In this episode of Suite Spot, we explore the exciting, recent announcement of Travel Media Group’s newest solution: Custom Social. Joey Schuster, Product Development Manager, joins host Ryan Embree to share all the exciting features and benefits of this new solution.

Ryan and Joey discuss the benefits of having a social media strategy in 2019 and how publishing unique, creative posts specific to your hotel helps drive community growth and traveler engagement. Joey shares the recent successes of Custom Social and what separates Travel Media Group’s custom social solution from others. Travel Media Group is the best fit for hoteliers looking to run successful, revenue generating social media campaigns.

If you are looking to learn more information about our new custom social solution or want to submit a question for future episodes, call or text 407-984-7455.

Episode Transcript

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Ryan Embree: Welcome to Suite Spot where hoteliers check in and we check out what’s trending in hotel marketing. I’m your host, Ryan Embree,

Ryan Embree: If you can believe it, we are already at episode number 20 of the Suite Spot, and I want to first thank everyone for taking the time to listen. We’ve got a great episode for you today. Um, it’s been a while since we’ve talked about social media, but it’s one of the things here at Travel Media Group that we are digital experts in and we love to talk about with our hoteliers because we know the importance of it. With that being said, we’ve got a really special guest with us. He is our product development manager at Travel Media Group for both social media and websites solutions for our hotel partners. And that is Mr. Joey Schuster.

Joey Schuster: Thanks for having me.

Ryan Embree: Well I wanted to first get started Joey, uh, by asking, you know, from a product development manager having something like social media for hotels. I’m sure you get asked all the time cause I know I do one more out and about at conferences and tech shows. Social media has been constantly changing with new apps coming on Facebook, new analytics, Um, and then we’re even talking about, things in the news with privacy. So why is it important for hoteliers in 2019 to keep providing unique and creative posts and utilizing social media?

Joey Schuster: Um, I mean I think it’s really because, you know, you have to be, you have to be unique because of the unique audience of people that are visiting your site. So, um, you know, you just have so many, so many different people from different walks of life that have different sense of humors or different backgrounds. And being able to kind of, you know, hopefully tap into all of those different groups, that’s, that’s what makes, um, social media I think so powerful is just that it is, it’s such a massive amount of people that are using it. It’s such a diverse group of people using it. Um, and then the creative side, you know, to be unique and creative. The creative side is, is just because is probably the other side of it is because so many people are using it. I mean, people are so desensitized to something that’s creative and unique at this point.

Joey Schuster: I mean, you think about the people that are coming up with, with, um, with unique ideas, it becomes more and more difficult because of so many people doing such a great job. You look at somebody like Wendy’s and Wendy’s does a phenomenal job with their social media, um, because they really did come up with a unique kind of creative way of engaging with their customers. Um, and then you can, you can see the impact that that has on their business. It’s, it’s phenomenal. You know, the upside to the creative side, I think of it is that, um, you know, you get a lot of chances. You know, I think that’s because there’s so many people out there who are, you know, watching and consuming all the content that’s out there. You know, you get, you get lots of chances. That’s the beautiful thing about, uh, about social media is so inexpensive to push something out there. And if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t work, then you try something new. And that’s that kind of cycle that you just, you just kind of keep going. And then she didn’t take advantage of this massive, just massive crowd of people out there that, that loves social media and in so many different ways. I mean Twitter, you know, the short, the short and sweet Facebook, you know, the long and probably more personal. And then you have like Instagram, which is straight image heavy. I mean, you just have all these different types of experiences and ways to consume content.

Ryan Embree: Yeah, it’s crazy. You know, just to add on to that, I mean, you look at now a Facebook post with just words on it. It’s almost like it’s lacking something. Uh, and it’s, it’s kind of to your point with the creativity, uh, things have gotten now to the point where when you’re scrolling on Facebook, you know, you’re looking for the types of creative posts that are going to jump out at you and actually make you stop. You might just be scrolling, past some words and images, which were maybe the way that hotels and businesses were first going about using social media. So I think that’s absolutely true. And to, uh, your unique part with kind of talking about all sorts of people being on social media now becoming more of a common thing from a marketing perspective that’s so powerful because you really can start to target maybe segments or you know, we heard hear a lot about millennials and baby boomers, so to figure out creative ways to attract them and get some engagement and, and you know, that they’re willing to share.

