Latest / Suite Spot: A Hotel Marketing Podcast / 188 – 1 Million Social Media Ad Spend Celebration with Jason Lee & Brian Ross
Transcript
- Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot, where hoteliers check in and we check out what's trending in hotel marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Embree. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Suite Spot. This is your host, Ryan Embree. We are here back, we've been on the road, we've been visiting and hosting people on the Suite Spot virtually, but we are back here at the Suite Spot Podcast studio with a very familiar guest, Jason Lee, Chief Technology Officer, who we're gonna have on in a second. Then we're gonna be visiting with Brian Ross, our product manager, social media, to celebrate this incredible milestone. Jason, welcome back to the Suite Spot. Thanks. Yeah, glad to finally be back. Yeah, we're excited to have you, celebrating a milestone today. A million dollars in ad spend for our hotel partners. Again, you know, with Travel Media Group, we work exclusively with hotels. Let's first, you know, off the bat, huge accomplishment milestone. What does this mean to hear you kind of hearing this being there since the very beginning of this solution all those years back? Jason Lee: Yeah. It's exciting. Obviously it is when you think about it in the increments that we boost posts at, it's a lot of posts. Yeah. It's a lot of posts for a lot of hotels. A lot of weeks of content. So just extremely proud of what it has produced for our hotels. But also for our amazing social media team that creates such engaging content and makes boost able and ad worthy content. Ryan Embree: Well, and that's the important part because, you know, obviously a million dollars is a big number. But you don't need necessarily a million dollars to run an effective ad campaign, and that's what you were kind of talking about. With the small increments. Talk to us a little bit about that, because I do feel like sometimes hoteliers, rightly so, are intimidated with something like social media ad spend. They don't really know where, you know, 'cause you can boost a post for as low as $5 all the way up to, thousands of dollars. And they're still going to spend your money in one way or another. So kind of talk through that process because effectiveness is really the key to the game there. Jason Lee: No, absolutely. And I think it gets into how you create content. What is the cadence of that content? How often do I do it? But then it also gets into what am I trying to do? So you can create content and not boost it or put ads any kinda ad spend behind it at all. And you're going to have that content on your page. You're gonna reach out, your community is gonna see it if if they have that, you know, alerts or whatever set up for you. But what boosting does is it allows you to reach this audience that is not inside of your sphere. So it allows them to be able to see these posts, but even more importantly, it allows them to engage with these posts. So if they engage with them, now you kind of have them in the algorithm. Now, now you've got 'em a little bit. Right. There's future state with these, uh, guests. But, but we're talking about $5 increments. So for this very small amount of money, you're talking about 10 to 30 x on reach and engagement. And, and that is incredible. Uh, and especially because it's sort of like builds on itself because the more that a post is interacted with, the more feeds it's inside of, you know, somebody shares this post. So now you're like, obviously any content that is engagement worthy, the algorithm is gonna put out in front of people. Ryan Embree: Yeah. It's that social media ripple effect. And, you know, we say it all the time for hotels. I mean, who's not thinking or typing in their social media search bar, uh, about travel Yeah. Or thinking about travel or, or, and, and we're at a really, really cool spot in our industry where we could be that social media post could be the thing that inspires someone to take action to say, I want to take this trip, or I've been thinking about this, and now all of a sudden you're all in that all important algorithm that you're talking about. And that's really where social media ad spend comes into play. Because before it used to have to be either someone shares this information with you or a follower of yours interacts with that social media ad spend, um, really targets an audience that might not be following your account. Jason Lee: Absolutely. But is looking for travel in your area. Right. So, or is following content like your content. Right. And I think that's what's so cool, but you add to this, right? And so we, we've talked about short form video, uh, on this podcast before, but you add boost to short form video and now you're in this whole other thing where it's not about engagement as much as it is about time viewed. So if I watch an entire video of yours about your property or an about an event coming up or about your restaurant, right now I'm in this algorithm. Yeah. So now the next time I put content out, it's pretty good bet it's gonna be in my reels feed. So that's, and that's, and that's very powerful, especially for a $5 boost. You could get out to three, 400 people. Right. And you get from that three or 400 people, let's say you get 15, 20 people that fully engage with it. but you do that three, three or four times a week. Yeah. This is this, these are compounded numbers that really make a difference. Ryan Embree: Well, we always say it and have said it is had a