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Hospitality & Tourism
How Meliá became one of the most influential hotel chains on social media

Founded in Spain in 1956, Meliá Hotels International is the third-largest hotel group in Europe and the largest resort chain in the world. With 15 brands, 380 hotels, and 485 social profiles across 43 countries, the hotel giant needed a scalable platform solution that consolidated all elements of their ecosystem into one place. 

Image of front view of a Melia Hotel
  • 15%
    increase in social media followers in 6 months
  • 16%
    increase in website traffic from social media in Europe
  • Top 10
    most influential IBEX 35 companies on social media in 2018

What they did

Meliá Hotels International set its sights on becoming the hotel chain with the greatest influence on social media, aiming to position itself among the top hotel groups in the world and reinforce its leadership in the leisure sector. It also aimed to be recognized as a global benchmark for excellence, responsibility, and sustainability.

The goals of Meliá’s social media strategy were to:

  • Promote brand loyalty by personalizing the hotel experience for guests 

  • Increase brand awareness on social

  • Increase quality traffic to their website

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Products used in this study

Hootsuite Enterprise
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Hootsuite Amplify
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How they did it

Managing social content on one global platform

With 400+ social media accounts operating at three organizational levels across multiple regions, Meliá faced significant challenges in designing a strategy to centralize content management while enabling each of its groups to communicate successfully with clients and followers. Every brand and hotel with a social media presence has now been streamlined into one platform within Hootsuite, which can be accessed by both regional, hotel teams and Meliá’s global teams. Using Hootsuite’s content library, a central team can now distribute pre-approved content for teams to share at a global or local level, ensuring consistent messaging and branding at all levels. And with the platform’s powerful analytics and reporting features, global departments are able to review and analyze activity across each of the organization’s three levels to guide future strategic decisions. 

Engaging customers with interactive and user-generated content

With a focus on mobile-friendly visual and interactive content, the company set out to strengthen engagement and increase brand recognition and credibility by humanizing the messaging delivered via its corporate channels. To do this, it launched an innovative initiative centered on the people behind the brand: clients, employees, influencers, and even the company’s CEO.

The company captured images of its products and services taken by clients and used them in email marketing, in digital advertising, or as widgets on its website, allowing users to make reservations with a single click from user-created content.

Sharing the client experience via an influencer marketing program

Another way Meliá has earned greater relevance and authenticity with its specific target audiences is through collaborating with influencers, introducing carefully chosen voices to amplify its brand content. 

This broad global program of influencer marketing has the primary goal of sharing personal experiences. The group manages this via a system for identifying, managing, and analyzing influencer relationships, complete with influencer activity reports that provides Meliá with criteria on which to base its selection of influencers and develop lasting partnerships. 

This approach resulted in 1.7 million interactions and a potential reach of 74.7 million social media users in 2018, based on 40 influencer marketing activations for the Me By Meliá brand.

Expanding reach with employee ambassadors

To complete the social transformation at Meliá Hotels International, the final step was to get staff members engaged and active on social media. Confident that its people are what sets the company apart from the competition, the group set out to design a program that would make staff its strongest allies when it came to conveying its values and building its reputation as an employer brand.

A joint effort between the social media team and the human resources department saw the launch of the employee advocacy initiative, an ambassador program with the primary goal of increasing brand recognition on social media by boosting company content.

The results

With a strong global content strategy managed on a central platform and supported by extensive training and a variety of successful social media programs, Meliá continues to shine as an undisputed and innovative leader in the tourism industry.

Put social media to work in every corner of your business

Trusted by 22+ million users in 175+ countries for managing social media.

Hootsuite has become a strategic social media partner for Meliá and is the foundation for our entire large-scale social strategy.
Santiago García Solimei
Global Director of Social Media
Meliá Hotels International

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