Today I’m going to talk about how to get hired as a social media marketer in the hospitality industry. The whole world is exploding on social media – every hotel wants a professional to handle their SM platforms. Millions now want to join the digital bandwagon. A lot of young people ask me – can I shift my career and become a social media manager in a hotel? Of course you can! If you have the flair and keenness, there’s nothing that can stop you. I’ll tell you the most important things for getting hired as a SM manager. Read on!
Today I’m going to talk about how to get hired as a social media marketer in the hospitality industry. The whole world is exploding on social media – every hotel wants a professional to handle their SM platforms. Millions now want to join the digital bandwagon. A lot of young people ask me – can I shift my career and become a social media manager in a hotel? Of course you can! If you have the flair and keenness, there’s nothing that can stop you. I’ll tell you the most important things for getting hired as a SM manager. Read on!
- Jack of all trades, master of one niche
The umbrella of SM covers everything from UI/UX design, email marketing, podcasts to Search Engine Optimisation. What is it that you want to manage? As an SM manager, you’ll obviously need to have some knowledge of as many domains as possible. But I strongly advise to you try and become the best in your sub-niche. Being an expert, the number of people in your pool will be less. For example, you’ll not find a lot of PPC ninjas in the industry. Become a champion in one specialty – you’ll get hired in a snap!
- Learn, learn and learn.
There is no shortcut to learning! There is so much information being dropped on the internet – every, single, day. You need to keep being on this information treadmill. I’ve thrived in this industry for so many years by learning something new every day. The nature of SM is fickle, with trends, features and users changing constantly. Yesterday it was Snapchat, today it’s all about Insta Stories. It’ll be your job to ensure that your hotel is making the right noise on the right platform. You stop running, and you’ll miss the bus.
What’s great is that there are so many people online that you can follow and learn from. My personal favourites are Gary Vaynerchuck and Michael Stelzner among others.
- Out with old, irrelevant CVs
I feel like throwing most of the CVs I receive in to the garbage. I would suggest this – before going to apply, study the hotel, the type of guests it attracts. Why not create an attractive post or hashtags related to the hotel, and even tag the GM or HR! Bland, irrelevant CVs won’t do any more. If you want to become a rockstar Social Media Manager, write about, or show what you can do for the hotel’s SM profile.
- Share your knowledge on SM platforms
Before even working in the hospitality industry, work on your marketing skills on online platforms at a personal level. For example, if you love watching football, create a blog post on your favourite player, or a review of Manchester United vs. Liverpool. Network with other fans and bloggers to see if they can feature your post on their site. Your personal brand is going to help you get sold! Invest in your personal brand.
- Get a grip on behavioural psychology
Now you don’t need to have a degree in psychology for this. But there should be some keenness to understand guest behaviours and the ‘why’ behind any action. As I said earlier, there’s a wide range of domains under SM – reputation management, newsletter marketing, graphic designing, etc. Now if you don’t know what appeals to the potential guests, how will you design an awesome creative? How will you write a brilliant newsletter that will help the hotel get clicks? It is a must have skill for any social media marketer.
10 years back, a social media manager wasn’t even a proper profession. But today, every hotel is involved with SM in one way or the other. If you want to learn more about the powerful digital world, do checkout the #AskAviArya show – https://www.youtube.com/user/askavijitarya