How Social Media + Storytelling Can Drive Direct Bookings (Without Paid Ads!) | Debbie Miller

Most hospitality brands struggle to drive direct bookings online.

They try posting on Instagram, Facebook, and maybe even LinkedIn, but with little traction, low ROI, and even lower engagement.

In this episode of The Website Growth Show, we sat down with Debbie Miller, founder of Social Hospitality, to unpack:

✅ How to make social media actually drive traffic to your website
✅ Why storytelling content (not salesy posts) gets the best results
✅ The secret to generating $30K+ revenue from ONE quirky email campaign
✅ How hotels can reduce reliance on Booking.com and OTAs
✅ Why your website is still your best growth asset (if you use it right)
✅ How AI is changing content creation, search, and strategy
✅ The new rules of “interest media” vs “social media”

If you’re a hotel, law firm, or small business owner struggling to grow your online presence, this episode will show you how to use authentic marketing and strategic content to drive real-world business growth.

🔗 More from Debbie

Website: https://socialhospitality.com
LinkedIn: Debbie Miller on LinkedIn

#socialmediamarketing #organicsocialmedia #contentmarketing #digitalmarketing #strategy #businessgrowth #marketing #podcast

Transcript

Rana (00:00)
it's a B2B company, they would probably want to be more active on LinkedIn. Whereas a B2C travel brand, for example, a hotel would probably Instagram is where that audience is hanging out. So I would say go where your audience is hanging out. You don't need to be everywhere to everyone because the majority of people looking at the reels are not followers. There people who found the reels based on their interest in the algorithms and stuff like that. So this is a very big change to me because if the follower doesn't matter and now you can post anything. So how what is the best way businesses can capitalize on this new new

interest media instead of a social media. So what type of content in your experience currently is doing better? Definitely more like experiential content. So content that speaks to an experience or kind of more storytelling content versus a generic ⁓ promotional type post. if the people are listening to you, they failed at social media before, they want to give it another try. What would be your best suggestion to those people at the moment? I've reels about how hotels are seeing less traffic.

their websites overall because folks are travel planning in chat gbt and not leaving chat gbt because like chat gbt can plan their trip for them without them having to go look at websites so we want to make sure that we're optimizing websites for chat gbt as well. What is the importance of their website in within all this social media marketing game?

Rana (02:23)
Debbie, welcome to the Website Growth Show.

Debbie Miller (02:25)
Thank you so much for having me.

Rana (02:26)
Is it still possible to grow a business with social media without paying for ads?

Debbie Miller (02:31)
Well, that's a great question. Obviously, the more you pay, the better you'll do. I primarily work in the organic social media space. So I can say that, yes, it's still possible. It'd be a little more manual in terms of the work you have to do. But definitely you want to.

create an authentic presence online and that's something that you can do more naturally through organic social media efforts versus paid efforts. Paid campaigns tend to be a little bit more sales focused and they tend to be a little more objective based which is obviously great for that purpose. But if your goal is to build a brand and build an audience and have an authentic brand, you want to do more actual conversing and being more human and authentic and I think that's what people are looking for online. We get inundated with so many.

sales messages all the time. So having that more authentic brand that shows the personality is a great way to stand out amongst your competitors.

Rana (03:15)
amazing. How do you define authentic? How the brand can be authentic?

Debbie Miller (03:19)
finding the right balance of your right contact mix, guess is to say it. So making sure that you're both educating your audience on your industry or your niche, talking about what you do, what you offer, the problem that you solve, that your company solves, offering solutions. But in a way, again, that's not.

to outwardly salesy in a way that is human to human and just kind of showing your human side to the brand. I've seen with a lot of different clients that I've worked with. I've worked a lot in the hospitality space, but I've worked with several law firms as well, for example, and it's personal injury law. It's not a sexy brand. It's car accidents and stuff like that. And we've we've seen across the board with the various law firms that we've worked with. Whenever we talk about the team and what the team is doing, that kind of content performs way better than any other type of content. So people want to see the humans behind the brand.

even for a B2B company like that, people kind of want to resonate and connect with other humans.

Rana (04:10)
Amazing and in personal injury law firms, what can you show team doing which normally resonates with the audience?

