29-03-2012, 11:34 AM
Apex Hotels
reviewpro-case-study-apex-110729183049-phpapp02.pdf (Size: 1.41 MB / Downloads: 40)
About Apex Hotels
Apex Hotels is an innovative group of seven
city hotels based in the UK. “Knowing our
brand position as a group of contemporary,
luxurious city-center hotels helped us with
our social media strategy and content,” said
Sam Weston, who along with Amy Spark,
share some of their thoughts on how to
manage social media at the brand level for
a group of hotels.!
How Apex Hotels Uses Twitter
Apex Hotels began using Twitter in March
2009. While this was a little later in the
game than some of their larger competitors,
they wanted ensure they had the time and
resources available to manage it effectively.
“An unmonitored and stagnant Twitter
account can do more harm than good for a
brand.”!
!
Since joining the network, Apex has
increasingly used Twitter as a method of
engaging with guests and like-minded
individuals. They also see a big opportunity
in engaging with other businesses.!
!
“Twitter offers us an invaluable feedback
channel for both positive and negative
comments, although Iʼm pleased to say we
receive mostly positive feedback! People
seem much more inclined to offer feedback
in 140 characters than via longer channels.
Often, it provides valuable insight into what
weʼre doing well within Apex, or where we
might be able to improve.”!
Types of Content That Work Best on Twitter
Apex finds that gathering content for Twitter
is often an organic affair – coming from
social media discussions about the cities
they operate within, hotels and hospitality in
general. They also find ideas from within the
company – from any department. !
“Occasionally events will happen at the
hotel that weʼre unaware of, so we do ask
staff to contribute when they see something
that is social media worthy.” In the near
future, Apex is looking at establishing
ʻchampionsʼ at each property who will report
on local activity and take quick snapshots to
post online. This will further establish the
connection between the on and offline.!
!
Competitions on Twitter – asking followers
to re-tweet messages or contribute to
discussions – has been very effective in
engaging with followers. “Maybe itʼs
primarily because thereʼs an opportunity to
win a break at one of our hotels, but often it
spins into discussion between other Twitter
users.”!
“Of course, weʼre a business too, so we do
tweet our offers, although we try to keep to
a rough ratio of 1:10 (1 offer per 10 tweets).
From using Twitter personally, it seems that
many companies tweet almost all offers and
I find, again personally, that I stop reading
their tweets in the stream, or scan past
them. I think originality is important and the
catch of a good tweet, or a different Tweet is
often the difference between being
acknowledged or ignored.”!
!
The Apex team tries to tweet every day, and
they monitor their accounts frequently to
ensure messages arenʼt left unanswered.
Responsibility for creating responses is split
up among the team by day so that one
person isnʼt left to manage the account
themselves. “This provides a little variety
and new ideas for tweeting. It ensures the
content is always fresh, on brand and fun.”!
!
Why Apex Hotels chose ReviewPro
Sam and Amy considered various
reputation management options, but the
lack of comprehensive, hotel-specific
reporting meant that nothing that really met
their needs until they found ReviewPro.
“ReviewPro was the best fit for what we
wanted to achieve.”!
!
ReviewProʼs ability to export data became
very helpful as the team integrated and
cross-analyzed online reputation data with
internal surveys and other business
performance metrics. “This gave us a
holistic view of our hotel operations.”!
!
ReviewProʼs philosophy of constant
innovation was also attractive. “We liked
that it was a continually developing product.
Social technologies are changing very
quickly, and we didnʼt want to be stuck with
a product that wasnʼt future-proof. So the
fact that ReviewPro is constantly evolving
with our feedback is very valuable for us.”!