How Do You Use Twitter or Facebook During Your Hotel Stay?

October 21, 2011 at 12:43 PM | by juliana | Comments (3)

Welcome to our OpenThreads, a free-for-all forum on a hotel-related topic. This is where you can tell us how you the hotel guest operates inside a hotel, not the other way around. So jump right in and comment away!

We already know what motivates people to write a hotel review (whether it be on TripAdvisor or now, directly on Starwood Hotels' sites) and that's usually either a really good experience like unexpected upgrades at check-in and truly outstanding service or a really baaaaad experience like a dirty room, broken unmentionable stains and terrible service. Or worse, the hotel cancelled your reservation without telling you. Yikes!

Now obviously, these same conditions apply when it comes to using social media during your hotel stay but Twitter and Facebook also allow you to give real-time updates on your hotel stay. We've certainly given the play-by-play during our hotel stay before from check-in, to the view, to room service and the WiFi charges whether they were good, bad or just a'ight. But then again, that's kind of our job.

So...how do you use Twitter and Facebook during your hotel stay?

Are you using it to show off the cool amenities you found, the sweet upgrade you scored or to Twitpic your bathtime? Or maybe you use it simply to let your peeps know where you're at?

But you could also be the kind of person who only uses Twitter and Facebook to talk about the negatives like a mysterious bed stain, the loud music next door, the surly front desk or the view of an air shaft?

However you are tweeting or Facebooking your hotel stays--do you ever get the attention of the hotel in your updates? Like, do you @reply them on Twitter or do you write on their Facebook wall?

We're the type that doesn't like to call attention to ourselves (hellooo, third person!) but we have tweeted at the hotel when we had an issue getting locked out of our room multiple times. And we do see all sorts of craziness from other Twitterers who call out hotels in hopes of getting a free room. We really hope you aren't doing that.

Tell us how you use Twitter and Facebook during your hotel stay in comments below!

[Photo: Vchilli]

Comments (3)

Return to » How Do You Use Twitter or Facebook During Your Hotel Stay?

I use twitter regularly for mini reviews or comments about the hotel during my stays.

Outstanding elite perks (upgrades or welcome gifts) warrant the odd pic :)

Most hotels (those that are on twitter) respond or in some cases their HQ does. A recent example has been Hilton when I was at the Washington DC Capital Hilton and Hilton HQ tried to locate shower gel for me, to no avail LOL; but HQ managed to sort out the over the top WiFi charges).

Accor this week helped me to sort out a problem with the Pullman Changwon via Twitter and FlyerTalk.

Hotels are slowly adapting their social media strategies to reflect that service such as twitter are not (just) about getting new customers but keeping existing ones. What they need to learn is that staff operating their twitter accounts need to be empowered to make decisions and help guest. Twitter in my view is less about marketing but much more about guest relations and loyalty.

We use all channels available and hope that we are seen to be not only an aspirational brand but approachable too. It's exactly what we have always focused on as an organization - engaging with our Guests.

I would encourage the ability for hoteliers to offer to interlink guests' social-network IDs in their guestt records. Here this would be useful for maintaining a dialogue with the guest using this communications path.

It can also work well as a promotion tool even for those who are actually staying in the hotel.

HotelChatter

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