Debbie Miller (04:19)
Yeah, so a lot of team member, like I said, team member content. that might be the attorneys going to events or, or participating with organizations. It might be cases they're working on and the outcomes that they provided to their clients, the way that they serve their clients often in a very terrible point in the client's life if they've sustained an injury or something like that. Making sure that we're speaking to the client themselves and their journey and what they've gone through. Again, kind of adding that human, human aspect to it. That definitely helps.

you know, resonate more with folks online than just kind of another, you know, their billboard. the kind of the billboard sleazy attorney that's just trying to get business, you know, there there's that kind of vibe that's out there for that industry. And they def and the attorneys that I've worked with have definitely wanted to stand out and be more human and personal and really speak to these issues that people often go through when they're in an accident of some kind.

Rana (05:09)
Interesting. What is your why? What is your story? Why are you helping businesses grow using social media?

Debbie Miller (05:15)
Yeah. So I kind of say my career trajectory was kind of a result of a happy accident. I began in college through an internship program and I got placed in a marketing internship and I was an English major in college. So I've always loved to write and that kind of, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I got placed in a marketing internship for a destination marketing organization. And what that is, it's an organization kind of similar to a chamber of commerce, but for travel, for hotels and cities. And so they represent a city to market the city as a whole so that people come stay there. So for example, we

work

with the hotels and the restaurants, the arts venues, the shopping venues, all of the aspects to promote the cities that people come stay there.

And so I kind of fell into that and I found that I really loved it. I was so creative and so fun and the hospitality industry is a very work hard, play hard industry. So it's very, very fun to work with. And I began doing that back almost 20 years ago now. It was kind of right at the beginning of social media for business, right when social media was emerging for businesses. So everyone was kind of on the same level playing field. Everyone was kind of learning as we, as we went. And I started going to networking events and meeting a

folks. At the time we all met through Twitter actually. That was back when Twitter was kind of first starting for businesses and a lot of us local to my to my area were meeting through Twitter and then getting together in person and it was really cool because I was young and I still you know had a lot of imposter syndrome and I felt very new to the space, new to the career world in general and I got to meet a lot of really great people and it was fun because like I said we're all the same ground level with social media and it came naturally to me because I was younger at the time and able to kind of grasp it all.

a little more easily than some of my more experienced peers. So that's kind how I got started. And then I became, I was working again for the destination marketing organization. And at the time there wasn't a solid resource on social media for the hospitality industry. And that's how social hospitality, my brand was born actually as a blog back in 2011. I was just blogging about social media and the hospitality industry, because that's the area I was working in. And what was really cool about the evolution of that, which has now turned into my full-time business for the last eight years.

is that it kind of just started organically and it was something that I was just writing about because I was passionate about the industry and I enjoyed writing and it kind of evolved from there. I started getting freelance clients from my blog as well. I ended up transitioning from the DMO to a larger marketing agency, more corporate agency, so I worked there for six years as well, learned a lot more.

different angles of digital marketing. So I learned SEO and I learned all the ways that digital marketing, the ecosystem works. And so I'm very thankful for that period of learning and getting exposure to different brands. And from there, I was able to kind of go out on my own with Social Hospitality now as its own boutique marketing agency, focused primarily on digital marketing and content creation. But my why is basically rooted in the desire to help people tell stories that resonate with people.

showing up authentically, helping brands find their voice in their community and see the impact of their business and what they're working on. I think that's always been very fulfilling in my career journey.

Rana (08:12)
Amazing story. So you are you know living social on the social authentically. So that's where that's how you you build your brand

Debbie Miller (08:18)
Yeah, absolutely.

Rana (08:19)
Okay.

So what is your favorite way of picking a brand, helping them with social media to grow online?

