Hotel Social Media Metrics: Qualitative Data

Last week, we talked about the different types of quantitative data that hoteliers can use to prove their hotel social media marketing ROI. Qualitative data, while less concrete, is equally important.

Qualitative Data is based on observations from smaller sample sizes. It often takes the form of a hypothesis that can then be tested using quantitative data.

Conversation Drivers

With the right tools, we can look at nearly any platform (or all of them for that matter) and see what people are talking about. When it comes to your brand, you’ll want to know the topics and context of conversations about you, your competition, and your niche. This incredibly useful knowledge can tell you, for example, who your customers see as your closest competition, what they’re sharing in relation to your product, their concerns, etc. This is one of the most important and insightful qualitative measurements you can use.

Sentiment

As we discussed in our Surveys section, sentiment analysis attempts to measure the tone and tenor of a conversation around a stated topic or item. In social media, this is largely used to tell if people love, can’t stand, or are neutral about your brand or campaigns. Most sentiment measurement tools are automated these days.

Influence

This one’s a bit controversial. Everyone wants to find their community’s influencers, but there is currently no universal standard for measuring influence or finding those people. There are several tools available that offer “influence scores.” (Klout is a popular one.) Though if you choose to use such a tool, you should have a good sense for how it determines the score. You want to make sure it aligns with what you are actually trying to measure. Beyond tools, also consider looking at Twitter and Google rankings for influencers within a certain topic. This can help you target the individuals that will have the audience you’re looking to reach.

Again, qualitative data is less concrete than quantitative, but it also gives you insights that you can’t necessarily get with quantitative data. What you can do with it, for example, is build marketing campaigns around topics discovered through conversation drivers. Then, measure that campaign’s success with quantitative methods. As always, with any data you’re collecting, you need to ask yourself, “What can I do with this?” and “What are my insights?”

Learn about what’s trending, review response metrics, and a look forward at hospitality reputation in our 2018 Reputation Benchmark Report. Available free for download.