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Is it worth including LinkedIn in your properties marketing strategy?
I will share benefits and tips for a LinkedIn Company Page to help you decide.
Welcome to another edition of hospitality property school.
I’m your instructor Gerry MacPherson.
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Many hospitality property owners and managers, (hotels, inns, resorts and bed & breakfast) I have spoken with, feel that LinkedIn is a platform they don’t need to be on due to the fact that LinkedIn is an online social network for business professionals and this may be the case for some properties.
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It’s different than other social networking sites because it’s designed specifically for professional networking.
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For example, finding a job, discovering sales leads, and connecting with potential business partners.
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So, why should you as a hospitality property owner/manager consider using LinkedIn as a social media platform?
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How about if you want to attract other businesses.
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For example
- Business travellers
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- Meeting room rentals
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- Company parties
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- Suppliers
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- Looking for quality employees
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Just to name a few
Check out these stats…
- There are over 65 million business professionals from around the world on LinkedIn.
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- The average LinkedIn member has an average annual household income of $109,000.
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- One person creates a LinkedIn login every second.
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- Nearly 50% of LinkedIn members have decision-making authority for their companies.
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For a hospitality property wanting to grow through networking, referrals, and mentorship, it’s easy to see why LinkedIn is the place to be. Like other forms of Internet marketing, marketing your hospitality property on LinkedIn is inexpensive.
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How to get started
- Learn how LinkedIn works.
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- Create a LinkedIn login, if you’re not already a member.
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- Create a great LinkedIn profile that focuses on your property and how it can help other members of LinkedIn.
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- Create a company page for your property. You’ll have the opportunity to do set up a business page as you complete the resume section of your LinkedIn profile. Your company page will be automatically linked from the resume in your profile.
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With these LinkedIn basics in place, you can get started on marketing yourself and your business to LinkedIn members.
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Here are some of the benefits of a LinkedIn Company Page?
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- A LinkedIn company page provides your property with the opportunity to tell your business’s story, engage with followers, share career opportunities, and scale your word of mouth marketing. It is also an equally effective tool for generating new business leads and nurturing referral relationships.
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- Creating quality, shareable content that benefits your readers, your viewers become engaged advocates of your company and expand your global reach and influence
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If you have quality information about your property and region, share it! Post as many status updates as your content supports. You will reach more of your audience and extend your reach as you post more often.
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Strive to publish authentic and relevant posts to encourage viral likes, shares, and comments. Posts that feel like spam will not get shared and, in fact, could result in your business losing followers.
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- With LinkedIn company pages, you can introduce new packages, deals or services your property offers and explain how your customers will benefit
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According to the Marketing Tech Blog, the top 5 reasons why people follow brands on social media are promotions and discounts, latest products information, customer service, entertaining content, and ability to offer feedback. More than half of vendors say they have generated sales through LinkedIn.
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- You can differentiate yourself from your competitors
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On LinkedIn, you can use your company description to emphasize how you stand out from your competitors. Include company news and share information about your properties culture to reach potential new customers or even hires and convey your company’s values, mission and vision.
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- Finding employees who can make a significant contribution to your properties success
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LinkedIn profiles reveal valuable information about people seeking jobs at your company, including their stability, their record of successful accomplishments and their passion for what they do. By hiring and retaining these employees, your company will benefit from their expertise and energy.
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- Checking on what your competition is doing
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By visiting the company pages of comparable properties and your competition, it’s easier to monitor changes in your industry and track what your competition has accomplished. Monitoring the social media content strategies of other companies on a regular basis will help you identify trends and opportunities for talent acquisition and growth areas for your business.
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- Improving your ranking in search engines
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Google and other search engines rank LinkedIn company pages and posts highly in the search engine results pages, so adding updates to your company page and optimizing posts for SEO will help to improve your performance in the search results pages. As a result, your properties website may see an increase in visitor traffic.
