Exclusive Feature: We're halfway through the year and social media platforms have made great strides in their offerings: from advertising to social data, more companies are finally seeing the value in social media investments;

Make sure your hotel is utilizing the social media trends that will not only connect with consumers, but engage, converse and convert consumers into guests and brand loyalists.
 
1. Listen and Learn
 
According to Media Mosaic, 24 percent of marketers plan to use social listening strategies in 2014. That's a good step in the right direction, but more marketers should really invest in this. Social listening is the key to establishing conversation on your social channels. If you don't know what people are talking about, how will you know how to engage in the conversation?
 
2. A New Kind of Advertising
 
With Facebook and Twitter adding new ways to advertise on their platforms, companies have another way to reach a wide audiences. The algorithms continue to change, but by targeting your tweets and posts to a specific market, you'll reach new consumers and be able to effectively market promotions and new happenings at the hotel.
 
3. Uploading Images
 
A picture tells a thousand words, so why not keep posted pictures? Whether on Instagram, Pinterest boards, or Twitter and Facebook streams, the images from your hotel give soon-to-be-guests a glimpse of what they can expect by staying with you. Don't underestimate the power of a guest's picture, either. Regramming and re-tweeting your guests' photos from the hotel help elevate the guest as a brand advocate, giving you simple, effective advertising and marketing for your hotel.
 
4. Team Efforts
 
Raise your hand if you still have one person sometimes managing your social media channels when they aren't busy doing the job they were hired to do. It's time to invest in a dedicated social media team - one that focuses on reporting, listening, writing and posting, and that learns the ins-and-outs of your hotel so they can bring it live and in real-time to guests and followers. It's one thing to have a back-up social media plan, it's another thing to have a dedicated social media team working on your behalf to promote your hotel and amenities.
 
5. Data, Data, Data
 
It's not enough to just track how many followers you gain on a weekly basis. Today's most effective social media plans include impressions tracking, paid media campaigns and engagement tracking. Recording and understanding social data will mean the difference between conversing with a potential new guest, and converting them into a repeat guest. Social data ultimately gives you the information you need to learn what your customers are talking about so you can be proactive in communicating with them.

This survey is just one of many that points to Millennials as the next big spending group in the luxury market. So now the question becomes: how much will luxury hotels alter their offerings to appeal to this demographic?

This is strictly an exclusive feature, reprints of this article in any shape or form without prior written approval from 4Hoteliers.com is not permitted.

Melanie Nayer is a hotel reviewer and expert on luxury travel around the world. She has covered all aspects of hotels including corporate restructures, re-branding initiatives, historical aspects and the best of the best in luxury hotels around the world.

Melanie writes a weekly exclusive column for 4Hoteliers.com