales departments and ultimately our Members hoteliers. We see these types of integrated campaigns as the future of social media marketing,” explained Dowling.

“One other thing that makes Best Western unique when it comes to our Facebook execution is that we use an integrated approach between our social media and customer care teams to help ensure guests’ concerns are addressed, and hotel operators/owners have received guidance (and in some case, now even individualised training) in how best to respond to property-specific comments.”

E-commerce on Facebook

Best Western believes that e-commerce on Facebook is an emerging enterprise.

Dowling highlighted that Facebook has more than 840 million active users worldwide and in the US more than 70 percent of Facebook users return to the site on a daily basis – so clearly an extremely high level of engagement and as a brand you want to be where the conversation is happening.

“We do envision transactions on Facebook increasing in the next 12 months and we’ll be able to track this in the coming months. At the same time, we don’t just measure the value of Facebook in booking dollars alone. The ability to engage and dialogue directly with your customers has tremendous ROI for any brand, but particularly for Best Western since our entire business model hinges upon ensuring our guests are happy with their experience,” said Dowling.

Facebook, according to Dowling, is an ideal place for travel companies to reach new and existing customers and offer them content, news or deals on a daily basis. Using things like Facebook connect can allow a travel brand to connect with consumers in a richer way. 

Using Facebook connect, a customer could potentially logon to a travel brand website and allow certain information from their profile to be pulled in to personalise the site experience.  If a brand leverages customer profile information, they can in turn suggest destinations, deals and so much more in a way that is more relevant to a consumer than ever before, said Dowling.  

Also, taking advantage of Facebook Places lets customers organically notify their friends they are engaging with a brand (staying at a hotel for example) and if the brand has set up an offer through Places, they have an opportunity to show something compelling to a consumer that could induce trial or perpetuate loyalty.

Best Western says it now has more Facebook fans than any other global hotel chain and it maintains an extremely active engagement rate.

“More than 70 percent of Best Western fans engage with and view the brand’s Facebook page on a monthly basis – which is a really amazing number. There isn’t a lot of value for brand if someone becomes a Facebook fan and never returns to your page. The real ROI is in creating that two-way dialogue that keeps them engaged and thinking about Best Western when they are planning their next trip,” pointed out Dowling.

Planning and Budgeting

Dowling recommends that the budget should depend upon strategic goals. 

If your intent is to reach more consumers, you may need to spend money on acquiring them in the respective channels. For example, you may need to set aside money for Facebook advertising to drive “likes” to your brand page. 

If your goal is to drive impressions or awareness of a brand message or promotion, again, you may want to budget for things like Facebook ads or sponsored tweets on Twitter. 

Budgets should always include funds to maintain your efforts, whether that is hiring someone to monitor and respond to comments on your brand’s social media channels or to fund tools to monitor what is being said about your brand and measuring your online reputation, explained Dowling.