Joey Schuster: Yeah.

Ryan Embree: In the spirit of that, you and your department have kind of been very busy in developing a new solution for our hoteliers called Custom Social. So I wanted to first kind of start out with the inspiration behind this new product. We’ve had social media now for a number of years as a solution for our hotel partners. But you felt that this kind of upgraded solution, custom social was necessary. What, what was the inspiration behind that?

Joey Schuster: The main inspiration was, was that it was requested and we just had a lot of hotels we, you know, our kind of like background, um, in social media. Um, it was, uh, it was essentially a less expensive way for a hotel to still have really great content mixed with kind of like a DIY way of them doing it. They can do it themselves, they can go in and kind of add some, some great local posts and they can get, um, they can look for some local events and they can kind of go in and schedule those. But then also there’s kind of like this nice fill content that’s really engaging and interesting and funny and in those types of pieces mixed. So you have a nice, you have a nice mix. Um, the request that just kept coming was “can you guys just, we like your, we love your travel content but we’re just not doing our part essentially. We’re not doing the, the localized part. I just, I don’t have time or I don’t know how to do that well enough…”

Ryan Embree: The hotelier?

Joey Schuster: The hotelier, yeah. “…We, I don’t, I don’t know how to do that. So can you guys do that for us?” And so it was one of those things, I mean for us, when we approach something, we look for a scalable solution. I mean that’s, I think, you know, um, Travel Media Group, I think that’s probably their strongest, um, you know, their strongest asset with, with all of their products is that they, you know, we figure out ways to approach something from a very, from a very scalable way. I mean there’s a lot of companies out there that do an agency level approach, “which is if you sign up for custom content, I’m essentially going to hire somebody to manage your social media for you.”

Joey Schuster: “I’m, I’m going to find, I’m going to do the vetting, I’m going to find somebody who’s really great.” But I mean and while that works really well, it’s just really expensive. And so while there are businesses that can and should spend that kind of money on social media, there are also a lot of businesses that can’t spend that, that, that amount of money. So it’s finding out a way, um, that they can still have a really successful program because we know that social media is important to your business. Um, but you know, it comes in at a price point that you know, that they can swallow, you know, that they can live with. You know, um, that’s a good mix to their marketing budget. X percentage goes to digital, you know and that formula still works for them.

Joey Schuster: So we just had to figure out a way, a way to really do that. And so now we kind of have figured out a way to do it the way that we that in use freelance writers, uh, mixed with our internal staff, makes it a really great team of writers. That’s ability to write on a whim. And that’s essentially what you’re looking for is to be able to, I need stuff written and they are looking for work and you kind of mash the two together and you can kind of at a very scalable way, get custom content written. And that’s what, that’s what we’ve done. You know, it’s, it’s great because it’s the mix that we were always saying that we should be doing. We should be doing, um, you should have fun travel content, get people engaged with something funny or something that makes you know something or great travel tip. That stuff’s really important to kind of mix in there. But you should also have that local something that’s specific to your property. There’s this event is going on or we’ve got this really great room special where we have triple rewards points this month. Whatever, whatever those things those need to be mixed in as well. And I think that’s the part where, you know, you have a custom writer come in, and in through the notes and they can actually pay attention to, they can see what’s going on at the property. But the property doesn’t have to be responsible for having, you know, perfect grammar and understanding how, like, what’s the best time to post and how to make sure there’s some sort of maybe like call to action at the end or you know, those kinds of like having those thoughts go through their mind. That’s the part that, you know, as a regular business owner that they don’t spend all day doing social media, as they shouldn’t be.

Joey Schuster: And you know, our people do that. That is what we do.

