The tourism industry needs to recruit many new employees in the coming years. A report from the International Youth Foundation (IYF) published in January 2013 on hiltonworldwide.com, states that the “travel and tourism sector as a whole currently employs more than 255 million people around the globe, and it will create 73 million new jobs by 2022”. This represents a 28% increase of work force in 9 years).
Linkedin, is the largest worldwide professional social network with 259 million active users. Since it launched “Company pages” in November 2010, Linkedin provides hotel chains with many great opportunities to interact with and attract new talents into their team. In the past 3 years, Linkedin has progressively introduced new functions into its company pages. The most significant being the introduction of “Showcase pages” in November 2013.
If your hotel chain doesn’t have a Company page yet, click here to “get started”
A Company Page can include 3 Tabs: Home, Careers and Product & Services. To give more depth to content shared on your company pages, Linkedin allows your main company to connect to its subsidiaries via “Affiliated company” but also to share some specific updates thanks to “Showcase pages”.
Let us review how hotel chains can structure their content on Careers and Product & Services tabs as well as on its eventual Showcase pages or Affiliated company pages.
1. Careers Tabs
This is where, you can promote the career development strategy of your company in order to give people the will to work for you, and share all details/links to apply to your open positions.
We particularly recommend videos integrated in the careers section of Marriott International and Accor Linkedin company page.
If you don’t have a video, you can also share a slideshow presentation of your company if it’s hosted on slideshare.com. (e.g. Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts).
2. Products & Services
A company page can include up to 25 products & services pages. For an hotel chain, Products & services should discuss your: Loyalty programs, Gastronomy/Restaurants, MICE (meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions), Weddings, Family travel or Free Wifi, or your hotels. (e.g.: Four Seasons Hotels & resorts and NH Hoteles).
Starwood Hotels & resorts Worldwide, Inc. decided to to have one product for each one of their hotel brands.
3. Showcase pages
Showcase Pages are similar to a Company Page that do not have a Career or Products & Services tab. A Showcase page is followable and increases your flexibility to share targeted updates about your products or services.
For more information, read page about “Features of a Showcase page” and “How do you create a showcase page” on Linkedin Help Center.
4. Affiliated company
Affiliated companies are accessible on the left column of a company page (e.g.: Hyatt Hotels Corporation or Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Linkedin pages). In the Hotel industry, they can be used when one Hotel Group owns different Hotel Brands.
Configurations of affiliated companies is only possible if administrators are using a unique email domain at the time of creation of a new Company Page for one of their subsidiaries. The setting process is manual and can be requested by sending an email to lcshelp@linkedin.com with the entire Url of your affiliated Linkedin company pages.
Do not hesitate to contact us to help you define your hotel social media strategy or get more information on our social media management solutions for hotels.