Debbie Miller (08:27)
Yeah, it kind of depends. a little bit. I have some some industries that I work primarily with, like hospitality or the law firms that I mentioned, but I'm pretty industry agnostic at this point. also have several education clients. I've had several in kind of the wellness space. I've had several kind of B2B SaaS companies that I've worked with. So it's not so much about the industry. It's more about the client themselves and what's in the right fit. So since I'm a smaller agency, I have a small team, but we're relatively small compared to a larger corporate agency. And because of that, we're able to give more personalized service. So that's feedback that I've gotten quite a bit.

is that we're much more personalized. I'm usually involved very closely with the team. We were just discussing it for the meeting. I'm in meetings all the time. I'm constantly working with my clients, very hands-on, to be part of their marketing team and understand their business and their goals and their objectives. Sometimes with a larger agency, you have so many different folks that you're working with. There's an account manager who needs to pass a request off to a developer, for example. Sometimes it's a lot more...

It's a lot bigger process to get stuff done and you have to go through several hands and you don't really have personalized service. So, think clients that tend to resonate with like a smaller agency like myself tend to prefer that kind of more personalized touch. It's usually kind of small, I say small businesses. So in the hotel space, it's small independent hotels, smaller law firms as well, kind of the small to medium sized business that again, kind of wants that hands-on marketing support versus either, versus having someone full time in house to do it.

maybe it's just kind of a need that's not as big as needing a full-time person, but it's not as big also as needing a full-time agency. So it's kind of that middle ground there.

Rana (10:00)
I get that this is the main reason clients work with you. first of all, how do you choose the client? What is your criteria? How do you decide that you can produce the expected result for the client? And how do you decide which social media platform is good or best for them to produce their expected results? So how do you go about this process?

Debbie Miller (10:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, so kind of what I was pushing upon before I answered the first question, like I usually decide if the clients are fit based on initial conversation with them. So finding out what their needs are, their team structure is, what their goals are. If I'm not the right fit for whatever reason, I will refer them to another client, but for the most part.

clients find me. don't do a lot of cold outreach. That's not something I've ever had to do, thankfully. it just depends when they come to me if it's the right fit, if it aligns with the services that I provide or not. Sometimes there's a lot of peripheral services that I can help support, but I don't necessarily, I'm not an expert in, so I'll usually refer out. So for example, if a client needs PR or paid social or other kind of peripheral, more in-depth branding work, that's something I'm familiar with that space, but that's not my bread and

That's

not what I want to do, so I would refer that out. And in terms of figuring out which platforms a client should be on, it is a case-by-case basis. So for example, if it's a B2B company, they would probably want to be more active on LinkedIn, whereas a B2C travel brand, for example, a hotel would probably...

Instagram is where that audience is hanging out. So I would say go where your audience is hanging out. You don't need to be everywhere to everyone because it's not necessarily going to produce the ROI that you want if you're somewhere where your audience isn't making the decision to make a purchase, for example. So it depends where your audience is. again, it varies based on your specific business and goals.

Rana (11:36)
Amazing. And do you have any recent case study where clients come to you, like in hospitality industry, if you want to share? what were their challenges and what solution you provided and the kind of results they received?

Debbie Miller (11:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, so

one recent case study was a hotel group that I worked with. It's a small hotel group of three independent properties across the West Coast. And they wanted to launch an email campaign. So they hadn't really been doing many email campaigns. And I helped develop all of the email campaigns. And they had one specific offer that they launched with. And so we were able to create a standalone booking code for that. It was an offer that we just.

We just pushed through email. We also pushed it in other avenues, but I was focused on the email side of things. And I was able within the first two months to generate around $30,000 of trackable revenue for them. So that was awesome to see. And we also don't know, it could have been folks that reels the email, went to the website and booked later, you know, without the code that we promoted through the emails, but that was kind of a very tangible.

productive result that we saw and were able to directly tie revenue to it. So that was awesome to see the client was very happy with that. And another note, I've also been doing some task force marketing work. So that involves filling in for someone on first in the hotel space, filling in for someone at a hotel, whether ⁓ in this last instance, it was their marketing manager went on maternity leave. So I was able to fill in for the property while she's gone, while she was gone. And I've done other similar task force work in the past while a management company had just acquired a hotel.

hadn't

hired their full-time team yet, so they had myself and some other task force marketing folks fill in. But this latest one that I've worked with was really fun, and we had a really positive dynamic. And in the four months I worked with them, we were able to completely revitalize their content and update their social media presence and still build on the internal processes that their team used. But because it was kind of an outside perspective, I was able to kind of offer some new ideas and insights on ways that they could update and enhance their messaging, and they were really appreciative of that.

