We have grown our pages on social media networks by simply being consistent: Rastogi

How is social media marketing helping you?

It is important to use platforms that are commonly used by customers so that one can reach out to their target audience at a more effective rate. Having an online presence as a business on any of the social media forums like Facebook or Instagram is a great way to interact with your audience and to really connect with them on a personal level where you can tell your story to all your followers and inspire them through your success or past failures.

Social media advertising has been one of the least expensive ways of marketing for our business digitally.   The best thing about social media marketing is that we don’t really have to use the adverts or ad tools to market our brand. We have grown our pages on social media networks by simply being consistent and posting interesting and relatable content for our audience. Social media also gives us a chance to see what interests our customers the most. Therefore, we have created content that can relate to our audience and thereby increasing their engagement on our social media platforms.

Social media marketing and advertising also help in increasing your return on investment, as the cost of advertising on these social media forums is often less than the return, giving you more revenue. Because you use digital marketing, you can reach hundreds and thousands of people by simply targeting ads, reducing your advertisement costs.

What are the trending and most searched terms for social media marketing for hotels?

Facebook Advertising. As a general rule, the more money you spend, the more efficient Facebook’s algorithm becomes at spending your money, increasing your ad performance over time. Facebook allows more advanced targeting than any other advertising platform on earth. Advertisers can target by location (within a 5-mile radius), job description, interests, past activity, and many other incredibly valuable criteria.

Instagram Advertising. Instagram is, of course, very image and video heavy. As hotels that incorporate visual media into their campaigns tend to perform best on this social media channel.

Which according to you is the most suitable medium for social media marketing? LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or twitter?

Instagram’s engagement rates are 58per cent higher than Facebook’s and 2,000per cent higher than Twitter’s. It is also worth noting that Instagram’s user base skews heavily to the 18-29 range and slightly more toward females and minorities.

Do you feel that in any way you are eroding the privacy of guests by connecting with them on social media? 

Privacy is certainly changing; I’m not sure I’d say it’s eroding.

Most of the times customers do not know what is exactly required, they are required to be oriented. Likewise, we all did not know we need social media to connect with each other better, then came My Space, Orkut, Facebook. Similarly, many people want to know what’s best for them on the table through several hotels and connecting with them on social media provides them the best of available options, in creative ways.

In your experience, what percent of social media marketing converts into sales?

If done correctly and with proper planning, these social media platforms can become your revenue generating platforms in no time. However, percentage differs as per the kind of ad placed, target audience, and the objective. Moreover there are 50+ ad options on Facebook and Instagram are combined. Broadly these are divided in two parts, one is – branding of the product, like ad, post boost, etc. Two - lead generation or database ads, which are purely business generation adds. So, the ratio completely depends on the kind of ad one chooses.