parallel to the online billboard, right? Yeah. About seeing that sign on the, uh, the side of the highway. But you don't know the intent of every single one of those people every single time someone drives by that billboard. Uh, whether you're targeting the right person or not. Uh, when, when you're doing social media ad spend, you have a, you can be a little bit more prescriptive there. Yep. And I think the conversations that I've been hearing, you know, at the hospitality show and, and these other events and talking to industry leaders even through the podcast is everyone has this interest right now in how hotels are being found. Ryan Embree: Right. Obviously the LLMs is what our, everyone is talking. Right. Right. But there's a natural transition, especially in the younger generation of them going directly to Instagram and TikTok to figure out where to travel Yeah. And that to, you know, talk about that and what you've kind of seen or even heard from hoteliers and, and where that's sitting in the booking journey right now. Jason Lee: Yeah. You know, I think social media, social media is really amazing. And I, and I do feel like where social media content sits in the minds of a lot of marketers is inspiration to travel. Like, it's sort of like that's where I draw to Yeah. You go, well, let's say inspiration to travel. That's the thing that gets me to want to travel. But we're seeing more and more and more where inspiration travel is absolutely there. But pre-booking research is there. Post-booking is also there. So now I've booked my room and now I'm going to your Facebook page or your Instagram page to see what's going on at your property. So, so now I'm in this kind of secondary thing, or I'm sharing that, I'm sharing that information, but then in post stay, so in stay, I, I shouldn't, I I I got ahead of my skis there in stay. I think it's also important because this is more information about what's going on at your property, if there's a valuable enough information that's happening, and I'm not talking about every, every, uh, post is a pitch mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right. It's every post is something that's valuable to a traveler in a various state of their journey to you. And that is, I think that's a really important distinction. There's a time and place for pitch. And, and, but in, in, in the content that we create, we're trying to engage travelers, but we're also, we're trying to engage them in those, in all of those phases. But in stay I think is also important. But if I engage with you in Stay it's pretty good chance I'm going to start getting your content in post stay so I start to remember you. Yeah. So this is like, you can really hit every phase of the traveler's journey. And I know that acquisition is on everybody's mind, but this is more than that. This is, this is where you can develop a relationship and that, and I definitely feel like with Gen Z and the generations after that, this is where relationships are gonna be. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And where loyalty is built. Absolutely. Which is brand loyalty is built, which is what we're looking for. You know, as marketers, obviously we want to inspire, but you know, we don't want this to be transactional between guests and hotel. We hopefully this is the beginning of a relationship. And one of the places we're trying to connect with a traveler in a world where we've removed a lot of friction in the guest experience where they don't even need to speak to an employee anymore at your hotel. So this could be your mainstream of connection between you and the traveler could be social media. Yeah. Um, and, you know, it could be a social media ad that they first interact with that could get you there. And I think that transitions to my next question, which is sometimes the most effective social media isn't a call to action of what you said. So, you know, how do you kind of talk to your team, the product, the social media product team about that and, and saying that, you know, we don't need to put a book now, uh, and big lettering on every single one of our social media ads. Jason Lee: Yeah, you're absolutely right. It, because I think it gets to that thing where it's like, I don't, so go to the boost post, right? So now I'm a traveler. I don't know your hotel. I now see your post in my feet. And what is going to get me to engage there? It's gonna be engaging content. Yeah. It's gonna be an event that I might wanna visit or I might wanna see. It's going to be a cool picture of your room or a cool picture of an aspect to your property that I didn't know about. Or maybe a drink that your bartender makes that only your hotel has. Yeah. Um, or it's gonna be maybe a point of interest in, in your town and your proximity to that. So it's those things I think that are, that are sort of like, draw people in and once they know who you are, once they understand, oh, this is, this is a hotel <laugh> that's given me this information. If they're, if they're viewing that in a boost, uh, environment, it means that at some point they've searched for a hotel in your area. Yeah. So I think it really gets into, like, going back to how we create content, it's really looking at what are the things that are gonna engage travelers in these various stages. And so things like events and things like attractions, things like property features, really important pieces to this in, in their various states. And attraction, having an event added. Right. But also how your property is, you know, what your property