Ryan Embree: And I think that’s what takes it to the next level. Um, cause you know, obviously those traveler tips, those quotes, those are things meant for sharing engagement inspiration. But it’s that custom content there that has to specifically do with the property. That might be, uh, the reason that that traveler or a potential traveler pulls the trigger on your property versus another one. And, and does have a stronger call to action being so specific. Um, you kind of went into this a little bit, but I am curious kind of, you know, with so many customers doing the social media program, which ways are your teams communicating with the hotels to make sure that the posts are accurate and they’re custom specific, make sure you’re getting all the right information about that hotel and posting it to their accounts.

Joey Schuster: Yeah. So when a hotel first starts, there is like an onboarding process and at that point, um, we have a client support team member that’s going to talk to them and basically fill out a notes area and they’re going to ask for all kinds of different details; check-in time, check out time. Make sure all of that kind of, all of that stuff is accurate. If you have pet policies, if there’s, um, specific, uh, event calendars that they have over the year, do they know of just major events in their area that they’re going to want us to talk about? Um, even smaller events, what venues are close by, which ones are within walking distance, which ones are you know, maybe like within a 15-minute drive, like those types of things. Um, to try to fill out this notes section on, on the different topics. And then when the writer receives a, received, we call it a tile. When the writer receives a tile to say, “hey, you know, we need this piece of content type written,” they’re going to get three different content types. So you’re going to see, you’re going to see a rotation between, um, like hotel amenities. So, so maybe a post that talks about a room or the fitness center or a conference room, any of those types of, any kind of like hotel specific about the property. You’re going to see local events. So is there a certain concert that’s coming or is there a wine tasting or uh

Ryan Embree: Sports games?

Joey Schuster: Sports games, exactly. Um, you know, and then also a local story, which is a highlight is there, um, uh, you know, is there a museum special? Do you have a science center that’s running, um, you know, a special, you know, NASA, Science Center’s doing NASA this month, but you know, whatever like specific about like focused on a local thing that’s maybe not a specific day, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s always there, but you should, you should check this out.

Ryan Embree: An attraction or something like that?

Joey Schuster: Right, exactly. So kind of like mixing between those three and kind of rotating, um, rotating through them. So what we have then is notes on those types of items. And that’s the part of the onboarding we want to make sure that when the writer sits down and gets the tile and it says, “Hey, it’s time to write, you know, a hotel amenity posts,” then they get the hotel amenity notes and they can see images to use. They can see, you know, amenities to maybe focus on and they can come up with something, something unique. And I think that’s the part, again, kind of going back to like that really kind of, super just efficient way of, of getting solid writing, um, where it’s not, you know, you don’t, you don’t necessarily, um, have one that you’re dependent on one person, but also you get, you know, whoever does right, it has a whole, has a lot of really great information there to get a really solid post for you.

Ryan Embree: Yeah. So it’s almost like a cheat sheet for your team to essentially say, you know, this is what’s going to be in the mind of the GM when they know that this event is coming around this time of the year. And instead of that GM saying, all right, I’ve got to, I’ve got to make some time in my busy day to go on social media and post about this. We’ve already got that information. We know that that’s upcoming. And we’ve kind of been sprinkling that across profiles and accounts for them to get that type of exposure exactly what they’re looking for. It may be of a more creative and different voice than, um, you know, a way that, that GM might have. Um, because you, you guys are working with so many hotels, you guys are specialists in this background to know what moves the needle when it comes to a post and the type of content to create.

Joey Schuster: And, and the other side is we’re also vetting and training the writers to, you know, to those, um, you know, to those styles. That we are saying, you know, this is what we see, this is what we see works. Make sure you’re doing these things. And that, and so in that aspect too, that you’re, you’re exactly right. I mean it’s, there’s a, there’s an expertise that we’ve built by doing writing posts and seeing results for you know, for multiple years which I think is like three or four years, if not. Um, and then, and then, um, just the background of the people that we have, um, that we have. You know, when we hire somebody onto this team, we look for social media specific backgrounds, um, people that have done this before. And when we talk, you know, make sure they have that kind of understanding of analytics and how to use insights and how to, um, how to pay attention to trends and, you know, all of that, all of those types of things that you’re kind of looking for, you know, is, and then making adjustments, um, like as you go.

