Measuring Social Media Impact

Daniela West
Georgia Southern University
PRCA 3334: Social Media and PR
Measuring Social Media Impact

Best Western is a well-known, family oriented hotel chain. They have loyal customers, but like all other hotels they have to goal for new customers. With a lot of competition in the hospitality industry it is important to keep their loyal customers and to build new customers. Best Western does this by actively using social media as a tool to engage their customers and potential customers. Out of all the social networks that they have, Best Western is most active on Twitter. They have 63,600 followers on Twitter and have tweeted 10,100 times. They engage their visitors on Twitter by retweeting many of their tweets and hosting contests. Although many contests ask for hashtags, I have not seen anything related to Best Western trend. While Best Western is more active on Twitter, their Facebook is also actively used and spears to be more used by customers. On Facebook they have 1,057,009 likes, 2,921 are talking about them, and 622,462 were here. They engage people on Facebook by replying back to comments made and have small contests like Travel Trivia Tuesday.
Best Western has also had some negative and positive comments made on Facebook about their company. Nearly every time I have seen comments of this nature, Best Western has responded in some form. In most cases, they either try to resolve the complaint or they thank the person for a compliment. Sometimes on compliments they simply like the post. This is another way that Best Western engages people on their social media. Best Western also has the blog youmustbetrippin.com. This is another social platform they actively use. They post on it at least twice a week. They mainly blog about places you can go on vacation and tips for your vacation, but sometimes there may be blogs of a different nature posted. Although there are some posts off topic most of the time Best Western blogs about travel.
On the blog, Best Western does not seem to get a lot of response, but they still try to engage people in their blogs. They do this by simply posting things that may interest different people and contests. Some of the contests that Best Western offers, asks those interested to go comment on their blogs. Instagram is another social medium that Best Western actively uses. Best Western has 1,167 followers on Instagram. They do not use it daily, but do use it at least once a week. Although they do not use it daily they still attempt to engage their followers by replying back to comments.
On YouTube, they only have 971 subscribers and 181 posts. They also do not post daily on YouTube, but when they do post they post about many different things. Their posts range from Indie films to travel tips. Their most popular YouTube post was the 2014 Spring Promotion that was added four months ago and has had 585,320 views. Best Western also has a Pinterest. On Pinterest they have 2,149 followers and 1,279 pins. They only post about travel. They have some boards that are suggested destinations for certain types of year like summer or specific holidays. While others are designated for things to do in certain areas that can range from states to different countries. Finally, the other boards are for specific types of vacation that can range from beach to romantic vacations. They engage people on Pinterest by repining, liking, and commenting back when there is a comment. Best Western’s last social media platform is Google Plus. On here they have 2,661 followers and have had 1,113,125 views. They are also active on here, but not as active on here as they are on Twitter and Facebook. They engage their viewers by commenting back and hosting contests. I consider Best Western to have a high ROI. I believe their ROI to be high because while they are more active on certain social media sites, they are active on all of their social media platforms. Also, while on their social media they do not simply post advertisements, they post things that will draw the attention of viewers. They also engage their viewers and respond in most cases when there is a comment or a post on their social media.