Today joining Alex & Annie is Calvin Tilokee, CEO & Creative Director of Revpar Media - a social media management company that works with hotels and takes a strategic approach to growing your audience and turning them into customers. Calvin has always shined with his sense of humor and ability to create funny, interesting and relatable content. He started with a company Facebook group that was used for sharing memes, and there he was able to put his creativity on display. He moved on to Instagram and started building a holistic social media presence, and from that the business idea began.
Calvin has grown his Instagram to over 25,000 followers - which is no small feat for a business account. He attributes his success to a frequent, consistent content publishing schedule which was strategically built to hit people’s notifications and feeds during times when social media usage is highest. This strategy grew his account from 4000 to almost 10000, effectively doubling his follower count. Then the pandemic hit, and he grew another 50% when people really needed some comic relief.
A common reason why so many business pages fall flat is because they underestimate the investment that needs to be made to make it work. It’s pretty standard that social media management and content creation is delegated to an early 20’s employee that has a full-time role already and has no real industry knowledge, making it impossible for them to create a piece of content that will attract new customers.
When the Airbnb boom happened, Calvin had already spent more than 10 years in the hotel industry so he had a live view of the impact and how it escalated over the years. He lays some wisdom about adapting to new market conditions - with Airbnb, just like with TripAdvisor and any new platform that shows up, legacy industries are often in denial and neglect new advancements until they feel the market shift that is brought on by these new innovations, which is the opposite way of how things should be viewed in order to stay ahead of the curve.
When discussing how the hotel industry are looking at vacation rentals and short term rentals from a competition standpoint, Calvin sees that in large metropolitan cities like San Francisco and New York the markets are pretty even and hotels aren’t really stressing about the competition, however, in places like Orlando or Palm Springs in which the infrastructure supports rental properties more than hotels - revenue managers need to look into what vacation rentals offer, otherwise they won’t stand a chance.
Tune into the full episode to learn more on how the hotel industry is making waves on social media!
HIGHLIGHTS:
02:43 How Calvin Began Making Content
06:57 Growing Your Instagram to 5-Digit Follower Counts
09:14 Connect With Your Audience by Finding the Common Thread
11:25 How to Increase Your Engagement Rate and Why It Matters
16:20 Choose The Right Person To Manage Social Media
19:25 The Meaning Behind the Dog Logo
22:39 Calvin’s View of the STR Market
31:30 Are Hotels Considering Vacation Rentals When Pricing
38:42 The Importance of Sales
This episode is brought to you by Casago and Rev & Research!
Connect with Calvin:
Website - https://www.revparblems.com/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvintilokee/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/revparblems/
Connect with Alex and Annie:
Alex Husner - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-o-husner-%F0%9F%8C%8E-1844306/
Annie Holcombe - https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-holcombe-vrgal/%20AlexAndAnniePodcast.com/