Ryan Embree: Right. Right. And you know, another thing, just to piggyback on that, that expertise is something else that’s included with this program, um, which is ad spend. So I wanted to kind of talk about you know, why hoteliers should focus on ad spend. I mean, this is an investment, you know, with social media, I think one of the things that’s become such a powerful marketing tool for businesses is because, um, you can create an account for free. It doesn’t cost anything. But when you get into ad spend, you want to make sure that there’s that ROI there. So again, having that expertise of knowing where to spend the ad spend, spend the ads dollars is, is very important. So kind of give us some background on why you’ve included that in the custom social pro solution.

Joey Schuster: Yeah, so I mean, I think, I think this was probably a trend that was kind of going this direction anyway. But I think you know, there’s been, there’s been a couple of things that have kind of even fast-tracked at Cambridge Analytica being one of them. Um, have you heard of that situation?

Ryan Embree: Right, yes.

Joey Schuster: Okay. So, um, you know the, the short of it is, is with the Cambridge Analytica situation is it basically opened up a lot of people’s eyes to privacy concerns and how marketers are using the data to market to people. And so because of that, it kind of fast-tracked I think the social medias platforms, wanting to, um, really separate ads, which is basically business. Any kind of business profiles from personal, you know, your friends’ post and dogs and children that, those, those types of posts.

Joey Schuster: Um, so I think because of that it kind of turned into, you hear a lot of like you kind of have to pay to play to a degree. I don’t think we’re completely there yet because I still think we see a lot of, a lot of organic traffic from pages and um, you know, organic growth can still can still happen. It’s just, it does happen at a slower, a slower rate. I think another, you know, another thing that everybody’s talking about right now is Fyre festivals. I mean it’s, another. Did you see that documentary…

Ryan Embree: Right, yeah

Joey Schuster: … on Netflix? I saw the Netflix one, not the Hulu one. You know, I think even that is just super interesting because you’re seeing, you were seeing there wasn’t this transparency and this was an ad or not. And so that’s what’s, that’s kind of what caused the issue of we need to separate specifically this is an ad and this is, you know, this is an ad from a business versus this is a personal page because that’s just, that’s just the right thing to do when you’re, when you’re marketing to somebody.

Joey Schuster: Um, and while I agree with that, I think that the solution so far has been like to really do that as you really, um, almost like hamper organic growth. It’s for paid growth. So paid growth kind of becomes almost like a necessity. So with that in mind, and us, you know, like I said, well us always paying attention to what exactly is going on is, you know, we include at least some paid advertisements through any of our platforms. And that’s just to make sure you’re getting that boost, that you’re getting reach and you’re getting community growth and you’re getting engagements across, across your post. And it’s not, it’s not a huge spend, but it’s just enough to just kind of make sure you’re still getting that regular, that regular traffic through your pages. Um, and that’s important I think for, you know, making sure that your pages don’t go stale, which is what this is all about.

Joey Schuster: I mean, the idea is that you’re posting regularly and you’re engaging regularly with your community that you’ve created. You’re giving them reason to engage, so you’re giving them a fun article and you’re, hopefully you’re making them laugh and, um, you’re hopefully inspiring them to travel. And that’s really, that’s really what the goal is. Um, and so, you know, getting a higher reach and getting more engagement, getting across to more faces is the way to do it. Um, and just, you know, Facebook, Twitter, all of them really have just made it super clear, um, that, you know they’re moving towards, you’re going to have to pay more to, to do it. They’re going to dampen organic growth.

Ryan Embree: Yeah, and I think, you know, you burned kind of both ends in the match there when you’re, you know, you’re making sure that you are getting that reach on, on that pay side. The people that do know that, you know, might be looking for ads or knowing that it’s ads, but you’re also, you know, also putting time and effort into those organic posts as well, creating engaging content. I want to switch gears a little bit and kind of talk about the solution up to this point Now, I know this is very, very young in its infancy as far as, you know, when we launched custom social, but any successes so far that you’ve seen or that you can share?

