If your hotels are focused on targeting corporate clients, is social media worth your time? Should you take a slightly different approach to social marketing than hotels that primarily target leisure guests?

I was asked about this a number of times at the recent ITB, and want to show how the social web can help you attract the business traveler.

Reviews are universally important

Online hotel reviews written by guests play an important role in the buying decision across all types of travel.

This is because they affect someone's purchase decision at the final stage of the buying process. (A study showed 35% of social media users changed their choice of hotel after reading online reviews.)

Since business travelers often know the exact destination they will be in, they often skip the "dreaming" stage of travel planning and jump straight to reviews.

So do all you can to encourage more positive online reviews. You will probably get the fastest return on investment here.

Social media increases your findability

Corporate travel is booked through a variety of ways: some executives have their assistants do it, some use corporate contracts arranged by someone else in the organization, and some business travelers book their own hotel rooms.

Whenever you have a fragmented audience of decision makers like this, it's important to build your overall web visibility to enable discovery.

Google, Bing and other search engines have confirmed increased inclusion of social media activity in their ranking algorithms. Twitter and Facebook communication, along with the quantity and quality of your online reviews, affect how high you rank for important keywords.

Remember, only 3% of web searchers will go beyond page 1 of results pages – so it's imperative you show up near the top.

Business travelers are people, too

Everyone traveling on business knows that there's work and then there's play. People will continue to engage with their social networks while on a business trip. In fact, travelers tend to stay connected more if they're on business – they are less likely to unplug completely.

This makes engaging with them on sites like Twitter, Gowalla, and Facebook just as important as ever. Publishing articles on your blog about things to do in the area is a good starting point – increasing your overall web visibility, making it presence in search engines larger.

How are you using the social web to attract more corporate travel?

www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/social-media-business-hotels

About the author
This blog is written by Josiah Mackenzie, who enjoys exploring the relationship between emerging technology and the hospitality industry. 

www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com