Rana (13:35)
Excellent, excellent results. Can you share what were the hotel, three properties, what were they doing with their email before, and what tweak you did to produce this amazing results?

Debbie Miller (13:47)
Yeah. So the email client hadn't been doing too much on email. They had just kind of been sending out generic emails through their booking engine. And I helped them get onboarded to a new email system, helped them create a new template. They kind of wanted to refresh their branding and make their branding more fun and eclectic as well. So we were able to create new email templates, able to create funny and like really, they were trying to be very quirky, like very quirky personality. So we kind of created this personality with the brand. I worked with their marketing manager as well. We created the kind of persona for the brand.

that was the kind of audience they're attracting. And clearly we were able to see from the results that it resonated with their audience. So it was targeting past guests. was again, kind of leaning into that quirky, quirky fun personality versus a more kind of a corporate-y you hotel vibe that some portray.

Rana (14:34)
I got it. got it.

There is lots of talk about that social media is changing to interest media. What does, have you experienced that and how does it changing from social to interest media?

Debbie Miller (14:46)
Yeah, that's an interesting question. Well, I think obviously kind of tying back to the previous point about personalization and authenticity, I think people obviously are following what they're interested in. It's becoming a way that people get news, that people get their socialization, keep up with friends and family. So there's so many different angles to it. And keeping up with what's happening is obviously something it's very hard to do if you're not sitting at a computer all day like I am. I would say kind of the biggest evolution of social this past year would be AI, would be kind of the biggest.

change happening lately and figuring out the ways to integrate AI, but not lose your authenticity and not, not lose that, that personal touch. can tell when a brand's captions are fully AI generated. There's a certain, you know, certain way that, that chat GpT talks and conveys information. And it becomes very evident when you're online all the time, working in the space, which captions have been generated by AI fully and which have not. So you want to make sure if you use AI for ideation and

process management, can be used for those kinds of things in a very productive manner, but you always want to have that human mix as well to finesse, make sure things are correct, add the human layer to it. So I would say that the AI stuff is the most timely innovation.

Rana (15:57)
Got it. So AI is important for, you once you have the ideas to, you know, brainstorm your ideas or build on your idea, that's important. But what I meant by changing from social media to interest media, I was, you know, following a few things and they are saying the followers doesn't matter anymore if you're producing. as you said, you started blog 2012. Around that part, I started online marketing and all those stuff as well.

So we learned that you should have picked a niche, focus on the niche, produce niche-based content as you build content around hospitality. But now they're saying it's changing. So if you're on social media, if you don't have followers, and you can put different stuff out there, the algorithms will find the interested people, and you can get your traction. Is it correct?

Debbie Miller (16:30)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, that is correct. Sorry, I took your question in different direction. Yes, that is correct. And we see that a lot with, especially on Instagram too, if we create Instagram reels for clients, even though the hotels might have like a relatively small follower base, the majority of people looking at the reels are not followers. There are people who found the reels based on their interests and the algorithms and stuff like that. So that's something to keep in mind as well. We don't report, even when we're reporting to clients, I always say like, don't,

emphasize follower count too much for that reason, because so many people that see our content are not followers. We usually kind of measure more so on impressions and engagement. I would say those are the two main things, because that shows us how many people saw the posts, regardless of our follower count. It shows us how many people engage. That's a much more priority metric, is how many people are engaging with our content. How are they engaging? What kind of content are they writing with more than others? And that helps craft the strategy moving forward based on what the audience is interested in.

Rana (17:41)
This is a very big change to me because if the follower doesn't matter and now you can post anything, so what is the best way businesses can capitalize on this new interest media instead of a social media?

Debbie Miller (17:54)
Yeah, mean, it's kind of like following the metrics and see where the metrics are. Usually there's pretty good demographic data that is revealed in, for example, Instagram posts or Facebook or whatever platform you're on. You can see how many people have looked at your content. So again, seeing what content resonated with those people, what are the demographics of those people? depending again, depending on the business, it men versus women? Is it a certain age range? Sometimes, you know, younger folks absorb a certain kind of content or prefer a certain kind of content. folks who are a little older, Gen X versus Gen Z is going to have totally

interests. So looking at how old your audience is and what kind of content resonates with them, that's how you're going to figure out what kind of stuff to post.