Joey Schuster: Yeah I mean, I think really what we’re seeing has been pretty normal results in the fact that like when you have localized posts, they perform better. I think people just engage with something that’s even more local more often than say something that’s like an article share. While an article shares still might get, um, some decent reach and engagement. I just think you get more reach engagement when something is localized, which was I think was always our pitch. You know, we’re really seeing the results and it’s triple and quadruple is what we’re seeing a lot of the organic reach and engagement. Again, also like double and triple and it’s not to say that you shouldn’t, I don’t think we should not be doing the fun travel inspiration stuff as well, but it’s just definitely paying off to say we’re also going to mix in these custom posts that are very local.

Joey Schuster: It’s very similar to the results that we saw versus with hotels that did, um, engage really well with the DIY themselves. It’s basically, you know, you would see those posts perform. Um, you know.

Ryan Embree: And for those who don’t know what DIY is key, just do a quick…

Joey Schuster: Sorry. Yeah, it’s a Do It Yourself area. So we had the, you know, the, the initial, the initial kind of package that we offered was, um, was we would write, the, the travel inspiration and then you can easily add and schedule your own localized posts. And then that’s why that way you’re getting a really nice balance of social media. Um, so, you know, and I think like I was saying, I think the reason why we’re getting into custom post is because we, we had a lot of hotels that were like, “we love the travel inspiration posts that you guys are doing, but we’re not doing the local vote.

Joey Schuster: Like, one, I’m not comfortable doing it. I’m not great at grammar. Maybe English isn’t my first language. Um, I, I don’t have time to post.” Those are the things you, you would hear. And so you would only have the posts that was a travel inspiration post. And while, you know, while the post are are fun and they’re, they’re really good, you need that mixed in that, that, that’s, that, that more personable, this is something local going on. So, um, so I think that’s what’s really exciting about the custom side, but the hotels that did do a really good job of we’re doing our own local posts and we love your guys’s travel inspiration posts mixed in. It’s those types of results that you’re seeing. Those were always the hotels that performed the best was they had that full balance. So it’s just, it’s us being able to now offer that full balance without the hotel having to get, um, get involved practically at all.

Ryan Embree: And you had to, I mean with that, you essentially have a blueprint there to know that when you launch this, this would be successful at least from a proof of performance side. And that, that kind of segues into my next question about proof of performance. When you, when you’re talking to, you know, hoteliers about their accounts, they’re reaching engagement, how are you demonstrating and showing proof of performance of these posts?

Joey Schuster: Um, so I mean, we have a, we have a dashboard that pulls in the analytics and it’ll kind of like combine all the analytics across multiple platforms. Um, so from there, I mean, I think it’s just a matter of, you know, looking at setting, you know, setting your own KPIs and saying, okay, you know, if you see that we’re posting, you know, 35, 40 times a month for you across all the platforms that’s turning into X amount of reach, which means it’s this, it’s Y amount of impressions, which turns into this amount of engagement.

Joey Schuster: Um, and then looking for growth month over month and, and, you know, that’s what we keep an eye on and that’s what we look for. And that’s what we’re seeing consistently and a big part of that is the consistency of what we’re doing. You know, that’s a big part of social media. You see the people that are influencers and you see the people that have these massive social media following as they post consistently, they’re consistently putting content there and saying, “Hey, I’m here. Here’s something fun I would like to share with my community. You know, this is, you know, you should know about this really kind of funny article. You should know about this really great image. You should know about our promotion that we’re having.” You kind of like keep you, keep them, you keep them engaged.

Joey Schuster: You can’t go three, six months with no posts and then decided to put out a post and be like, and hope that they’re just going to, that all of a sudden, everyone’s just kind of, you know, garner around this, like this piece. The goal of social media is to consistently post. So, I mean I think that’s setting those KPI’s and just, and then making sure that you’re seeing growth month over month is, is what’s important. And we have that, we have that right there in the dashboard. And then the next level, the next level of analytics that we can do with some hotels particularly, um, not brand hotels. So your independents is pixel tracking. And then you can actually get into dropping a pixel on their confirmation page and then you can, you can say precisely this much traffic came from this, you know, from this particular social media platform or this particular social media platform and um, and actually converted into, into a booking. So I mean that’s, that’s like another level which is a lot of fun when we get those, um, those independents, we do work with a lot of brands. And the brands, you can’t do it because the brands don’t give you access to the confirmation pages.

