Your social media channels are one of the most important aspects of your hotel’s online marketing, giving you a chance to promote offers, share news and connect with customers in real time without generating excessive marketing expenditure.

Many marketers however will be guilty of setting up their hotel social media pages and then focusing on ongoing strategies and community management. A social media audit is a chance to take a step back and review your hotel social media marketing and its performance. It should be done at least once per year.

A social media audit examines your social channels closely, with the intent of ensuring every one of these profiles is adequately representing your brand. A comprehensive social media audit also allows you to identify any outdated information, lacklustre content and check that new tools and functions are being made use of (for example, the option to tag products on Facebook).


How to Conduct a Social Media Audit for Your Hotel

If you don’t have an approach for documenting your audit in mind, devise one now. If you don’t have a means of recording your findings, it’s unlikely they’ll be acted on. A spreadsheet is a commonly recommended tactic for this purpose, as it allows you to create columns for each of your social networks, a URL to your profile on that social network, and any login details required for each; as well as information regarding which staff member has responsibility for each platform.

Try a Google search of your hotel name in order to check which social media profiles appear. If you find imposter profiles ranking higher than your own hotel, this is obviously a cause for some concern, as you want to ensure your social presence is optimised for your own purposes. This involves maintaining control over your own profiles. You could consider compiling a separate list of any fake accounts and decide later whether to contact the appropriate network about the possibility of removing them for you.

Assessing your own social media profiles is a crucial element of your social media audit. Ensure each profile is aligned with your goals and objectives as a hotel, and check that all branding is clearly defined.

Work through this checklist as you assess your profiles in order to ensure all important aspects have been covered:

• Logos and cover photos – are they relevant, compelling and do they stand out?

• Is your call to action button set up on Facebook?

• Have you converted to a business page on Instagram?

• Is your about and profile information concise, succinct and up to date?

• Is all of your contact info complete?

• When did you last post?

• How many fans or followers do you have?

• Is your content varied enough?

• What kind of content are people engaging with most?

• Are you tagging products and people?

• Is your posting frequency in line with competitors?

Ensuring you have taken note of any lessons you can glean from your social media audit is a crucial aspect of setting your hotel social media marketing up for success further down the line.