Rana (18:30)
So basically, if the businesses are starting out, they don't have a massive amount of following, there is the opportunity. You can start posting authentic, relatable, interest-based content. And there is a possibility to get reach and get new business. Is that right?

Debbie Miller (18:47)
Yes,

yes, absolutely, yeah.

Rana (18:48)
Okay, brilliant. And for the clients, how do you, because as you said, you should focus on, you know, few channels instead of being everywhere. So, but when the clients comes, they have limited budgets normally and they unlimited wishes. How do you manage client expectations and how do you, you know, suggest them and teach them to focus on, you know, few things and then many things.

Debbie Miller (19:13)
Yeah. I mean, communication and transparency are probably the most important aspects of a client relationship through all levels of it. So making sure based on their budget and what we agree upon, usually I work with clients, we have a scope of work that's defined. So it has monthly deliverables, monthly expectations. And then again, we meet monthly or more to review the previous data. depending on what the client's budget is, often if they don't have more to spend, we'll create a scope of work within that framework and then the results will speak for themselves. sometimes, sometimes clients do really well and sometimes they don't

as well, on seasonality, depending on their comp set, depending on a variety of different factors that are happening. So, just kind of keeping an eye on the data and on the performance and again, what's resonating with their audience and then making tweaks accordingly based on what's happening.

Rana (19:58)
Got it. People who are looking at the moment and not sure, maybe they tried in the past, few things didn't work. for example, hospitality industry, if the people are listening to you, they failed at social media before, they want to give it another try. What would be your best suggestion to those people at the moment?

Debbie Miller (20:17)
Yeah, so currently, mean, for a brand in the hospitality space, Instagram is where they should be. I mean, in the past, it was more so, I I mentioned Twitter back in the day, now it's X, but Twitter used to be a much more powerful tool, and now it's mostly used for news and politics and stuff like that. Like people don't make buying decisions on Twitter, whereas 10 years ago they did, for example. So I think it's also keeping up with trends and knowing what platforms make sense for the moment. Pinterest is another channel that is often beneficial for SEO for hotels, not as much on the social.

side, but hotels see a lot of traffic coming to their website from Pinterest. But Pinterest isn't a channel that's on a lot of businesses' radar as much as Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn. For I have several B2B hospitality-related clients that also are just on LinkedIn because that's where their audience is. They don't need to be on Instagram. They don't have a visual product to show on Instagram the way that a hotel does. So for them, it's 100 % LinkedIn and that is working and that does great for them. And then others are on LinkedIn and

Facebook and Instagram because that makes sense for their business. So it's kind of just again seeing where your audience is and seeing what makes most sense for your particular your business and your goals and stuff like that.

Rana (21:25)
Got it. So I'm trying to make sense, sort of that audience who are watching us. Let's say I'm assuming that hospitality people are interested in to learn from you, and they do better than what they are doing currently. So you're suggesting they should try Instagram if they have failed previously. Let's Instagram is the focused social media channel.

What should be the first step for them when they resume their social media efforts?

Debbie Miller (21:51)
Yeah, so to get started, you want to make sure you're posting consistently. So figure out what that is. For some clients, they just want to post twice a week. For some, they want to post every day. So find your appropriate balance and cadence and just be consistent with it. Because it looks, it stale when someone lands on your page and there hasn't been a post in several months, for example. So you want to make sure you're posting consistently, whatever that cadence is, and then building up your fan base. So if you're on LinkedIn, for example, and you've just created a new LinkedIn page for your business, if you already have a network established from your personal page,

Making sure to let people know that you have a new brand page that's going to be sharing resources and educational content about your industry so that people follow you there. You want to also engage with other pages. This is true for Instagram as well. Engage with other pages. So for example, for a hotel that's in a certain city, they might want to engage with other businesses in the city or other travel brands, as well as monitoring on the community management side, monitoring comments and UGC, user generated content. So seeing what people who are visiting the area are talking about.

learning from that content and getting in touch with those people, doing outreach to influencers or to whomever to kind of grow the following. But you want to be just as much outreach focused and kind of building the audience as you are with creating the content. There's those different sides of it.