Ryan Embree: And that’s paired nicely too with your other solution that you’re head of with websites as we implement those, you know, all of the social media platforms on the website. So we can kind of track traffic that comes from social media pages when we’re adding those vanity website URLs to do a post.

Joey Schuster: Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Embree: Yeah. And the way that you describe, um, you know, this new custom social really reminds me of, you know, the respond and resolve where it’s, you know, you can’t have a, you can have us essentially do it all for you or you can be engaged in some of it. Some hoteliers feel very comfortable after awhile letting us um, you know, respond to all of their reviews. Um, you know, with that auto approval, I’m sure it’s going to be the same with once they see these custom social posts once they get the hang of that. But the one thing I do hear from hoteliers, um, that are nervous sometimes about outsourcing this sort of social media strategy to a third party is because they fear they might, you know, lose that feel or voice of the hotel. How do you kind of ease those fears from, from those hoteliers that, uh, might be feeling that way?

Joey Schuster: I think the first thing is the, for us is the notes area, I mean, we can really give, um, a lot of details to our writers to like make sure they know, um, you know, what it is you’re looking for. Is there, is there specific, um, you know, specific things that you’re trying to come up, do you want to come across as very professional, um, or are you, or are you kind of okay with maybe a little bit of banter and maybe making it a little, a little bit more loose? Um, that, that kind of thing? I think those are all notes that we can put in there. And the, and the writers are talented writers that they can say, “okay, cool, I see that this property likes this style or, or, you know, they want, you know, certain signatures, you know, sincerely this, um, you know, if there’s some, if there’s a case for that, I know that in reputation a lot, that kind of, that kind of stuff happens.

Joey Schuster: So I think there are really ways to make sure that their voice is not, um, is not going too far off. I think the other side of it too for me is, I would say, you know, let, let go a little bit. You know, and just to me it’s one of those things, it’s like, um, while, while the voice, the voice of your company is definitely important. Um, I think it’s just one of those, when you’re looking at social media, you know, the end game is, is what is to really increase your bookings and build a community around your business.

Ryan Embree: Right.

Joey Schuster: If it’s working for, um, you know, if it’s working and you’re seeing, you’re hitting again, hitting those KPIs and you’re seeing growth, and you’re seeing community growth and you’re, you’re getting increased reaching increased impressions and increased engagement and increased traffic to your website, then, um, then you know, and it’s easier on you, which obviously will be because you have to be doing less. Um, you know, it is, it is a group of people where literally social media is what they do all day. Um, that is, that is all of the, that is all they’re doing all day is, is writing posts and looking at stats and building, um, building pages and paying attention to what, um, what’s going on, within the industry, you know, to, to have a you know, a business owner who, who, you know, has to split their day between managing people and managing their business and finances and everything else. To then add also be a social media expert. You just, you’re not going to be an expert in everything. So, you know, I think, you know, that’s always my advice to, to, you know, any, anybody who owns a business in any industry is, um, you know, know what you’re really good at and, and definitely work really, really hard at, at those pieces.

Joey Schuster: And then also know, like, know when to know when I can get somebody else to do this for me. You know, that’s going to, I’m going to get better results. Um, you know, at a, at that, that’s worth the price that I’m going to pay for that, you know, if you’re getting the return, um, you know, what does it, you know, I think it’s just, it makes it makes your life easier. And, um, you know, I feel confident you’re going to get better results by, by somebody. You know, I think a lot of hotels too, you see them, um, you know, they see them, you know, they have, a, somebody young at the, at the property who’s social media savvy and they’re kind of like, you know, during a downtime of, of the front desk, you know, write up some posts.