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By tailoring your LinkedIn content to suit your intended audience and managing LinkedIn wisely, you’ll enhance your hospitality properties opportunities to build relationships, generate bookings and attract talented members to join your team.
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Is this making sense? Let me know by leaving a short comment.
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LinkedIn for your hospitality property: tips and ideas
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Just because you build a Company Page doesn’t mean that followers will come. You can boost your chances of success with the following LinkedIn for business tips and strategies.
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- Encourage your employees and colleagues to connect with your properties LinkedIn Page
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They are your best resources to start growing an audience: according to LinkedIn, employees have on average 10 times more first-degree connections than a company has followers, and companies with a strong employee advocacy program in place are 58 per cent more likely to attract top talent—and 20 per cent more likely to retain them.
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- Publish valuable content
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The best way to grow your audience and keep your followers is to provide them with value by posting articles or your properties updates on a regular basis:
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LinkedIn recommends at least once per weekday. In addition to appearing on your Company Page, your posts appear in each of your followers’ news feeds.
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- Include rich media
Yes, LinkedIn is business-first, but you still need to make your content stand out from the crowd—and text-only posts are not the way to do that.
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LinkedIn figures show that posts with an image included getting 98 per cent more comments.
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- Take advantage of LinkedIn Groups
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Being an active participant in a LinkedIn Group can help you and your business network with other professionals and businesses, especially those outside of your immediate circle of current and present colleagues, classmates, and employees. Participating in a group discussion will also attract views to your Company Page.
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- Try Showcase Pages
Showcase Pages function like subdomains of your Company Page, allowing you to spotlight specific areas of your business, like a particular brand or ongoing initiative.
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LinkedIn members can choose to follow one or more of your Spotlight Pages if they’re particularly interested in a specific aspect of your company.
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You can create up to 10 Showcase Pages by default.
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- Go global with multi-language tools
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If you have customers—or want to have customers—in countries where English is not the primary language, you can create custom descriptions of your company in 20 different languages. The appropriate description will appear for each LinkedIn member based on the language settings they have chosen to use when viewing the network. You can set your company name to appear in these languages as well.
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- Understand the LinkedIn algorithm
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While most other social networks keep their algorithm secrets closely guarded, LinkedIn provides quite a bit of information about how its algorithm works.
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- Incorporate LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn members provide the network with detailed information about their professional interests, associations, and skills. That means LinkedIn has exceptional targeting capabilities, allowing you to make laser-focused strategic decisions about incorporating LinkedIn ads into your social media marketing strategy.
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In conclusion
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By adding LinkedIn to your marketing strategy you can help you expand your network, find guests, and create a professional image for you and your property.
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Even if you don’t think LinkedIn can work for your business, it’s worth a tour to check out how others in your field are maximizing what LinkedIn has to offer. As a networking resource, LinkedIn can give you connections that can lead to publicity, more work, and other great business growing advantages.
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⇒ TO READ OR LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE ON KEYSTONE ⇒ TO READ OR LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE ON KEYSTONE HOSPITALITY PROPERTY CONSULTING:
https://keystonehpd.com/KHDC133
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⇒ And don’t forget to join the “6 Day Challenge” here:
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RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
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How LinkedIn Works & the Benefits of a Company Page
https://keystonehpd.com/how-linkedin-works
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The Keystone HDC Training Tutorials
https://courses.keystonehospitalitydevelopment.com/
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Join our community in “The Hospitality Property School Group” –Check it Out for One Full Week for Only $1
https://keystonehpd.com/membership-site
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TWEET THIS VIDEO:
LinkedIn – How it Works Video @KeystoneHDC
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Say hi on social:
Facebook: Facebook.com/KeystoneHDC
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Twitter: Twitter.com/KeystoneHDC
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Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/company/Keystone-Hospitality-Development
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Listen to The Hospitality Property School Podcast here:
KeystoneHospitalityDevelopment.com/Itunes-Podcast
Stitcher.com/Podcast/Hospitality-Property-School
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YouTube
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