Rana (23:02)
So got it. So you need to be on Instagram. You need to be creating consistently whatever the consistency means to you. So what type of content in your experience currently is doing better?

Debbie Miller (23:14)
Definitely more like experiential content. So content that speaks to an experience or kind of more storytelling content versus a generic.

promotional type posts. So definitely again, kind of going back to the original authenticity point that I had to hone down really hard. Making sure to give people an opportunity to learn what it would be like to stay at your hotel, for example. To learn what it would be like to work with your law firm, for example. Showcasing the humans and the personality and the experience versus just selling. I would say when social media first started, I would say you have to kind of learn to sell without selling. And when you create experiential content, when you create educational content,

That's another thing, like educating your audience, creating resources and providing value in some way that helps resonate with an audience and build an audience in a following more so than just kind of, know, haphazardly putting stuff out that doesn't really resonate.

Rana (24:03)
And any type of content, like a video, images, or text, tend to do better, or you should be mixing, trying everything.

Debbie Miller (24:12)
Yeah, we always recommend a mix of trying everything. have seen and the answer to that question changes.

depending on what's going on with algorithms. So, and we see this happen all the time when, when meta changes their algorithm, we'll have a couple of months where the Instagram reels are performing better than static posts. And then Instagram will change their algorithm and we see static posts perform better. So it does, does vary. And then on LinkedIn is a little bit different, you know, we don't need to have photos per se, whereas Instagram, every post requires a visual asset. LinkedIn does not, you can add links and stuff like that. So on LinkedIn as well, though, we'll do a variety of link posts as well as photos just to see what resonates, but links and more content.

focus stuff resonates more on LinkedIn, obviously photos and reels do better on Instagram, but it does depend on what's going on with the algorithm to know which is the most beneficial.

Rana (24:56)
While you are mentioning LinkedIn a lot, so can I ask a question? Because we started this podcast and my focus channel is only LinkedIn, so I only publish on LinkedIn. is it like ⁓ again, same suggestion, you should be mixing with the content or just to reels or videos, do better on LinkedIn?

Debbie Miller (25:13)
Yeah, would say, mean, depending on if you're trying to, depending what your goals are. So it's your goal to get people to listen to the podcast to get more guests.

whatever your goals are, but yeah, I'd say try a variety and see. don't, I don't feel like from what I've seen and kind of observed from the industry, I don't think people watch videos as much on LinkedIn. So I would say create a link post or post to the podcast. And so those who want to click on the podcast and watch the video or listening can do so from outside of LinkedIn. But I think on LinkedIn itself, what would resonate most with your audience is maybe having kind of a summary of the conversation and say, if you want, like for instance, for this conversation, if you want to learn more about social media and the current trends in social media,

Here's my conversation with Debbie. Click here to view it or whatever the case may be. Like tell people what they're going to gain from it and that way folks that follow you that are interested in this kind of content will click over and look at it. But I don't know if people are as interested in stopping and watching a video in the middle of their LinkedIn feed as much as on they do on Instagram, for example.

Rana (26:08)
And there is another myth on LinkedIn you mentioned that you should not post a third party link within the post. Do you have any insights on that? Because when the people say when you, for example, if I'm putting a link for a YouTube video or a blog post within the post, normally it kills the reach. Is that your experience as well?

Debbie Miller (26:22)
Come on.

No, I include LinkedIn posts all the time. So I haven't necessarily seen that per se. I haven't specifically seen any clients be victim to that. We usually post links in the posts themselves.

Rana (26:40)
Alright, that's amazing. Even though I was hesitating to post, normally we used to comment in the first comment, like you post a main post and the link in the first comment. So you are saying you can even post within your main post.

Debbie Miller (26:54)
Yeah. I mean, I usually do and our performance has been static. Yeah. Like I don't know, maybe that one point, maybe that one point that was that was like the case. Again, maybe we made an Instagram algorithm thing. But I mean, I see, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn all the time as well. And I see posts, I see links in posts all the time. And then my clients also put links in posts and we still get good reach from it. ⁓

Rana (26:58)
Okay.

Mmm.