Joey Schuster: Um, those kind of things. And even in that scenario, you’re think you, you know, you see a lot of, you get a lot of, um, a lot of really great content from, you know, you know, just, you have people like that that are just really, really good at that. You know, they figured out social media and, and they do have really, really great results. But even then, it’s like, it’s a person who’s literally doing this all day, every day. It’s still different, you know? And I think that’s, it’s finding that balance of making sure that something’s not completely not your voice and it’s completely, you know, disingenuous and not what your business is versus, okay, maybe there’s like a slight, slight difference than what I would do, but it’s working and I’m getting the results that I want. To me, that’s, you know, that’s the goal.

Ryan Embree: Absolutely. And that’s why those notes are probably so vital to you and your team and to make sure, um, you know, those, those posts are staying creative and very unique. You might have, you know, as you said, multiple people creating these posts so you get different voices spreading that to, you know, across, you know, demographics and, and maybe reaching a certain group of people versus another. So totally understand where you’re coming from with that. I’m sure you did. You know, that this was something that, that you really came up with along with the product development team. So I’m sure you did it. A lot of research and some of the competitors and what they brought to the table in comparison to custom social, where, where does this solution really differentiate?

Joey Schuster: Uh, yeah, I mean I think the, the scalability of what we figured out how to do. I think that’s, that’s really, that’s, that’s a huge differentiator I think for us versus, you know, like I said, like versus an agency where it’s like you’re getting agency level content created for you, um, at a much more reduced costs because of, um, you know, because of how we’ve vetted writers and the way that we’re utilizing kind of our network of writers. Um, and that’s not to say anything bad about agencies again. You know I think, I think there’s, there’s a lot of pieces that they do, they do really, really well. And I think, you know, an agency, um, you know, I think an agency probably where they are going to excel is when you get into the bigger ad budget spends, um, that’s probably going to be their differentiator. Whereas we’re really a lot more focused on the actual content creation, um, which is just such a, it can be expensive in time, how much time that kind of takes to do…

Ryan Embree: Very tedious, yeah.

Joey Schuster: …and create. So that and to do it correctly and to do it well. So I think, I think that’s probably like the big differentiator between us and like an agency where you’re still getting almost agency level content, but you know, kind of not at, not at that, um, you know not at that..

Ryan Embree: Price level?

Joey Schuster: Yeah. I think the other thing too for us is, you know, we are, we’re very hotel specific, so I mean, you know, we work only with hotels, so, you know, we’re very, very niche with, we know this industry specifically and the people, you know, the people that that work here work with hotels for many, many years. We have, you know, I think you worked at a hotel, right?

Ryan Embree: Right, yeah. I worked at a Marriott property and an independent resort.

Joey Schuster: Yeah. And we have, I think we have, we just have, so like my background is more in the digital space, but we do have a lot of people that work here that just actually worked in hotels. They were GMs, or they were front desk concierge, they did those jobs so they kind of understand, what that position is like. And that’s huge. That’s a huge aspect as well as you get that mixed with people with the, you know, the digital specific kind of background. Um, and then on top of that add the data. I think that’s the other side of it as well is like, you know, you talk to, you know, an agency that that is maybe doing, you know, they might only have, you know, 15, 10, 15, 20 accounts that are big accounts. They’re, they’re big, big, um, big massive accounts. Uh, that’s, you know, supporting that, that whole agency versus us where we, you know, we’re doing hundreds of accounts and we’re looking at data of hundreds of hotels so we can push a post out and see how it performs across different markets, sizes, different areas. You know, urban versus rural, east coast versus West Coast beach side versus, you know, all of, all of those different types of, you know, different market segments we can look at, and we are looking at and it helps us see what works where and when.

Ryan Embree: Great stuff. Awesome. Well, I’m super excited to kind of see, uh, you know, where this product goes and um, I appreciate you joining me today. If you are interested in learning more about our Custom Social Solution which just launched, um, you can call our line (407) 984-7455. I want to thank uh, Joey again for being on with me today.

Joey Schuster: Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s been fun.

Ryan Embree: And, we’ll talk to you next time.

Ryan Embree: To join our loyalty program, be sure to subscribe and give us a five star rating on iTunes. Suite Spot is produced by Travel Media Group. Our editor is Anne Sandoval with cover art by Bary Gordon and content support by Priscilla Osorio. I’m your host, Ryan Embree, and we hope you enjoyed your stay.