is doing that week. Uh, and I think even things like what's open and what, what's closed or traveler, a, a positive traveler review, uh, reposting, something like that. These are all kind of cool pieces of information that make it so that you're definitely showing the value of your property, amplifying the value of your property, but you're not necessarily like, yet book now to save 30%. Ryan Embree: Well, you, and you think about that, if that message all of a sudden showed up in your scroll, right. How quickly we are you, you know, kind of swiping that thumb up and down through our post, and you see that kind of giant ad you actually even might have a negative connotation associated with your hotel. Because they're gonna recognize that as an ad in within their feed inauthentic content that they never really asked to follow versus something like what you said something about the hotel experience or something engaging, something that actually is interesting to them who have this preconceived notion of already wanting to travel. Now all of a sudden there's that interest you get into their feed. But it comes back to having that cadence of a posting. Because that's the other thing. If they get to your homepage, they start scrolling through your feed and don't see consistent content there, there's going to be that mixed match of expectation. Jason Lee: Absolutely. But it also lays the groundwork for any kind of future promotion you want to do. So you gotta have this like, great ground game of like the block and tackle posts of the, the features and benefits of staying at your property. And then once you have that and you've got this nice feed of content that's continually pushing out passively out to this audience, then there is ample opportunity to then amplify that with promotions and other kinds of things that have a CTA on it. Ryan Embree: Yeah. No, absolutely. I wanna switch the conversation to your role as CTO and you spearhead a lot of the development for our TMG OneView platform. And within that, we have a very, very robust social media suite that you've worked on, uh, with, with your team. One of the things, obviously with social media ad spend is a lot of people ask, you know, where, what type of analytics should I be looking for? We always hear the return on social, right? The ROI of social media. Completely different conversation there. But what have you built or developed into the platform to help show transparency and what should you be looking for? Jason Lee: Yeah, so in our platform, we sort of have like kind of two levels. So, as you go into our analytic suite on the top level, you're gonna see total impressions, total reach, total engagement, and then you can break that down by site and look at all of the various analytics that that, that make up those, those bigger numbers. Right underneath it right, is our ad spend line. So each so each post that has a little boost, on it, so you can see how much of that content or how much of that audience came from the boost. So I click on the boost, and now I can see all of the boost information, and that's the same kind of basic information, reach, impressions, engagements. Speaker 2: But what's interesting about how that works is right, is that, is that you can see, hey, high engagement of a boosted post. And by the way, not every boosted post has the same number, uh, in terms of total engagement, right? Sure. Some of them have very similar, uh, a lot of them have very similar reach and impressions, but engagement is this really important number and engagement when we're talking about that, we're talking about likes, we're talking about comments, and we're talking about shares. Those are the real, those are the keys to this. Sure. Um, and then in video, we're talking about total time watch and total and total times that a video is watched start to to, to finish. And those are really important metrics that to have in there. So our analytics suite has all of that sort of built on top of each other so that our hotels really understand the relationship between a boost and an ad and just a straight organic post. And, but then like basically what is the total number? Yeah. What did, what did this, what did this post completely produce? So we have a real, we have a lot of transparency in that. And, and now new to our platform we'll be having that really broken out between, uh, Instagram and Facebook. So one of the things that we have, so every property that is connected to both Facebook and Instagram, when we boost, we are boosting that content that's going out into both platforms simultaneously. The boost money is then divided out into that audience. So, so now the Instagram audience and the Facebook audience sort of are seeing this content simultaneously in their feeds. And so you're, you can see where all that's coming from. So it's very cool, very transparent. Ryan Embree: No, I was gonna say it's so cool because those are two completely different audiences. Sometimes with Facebook and Instagram. And again, this is where a lot of the younger generation, especially on Instagram is where they're starting their searching. so to be on there definitely will give you an advantage over some hotels that, you know, believe it or not, as we enter 2026, some hotels still not prioritizing Instagram right now in their marketing strategies. Congratulations, Jason, again, on, on hitting this, this mark. super incredible, all the work that you've been doing, all that you've produced for our hotel partners, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna end our conversation on a lot of hotels out there, don't have maybe a million dollars to spend on right on ads. But what would be one tip that you would share for social media ads for hotels? Jason Lee: I think the important thing, if you're gonna do that and I'm actually gonna give the tip on boosts because I think Boost is, I think boost is really a very important thing. And I think ads and Boost is where you don't have to be as sparing in terms of quantity. Where you don't wanna put an ad out every day, but you could boost a post every day. You could boost a post or five days a week. We look at it, you know, at four, you know, four to five is probably perfect for a week and add a video to that, but it's about cadence and consistency and inside of that cadence and consistency, diversity and content that is all appealing to a traveler. So as long as you have those things, a $5 ad spend, a $5 boost, right. Consistently delivered across four or five posts a week is gonna be fantastic. You're gonna get a great audience. You're gonna have a lot of like that audience that comes back, the audience that's re-seeing all of your content and all of that is gonna create trust. All of it's going to reinforce value. All of that is gonna amplify the, the awesome features and, and attractions in your area. And so it doesn't have to be crazy, but it does have to be consistent, and it does have to be engaging. Ryan Embree: Yeah. It follows that, you know, formula that we hear all the time, the know, like, trust. They have to know who you are. They have to like what you do or what you're providing them. And then they have to trust you to give it, social media in a very, you know, like you said, $5 increments could be a just a trust builder. That's a great way to think about social media spend. So again, Jason, thank you for joining me here on the Suite Spot. Next we're gonna be visiting with Brian Ross, our product manager, social media. All right. We are back here with Brian Ross, our product manager, social media. Brian, congratulations on this incredible milestone. You and your team must be very excited to hit this achievement. Brian Ross: We are. Ryan Embree: Yeah. You know, Brian, you have a little bit, obviously different role than Jason who we just had on. You are talking a lot more to hoteliers talking to your team about the content your game planning. You're talking about these booths talking about these ads. So I really wanna pick your brain as someone that's run all these campaigns to give some practical advice for some of the hotel listeners that we have here. I think we start with the question that we hear a lot sometimes, or maybe hoteliers have on their mind right now. You know, why should a hotel or a portfolio of hotels if you manage that even invest in ad spend in the first place? Brian Ross: Yea, even a low level boost on your posts. I mean, really low level, it'll increase your, your three metrics that you're looking at, your reach, your impressions, and your engagement. And your engagement is really what you wanna be focusing on. How many likes, how many comments, and how many shares are you're getting on the posts, because that's where you get beyond your ad spend reach and that's where you start to get into organic growth. And that is, that's where the meat is. And those engagements, as you know, as a guest or prospective guests are looking at your feed when they see those engagement numbers, that's really what resonates. And that's how, that's how you can tell that you're creating content that's relevant and engaging. Ryan Embree: Well, it has a snowball effect. And ripple effect of what social media. So, you know, you get someone to share a post, now all of a sudden it goes into their feed and then you talk about it just keeps on gaining on one another. And that's what we love to see that organic growth, because at the end of the day, these ads this boost everything that you're putting in, the money that you're putting into, hopefully that pays off on the organic side of things. And that's what makes for an effective social campaign. And I wanna go through some of the tips that you would maybe share with hoteliers about the best way to approach social media ad spend. Brian Ross: It's always gonna come back to creating engaging and relevant content. Like any marketing, you wanna be telling a story and you wanna be creating value, you wanna offer value with your posts. So, and that's, that's why I say a low level boost will do it. It's not about throwing a whole lot of money at it. It's about creating content that's gonna be engaging and then take on a life of its own once it gets that little bit of a lift. Ryan Embree: That's such an effective tip because, you know, it is intimidating out there if you've never done social media ad spend before because you don't know whether you should be spending a lot or a little, we talked about it off camera, about saying at an effective $5 campaign could yield better results than maybe a hundred dollars campaign. And the way that we kind of likened it, or had a parallel would be saying, if you had an online billboard that was states away from your hotel versus an online billboard that was just a couple exits down, what do you think is gonna perform better? The same comparison can be made here with social media ad spend. We also talked about how you can use some of your reputation data to kind of maybe, maybe plan out your content. Brian Ross: What to post about. And especially if you need to be selective about your spend and you can't boost every