This week on our hotel marketing podcast, we spoke about the importance of you, hoteliers, future proofing your digital assets. Here’s an explainer as to what they are, and why it’s important for you to future-proof them.
So firstly: what is a digital asset?
Most companies are surprised to learn how little control they have over their digital assets. Unlike traditional business assets, digital assets can be difficult to locate. Digital assets range from your social media accounts to your website domain and your website content management system. For you and your hotel, it’s important that you future-proof your digital assets by making sure that each of your online profiles is set up correctly and owned by your hotel. Take time to review your online profiles and the users/email addresses associated with each of these profiles.
There are two key reasons why you should own your digital assets:
- You will have control over them
- You will always have access to them when you need it
Owning your digital assets is vital to the smooth running of your marketing activity. This ownership also gives you the ability to respond to emerging trends and market forces rapidly.
How can you protect your digital assets?
Your Google My Business listing
Your hotel itself (and not a third party agency) should claim and have ownership of its Google My Business page listing. This eliminates any issues that can arise if a third party has ownership of the profile. If you don’t currently own your Google My Business profile and you don’t know who currently owns it, you can request ownership.
Your social media profiles
Even if your internal team or marketing executive is setting up and managing your digital accounts, it’s critical that you are set up as an owner. Make sure that your employees set up a Facebook account with their work email address to avoid any personal accounts becoming linked to the hotel’s account.
If you have a manager set up a Facebook page, it will automatically be linked to this person’s page. This means that they are the administrator of the page and have the authority to add additional administrators, editors, and to give access to as many people as they need to.
Be certain that you’re being added as an owner because it’s even harder to get ownership when a digital asset is attached to an individual’s personal page. Your social media accounts should have several administrators within your organisation in case anyone with sole control over vital assets leaves the company. You should also store all your current passwords in a master file that you can access whenever you need to.
The best practice set up for your Facebook account is a business manager, holding your property’s page and ad account in one place. This also allows you to add users easily with different access levels to both from one central place.
How to create a Facebook business manager if you don’t already have one.
How to add users to your Facebook business manager.
How to add a page to your Facebook business manager.
How to add an ad account to your Facebook business manager.
Your Google analytics
You should have access to your Google analytics account. Make sure that multiple staff members in your hotel have access to this with their business email addresses. Never use a personal email address for company access to any online platforms.
Your Google Ads billing
Viewing your Google Ads billing section has become even easier! At Net Affinity, all of our clients have access to view and download their Google invoices. If you are a client and need access, get in touch with your account contact and we can set it up for you.
Cookiebot
If you have Cookiebot account, make sure that you’re regularly reading & monitoring emails from Cookiebot. For example, if your credit card has declined you will be notified via email and Cookiebot will no longer be tracking visitors to your website until you add a new credit card to your account. Be aware of which email address is receiving these notifications for your hotel.
As the owner of a business, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your digital assets aren’t as important as your physical assets. You may not need to access these pages all the time, but that makes no difference to the eyes of the software giants. Whoever is listed as the owner of the accounts is seen by them as the owner of the business. Take a few minutes to check and see what you have access to. Make sure you can log in and share information on your Facebook page, your GMB page, your website, and all your other digital assets.
Ask for access now, so that you don’t have to worry about it in the future!
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