| Weekly position | Brand | Reach | Recency | Satisfaction | Recency | Overall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
 |
19.39 | 19.93 | 82.97 | 85.14 | 51.86 |
| 2 | |
 |
23.12 | 22.69 | 73.90 | 74.19 | 48.48 |
| 3 | |
 |
28.01 | 29.12 | 62.12 | 61.23 | 45.12 |
| 4 | |
 |
6.91 | 7.12 | 79.36 | 78.81 | 40.03 |
| 5 | |
 |
8.27 | 8.55 | 57.78 | 58.81 | 33.35 |
Social Media Reputation (SMR) League Tables
Every fortnight, we will be focussing on a different sector and plotting the Social Media Reputation (SMR) scores of the major players. The index – provided by social media agency Yomego – attributes a score, out of 100, by combining metrics for ‘reach’ and ‘satisfaction’. The number of mentions and their sentiment is gauged in context with the sector and the brand’s two nearest competitors.
Sector: Hotel Chains
We have ranked fve major hotel chains using Yomego’s Social Media Reputation (SMR) popularity index. We then reveal the reasons behind the results and recommend some tactics to boost reach and help to drive advocacy.
Ramada Jarvis
Ramada Jarvis gets a five-star rating, taking first place in our league table. Although the chain didn’t earn the highest reach score, they achieve an impressive 85% for satisfaction, as a result of social media users discussing their positive experiences with one another and writing reviews online. The chain has presences across most major social media channels, and a number of individual hotels within the chain have their own Twitter account.
Aside from online reviews, many brand mentions this month stem from campaigns Ramada Jarvis is currently running, including their Valentine’s Weekend deals, and forum users have been discussing a promotion with the Daily Mail.
Recommendations: Ramada Jarvis prides itself on delivering a high quality, consistent service to customers, but this is not currently reflected in their social media presences. The brand should ensure that presences are consistently branded, and some custom Facebook development could add style and functionality to existing pages.
Marriot
Marriot’s global Twitter page, @marriottintl has 84k+ followers and is easily its most popular social media page, and clearly demonstrates that the company understands how to use social media to open a dialogue with customers.
Many individual Marriot hotels have Facebook pages and are building up communities of interest around each Marriott location. The brand has also been experimenting with new channels, including collaborating with the iPad version of Slate magazine to run in-application advertising.
Recommendations: Marriott’s latest marketing efforts clearly focus on travelling professionals as their key demographic, and advertising through the iPad is a great first step in reaching out to this lucrative market segment. The brand may also consider collaborating with travel plan organiser TripIt or focussing on bringing their advertising to the BlackBerry to further reach out to this demographic.
Travelodge
Travelodge have embraced Twitter, growing their @TravelodgeUK account to over 4k followers. The brand’s YouTube channel is also performing well, having garnered over 33k upload views. However, the company falls down on Facebook, where their official page is difficult to find as the separately owned US chain of the same name has built a strong following on the site, raising its profile in search results.
There is a lot of positive sentiment towards Travelodge on Trip Advisor with more than 60% of the reviews being either Very Good or Excellent, for their hotels in prime locations. Most of the negative sentiment seems to come from hotels which are not centrally located within cities.
Recommendations:Travelodge UK on Facebook (150 fans) seems to be just an experimental page which has never been updated. If this page is official, the brand could begin developing a content plan and engagement strategy to begin speaking to users on this platform. With the Easter break fast approaching, there are plenty of topics for the company to talk about!
De Vere
De Vere has very little presence on social media channels. On Facebook there doesn’t seem to be a company-wide strategy, with individual hotels developing their own presences, including Cheadle House (161 fans), Oulton Hall & Spa (512 fans) and Grand Harbour Hotel (128 fans). These pages are being used more to push marketing messages than to engage users in a dialogue. De Vere Venues has a better developed set of social presences, but again is mostly used as a push-channel rather than to stimulate engagement.
Recommendations: The chain has begun to engage through social media, but there is still a long way to go. Publicising the brand’s charitable partnership with children’s charity Variety Club could work well through social media, and creating a YouTube channel to showcase the Venues area of the business would also be a smart move.
MacDonald hotels
MacDonald hotels have an official Twitter handle, @macdonaldhotels (3,110 followers) which is used to promote all discounts and promotions across its hotels in the UK. Positive mentions of the company are re-tweeted and the page is also used to provide some customer service.
The company doesn’t appear to have an official Facebook presence, but there are a number of pages set up by employees and former employees – or "escapees" as they call themselves.
Recommendations: The majority of negative sentiment around the brand in social media actually comes from company employees. This is all too often the case for businesses in the hospitality sector, and highlights the need for clear staff social media usage guidelines. Staff have the potential to be a company’s biggest asset in social media (look to Best Buy’s Twelpforce) – or their biggest liability (remember the Domino’s pizza video?). MacDonald hotels need to clearly set out the ground rules to avoid a major mishap.