single post, but you wanted to kind of pick and choose your sentiment data is a really good place to start. Or you can, you know, you can lean into the things that are really strong about your hotel. You can also, you can also address things that come up a lot. It can almost be like, you know, there are a couple of ways you could think, like, what are the things, we get a bunch of phone calls about a day. We could make a post out of that. And sure. That is something that people are engaging you about already. So that's kind of like knowledge. So the other thing that's a really fun thought exercise that we like to go through with hotels sometimes is if you could say something to your guests at your hotel right now, what would you wanna tell them? What would you wanna tell a perspective guest? If you could say one thing, what would it be? And then that's another way to kind of get into what might make a good, good post, a good communication. Ryan Embree: I absolutely love that because I talk to a lot of hoteliers about that sort of thing, and the answer I get when I ask, what type of social content, you know, would you like to share? And sometimes they're, they're kind of stuck. They don't know what they're like, we could talk about this, we could talk about that. But then you pose the question like that and you flip it and you say, what are the things that you love about your hotel and what are, what do you think makes your hotel better or more special than the hotel next door? And it's a completely different conversation. It sparks something in them that they've, that they know, that they intrinsically know. But when it's weird. 'cause when you try to put that on a post, it just, it doesn't come out organically when you're asked about that social content. So I love what you said there about maybe just flipping the script a little bit when thinking about that because your guests are telling you what they love every single day, whether it's on reviews or face-to-face, it's about sharing that and amplifying that using social media ad spend, which is what this whole episode is about. So, but, you know, what type of posts would you, in your opinion, should you consider boosting? And you know, obviously your team's creating thousands of posts each day. You know what, do you have some examples for us? Brian Ross: Highlighting your team members. You just talked about what differentiates your hotel from the hotel across the street. It's your people. Any kind of, if you wanna post about the fitness center, maybe there's somebody on staff who is into working out and, and you could have them in the fitness center and you could have, you know, Jesse's workout tip of the week or workout tip of the month, and you can highlight your fitness center through the eyes of a, of an employee. Same thing with, you know, a bartender pouring their favorite drink or mm-hmm <affirmative>. That, that kind of thing. And then, and then people will come to the co to come to the, um, property with a connection already. Yeah. You know, you know, that's, that's Marie. She's doing the mai tai this this month. Yeah. Um, so it, it's a really fun, and your employees will, will feel part of your campaign. Ryan Embree: And story. Brian Ross: In, in story. And, and they'll share it and their friends will see it and they'll share it. And it's a really good way to create some organic boost. Another thing is to talk about what sets your area apart, what's cool about what's cool about your area, what are some of the attractions? What are some events that are going on? What's the vibe of the place? You know, those kind of posts, that kind of content is less salesy. And that's really kind of the key here. You, you know, if you're gonna select what you're gonna boost, you don't want to, you don't wanna boost things that are overtly like salesy about the, the hotel. Yeah. You wanna boost things that are, like we were talking about earlier, that tell a story, that add value and, and intrigue people about either the area or your location specifically. Ryan Embree: Yeah. It's so interesting now in this digital age that, you know, we used to walk into a hotel and not know anything about it. Mom or dad would, would go and run out of the car and go see if they have any rooms available. And now we almost want zero surprises. We want to know everything. We want to know, this is what the lobby looks like when we walk in and when we check in. And not only do I wanna know what the lobby looks like, I wanna know who's in that lobby. I want to know that Brian's checking me in behind the front desk. I wanna know that Marie's at the bar making drinks and gonna serve me my breakfast in the morning. Social media is a great way to give a POV of what that experience is going to look like when walking into a hotel. But there's also some, obviously cautions that, things to watch out for, because again, social media ad spend, you can spend as little or as much as as you want. They're not gonna stop you from spending. So what are some things to watch out for in your social media ads? You, you mentioned one of them already about being too overtly salesy. Any other tips that, that, uh, hoteliers should avoid? Brian Ross: You're building a presence that people will look at and they'll see a hotel that's engaged with its guests and meeting them where they are. And not pushing your message, but meeting them where their interests lie. The other other thing you're building is trust with the algorithm. As when you create consistent, engaging content like that, the algorithm is gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. Now you've got, you've kind of got it trained so that it sees your activity, it sees your creating engaging posts, so it kind of trusts you now. So when you, when you wanna put out that post about the promotion you're running or the special, now it's gonna trust you and it's gonna kind of give you the benefit of the doubt, and it will push things out for you that if you just tried to spend money cold like that on something, it would kind of fall flat. So it's important to create stuff that's just not salesy and just engaging on a regular basis. That's really the meat of your social media. Ryan Embree: Yeah. And I think that it's cautious to also pick the right partner, you know, that kind of knows, because again, you can, you can spend, there's unlimited spending in social media ad spend, right. That $1 million mark that we hit as an organization came through, you know, hundreds of thousands of campaigns with thousands of hotels across the board. So you, you have to pick the right partner. You have to pick the right industry partner that also knows what moves and people will engage with and build that trust. Right. Because it doesn't happen overnight. It's a process. We talk about that. And for those hoteliers that are looking for a quick win and lots of bookings that might not be the right objective of what you're talking about. You have to know why you're, why you're doing this. And social media is always a long-term play there, so how can we reassure hoteliers that we are moving in the right direction? There is positive momentum. What are the results that you look for to an effective social media ad spend strategy and campaign? Brian Ross: Sure. Well, the real eye test is always gonna come back to engagement. When you scroll your feed and you see, you know, the posts that aren't boosted, maybe they get a handful of likes, maybe a comment or two. Then if your, if your boosted post is getting dozens or hundreds of comments or likes, now this is money well spent, you know, sometimes with our, with our hoteliers, what will happen is we'll post about an event and that will become a hub of conversation through of users about the event. And even more so than the actual event on Facebook. People will be talking about, you know, ticket swapping and, um... Ryan Embree: Set list. Brian Ross: What song, what song are you excited? You know, asking guests a question like that in your post is a great, you know, is it, what song are you looking forward to hearing most at this concert? Or, you know, who's what player in this game, if it's a sporting event excites you the most, who are you excited to see? Yeah. That kind of thing. And, and it might be a little counterintuitive to think that that kind of discussion on your posts is value, but it really is like that is social media gold right there. Ryan Embree: It's building conversation and community, which is what an objective could be for your social media campaigns, is to extend reach and build trust. So, Brian, as we wrap up, I think it would be really insightful for our hotel listeners to kind of hear your process, your team's process with content creation and where social media ad strategy and campaigns fall into that process. Brian Ross: That's great. Obviously every, every hotel is different. We really try to capture ev each unique hotel voice. We wanna speak to, um, a hotel's guests, just like a hotel. Sure. Speak to the guests. And, and that's, that's always our goal. Um, as far as how we use the ad spend. This is another thing that you're kind of almost purchasing when you invest in a little bit of boost on your post is you get to understand what's working for your hotel and what's working for your social media in those analytics. Mm-hmm. So as you're getting the results, you know, some hotels are gonna find that talking about certain amenities are really gonna resonate with people. Or maybe they have a great onsite bar that people like and, and that will get a lot of engagement. But then other places, maybe they're in just a cool area, or there's something about the area where talking about attractions that are there or events that are happening are gonna create more engagement. So it's about watching those analytics and then leaning into what's working. And that is invaluable because that just snowballs. The more information, the more knowledge you have like that, the better informed you are as to what you're gonna post about next. And the more successful your social strategy becomes over time. Ryan Embree: And the momentum just continues to build. And absolutely, before you know it, you're just as successful as, uh, Brian and his social media team at a million dollars ad spend. Brian Ross: So good luck. Ryan Embree: To bring it all back. Well, thank you so much, Brian. Congratulations to you and your team. Thank you for all the practical tips for our hotel listeners out there. I hope to, to continue to follow you and the work that you and your team are doing out there. Last year it was, uh, you know, gaining a million followers this year. It's the social media ad spend. We can't wait to see what's next, what you and your team have for us. Brian Ross: Thanks so much. You know where to find me. Ryan Embree: Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you for listening to The Suite Spot. We'll talk to you next time. To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Brandon Bell with Cover Art by Bary Gordon. I'm your host Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.