Okay, very good. So do

you mind sharing what couple of other LinkedIn things what are working good or working for you at the moment to get better reach, better traction on LinkedIn?

Debbie Miller (27:27)
Sure, yeah. LinkedIn Articles is one, so you can write an actual article.

So we have a couple clients that have been doing LinkedIn articles and it can go on your website as well, but adding it to LinkedIn makes it, gives it a little bit more prominence on LinkedIn itself. It also lives on your profile. So people who go to look you up on LinkedIn are able to see your expertise and that you're educating your audience on your topic that's relevant to them. So that's definitely one way to get a little bit more reach on LinkedIn.

also kind of similar to other platforms, but.

interacting with other people, not just posting but also engaging. So commenting on other posts, engaging in groups, if that's something you're interested in. Sometimes groups can get little spamming, a little promotional, but finding the right kind of niche groups and participating and networking that way is beneficial because the more people you're interacting with, the more often they're going to see your content in their feeds. And then when they interact with your content in their feeds, their followers are going to see, you know, so-and-so liked this person's posts, for example. So the more you interact with other content on there, the more

more people will see your content as a result.

Rana (28:26)
Fantastic. Thank you so much for this specialist LinkedIn advice, Debbie. The work you do with your client on social media, what is the importance of their website within all the social media marketing game?

Debbie Miller (28:39)
Yeah, I mean, your website's basically your home base for your entire brand, so you certainly should have a website as well. For a lot of businesses, the goal, a lot of our social media purpose and calls to action will go back to the website for them to either, some sort of call to action, so for a hotel to complete a booking or for a lawyer to request a consultation. So depending on what the calls to action are, we're usually almost always driving.

people back to the website regularly. So that's something definitely is important. I think the website should have all the information that people would possibly need to know about your brand so that they can learn and see if it fulfills a need that they're looking to fill. So social media is definitely a supplement to having a website and a way to help promote it as well.

Rana (29:18)
Yeah, social media are your marketing agents. So the goal is to market your business and bring back interested prospects to your website. So that landing page where the transaction happens is on your website normally. So what is your suggestion for those type of landing pages? Is there a certain things you prefer and in your experience converts better than ⁓ other types of landing pages?

Debbie Miller (29:24)
What?

No, it just it depends like because there's different types of content that you can promote So some of some of the content that you'll put out on social isn't necessarily calling for people to book It's it's providing them a resource. So for example for a hotel, they might have a new blog post up of things to do in the area So we'll promote the blog post and drive people to the website, but we're not necessarily telling them book a room We're saying learn about the area that you might want to visit. So it's not always it's not as a specific landing page that has

sort of call to action or lead form or something like that. It's more so providing them a resource, getting people to your website to explore it further, and then providing information or answering a question that the visitor might have. So I have lot of hotel clients, for example, that I write blog posts for as a member of social media.

exclusive, I have one hotel group that has 17 properties that exclusively write blog posts for. And so they're using that blog per SEO perspective, but then they're promoting it on their social media every month, they're promoting it in their newsletters. And it's driving people back to the website to provide them a resource, to provide them information. And it's not necessarily asking them to book explicitly, but it's driving that experiential type of content and encouraging people to want to visit those areas to go stay in those hotels.

Rana (30:54)
Very interesting. I normally when book a hotel or something I normally use go to booking.com or similar portal and you find a room and you book it so I'm just you know curious does to the people you know reels the blog post about the area and book hotels still.

Debbie Miller (31:00)
Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. And for hotels specifically, so what you're just alluded to is called OTAs, online booking.com Expedia. For hotels, when you book through Expedia, which you can, that's fine, but Expedia takes a cut, or booking.com takes a cut. The goal for hotels specifically is to get people to book through their website because then they keep 100 % of the profit. Basically, they're not paying a cut to Expedia or booking.com. So for hotels, we want to drive as much traffic to the website as possible, no matter what page they land on.

Rana (31:23)
Please.

Debbie Miller (31:37)
We want to drive traffic to get people there to book on the site versus going to a third party.

Rana (31:37)
Mm.

Okay, so basically you don't send the social media traffic to home page or any specific booking page. You send to a resource that the people know about the business and then if they are interested to do some business.

