Here at Seismonaut we’ve over the summer been working on a social media strategy for a new hotel.

Social media defines the various technologies and practices that enable people to collaborate over the web and share content such as opinions, insights and experiences. Social media have a number of characteristics that make them fundamentally different from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio. Primarily, social media depend on interactions between people. Such interaction can take place on a blog, on a social networking site or on an online community just to mention a few of the many platforms.

No industry has probably experienced the power of social media more than the travel industry. The travel industry has over the past years seen how consumers are exchanging more information and exerting greater influence over online content than ever before. The days when a hotel could control the information made publicly available are long gone.

One of these new ”threats” is tripadvisor.com. With some 30 million unique monthly visitors, Tripadvisor has grown to the biggest online travel community. On Tripadvisor users from around the world share pictures, videos and reviews of hotels, attractions, and restaurants, and while the top three rated hotels in each city enjoy the benefits of popularity and a large group of customers, other hotels further down the lists struggle with mediocre or no reviews meaning less business and interest from potential costumers. For some hotel owners it might seem as the easiest option is simply to ignore or neglect sites such as Tripadvisor and instead dedicate more funds and focus to traditional marketing yet I believe that this is not be a wise decision. Tripadvisor and other social media sites are here to stay and hotels need to find a way to work with the system instead of against it.

Here are three quick pieces of advice for hoteliers to consider when developing a social media strategy:

1. If you don’t do this already now might be a good time to start monitoring relevant social media websites such as Tripadvisor. A simple way to do this is to set up a Google Alert that delivers a nice overview of discussions evolving around your hotel on the Internet.

2. On social media sites forget about writing your own positive reviews. This doesn’t work. Instead you shoul encourage guests that praise your hotel, to leave feedback regarding their stay on sites such as Tripadvisor.

3. See a review about your hotel you feel you to need to react to? Do it! Respond but keep it polite and appropriate. If somebody compliments your hotel say thank you, and if somebody insults you, offer a clarification giving your side of the story. Responding to both positive and negative reviews will instill confidence to potential guests that you care enough to monitor what customers say about you.