In a bid for the shortest blog post ever, we bring you this. In a single image, all of the arguments we have over and over with hotels, tourist attractions and similar businesses about why providing no (or chargeable) WiFi is shooting themselves in the foot.

So here’s the picture which is worth a thousand words: it appeared in Kate’s Facebook news feed recently.

If you need it spelling out, here’s the significance:

Why providing free WiFi is the single best piece of marketing spend you’ll ever make

That image was snapped by a contact of Kate’s, and put into a group for dog owners which she’s a member of. Pretty much all of the people in that group are more or less constantly on the lookout for quality places to stay which will also accept their hounds.

That hotel meets both criteria, and because of that post to Facebook has just been advertised, for free, to the most targeted group of potential customers they could ever dream of. Oh, and rapidly endorsed by several other people who all love the place too – social proof, much?!

For any hotel or resort owner, getting such a compelling advert in front of a large and relevant target market has got to be the ultimate victory. And yet the one thing they could do to make it easier – providing great Internet access – is all too often forgotten about or priced at a level which gets nothing but derisory laughter from their customers.

To really put the icing on the cake

Now that Facebook post being out there is obviously a great start. That particular hotel has also established a Facebook page, which allows the customer to tag them (provide a live link to their Page) in her post – even better, as potential customers are likely to click on it to find out a bit more.

If they were really savvy (and we’ve no idea whether there was any followup in this particular instance) they’d be replying to the lady in question and going all out to ensure her stay was as perfect as possible – since she’s just proved with that one post that she’s influential with, and connected to, exactly their type of customer.

It’s not rocket science

It really isn’t, is it? Make sure your customers can get easy internet access. Be present on the social media sites they might be using. Monitor those platforms, respond and capitalise where you can. So why are so many hotels still charging £10 an hour for WiFi and totally ignoring social media?

Of course, if your rooms are a candidate for The Hotel Inspector, you might have good reason to keep that router in the cellar. Real-time commentary on the mould in the shower isn’t going to do you any favours…but then the best plan might be to fix that, before you bother with any marketing at all!