Debbie Miller (31:54)
Yeah, sometimes we do do a post crafted to the home page or to the booking engine. So sometimes, yes. But in general, most of the time, hotel website has 20 pages. know, there's rooms, spa, dining. You know, we'll usually speak to the experience of staying at the hotel versus telling people to book when they don't know why they want to book yet because they don't know what they're going to be doing or that kind of

Rana (32:14)
what does social media marketing success look like or how do you define success?

Debbie Miller (32:19)
Yeah, it varies by client. I'd say ongoing client dynamics and relationships speak a lot to how things are going. So there's that side of it. Obviously, there's being able to show those analytics and show growth and progress and revenue that has come in through these efforts. Obviously, conveying that the ROI is there for the amount that they're paying me. They're getting 5X back in social media and revenue. So being able to show that. But I think in general, for me, it's about the relationships. I love.

the clients that I work with, again, I love being kind of immersed in the teams and getting to know the team members and creating those dynamics and relationships. And I think that when it works going well, that feels really good. It feels nice to be able to enjoy going to work every day and having those strong relationships. And when they keep you long-term, obviously it suggests that the relationship is going well.

Rana (33:03)
Excellent. how do you see ⁓ social media evolving with AI? Content is one aspect, but is it AI is affecting any other way, the social media?

Debbie Miller (33:15)
Yeah, so I think the biggest shift, it kind of overlaps with social media a little bit, but like the SEO side of things. So I've been trying to learn more about GEO, which is the generative search option. So now when you search for something in chat GPT, for example, it gives you links, you know, in your answers. So in addition to trying to optimize your websites and your blog posts and your online content for Google, you also want to optimize it for chat GPT users. they're different avenues, they're different.

And we're actually seeing the travel industry specifically, we're not with my clients specifically, but I've reels about how hotels are seeing less traffic to their websites overall because folks are travel planning in ChatGPT and not leaving ChatGPT. Because ChatGPT can plan their trip for them without them having to go look at websites. So we want to make sure that we're optimizing websites for ChatGPT as well and that the content there is very...

Experiential that if someone enters a basic question and chat GPT about a trip or destination, we want our site to come up for that. And we have to make sure to frame phrases and content marketing efforts around the way that chat GPT delivers results and processes data. and, it's it's a new and different type of optimization that is now having to be integrated in addition to the traditional search engine optimization methods. So it's a tricky nuance there.

Rana (34:33)
Have you managed to crack this code?

Debbie Miller (34:35)
Um, working on it. I'm actually mindful of our content development. So when we're writing content, when we're writing social media content, when we're writing blog posts, when we're updating website copy for a website, we're mindful now of how a search engine would perceive the content as well as how an AI platform might as well. And I try to tailor the content to both.

Rana (34:36)
you

Okay, fantastic. And people again, last question, people who are listening to us or watching to us, looking to get more from social media. What is your best tip for that?

Debbie Miller (35:09)
Yeah, definitely staying on top of current trends and news. Like I said, like the algorithms are changing all the time. Platforms are releasing new products or features or so staying on top of that and learning how to optimize it. And then also, again, kind of knowing your the data. It's a it's a mix of data and strategy that has to come in and you have to be continuously monitoring what again, what content resonates with your audience, what platforms make the most sense, what kind of content video or links or photos or all those kinds of things. And looking at the data and seeing how your specific content is performing.

and then tailoring and adjusting the strategy and the process according to what makes the most sense based on your results.

Rana (35:44)
Fantastic advice. Debbie, ⁓

And then lastly, just if you want to, first of all, thank you very much for sharing generous answer for all my questions. And I hope this conversation will be helpful for some hospitality clients or personal injury lawyers who are looking to improve their social media presence. Where people can find you if they want to connect with you.

Debbie Miller (36:05)
Yeah, my website is socialhospitality.com and then all the social media channels under social hospitality as well. Also on LinkedIn, pretty active on LinkedIn like I mentioned, so feel free to connect with me there. Or my email is debbie at socialhospitality.com as well.

Rana (36:18)
Fantastic, and we will put all these links in the show notes. Debbie, once again, thank you very much for time, and I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us.

Debbie Miller (36:28)
Sure, yeah, it was great chatting with you.