A boutique hotel without a buzz is a hotel without many guests. A panel at the Lifestyle/Boutique Hotel Development Conference in Miami last week discussed how owners and operators can use social media to help build, and then monitor, that buzz.

“The conversations are happening with or without you,” said Doug Carrillo, the executive vice president and a partner with Tecton Hospitality and Desires Hotels, a management company focusing strictly on boutique properties.

The social media panel included Doug Carrillo, left to right, Joe Hyman, Brigette Breitenbach and moderator Frances Kiradjian.

Brigette Breitenbach, the principal of Company B, a marketing and brand management company, said there’s no exact formula that works in social media. “It comes down to aptitude and personality,” she said. Her keys to successfully building a buzz through social media were finding a voice, supporting it with visuals and always staying consistent.

Both Carrillo and fellow panelist Joe Hyman, the president and CEO of hotel Internet marketing firm Vizergy, stressed any communication via social media sites like Facebook or Twitter had to be authentic and not self serving. “It can’t just be a marketing ploy,” Hyman said.

The panel agreed that anyone on staff could and should be involved in a hotel’s online efforts. A concierge and other front-desk workers are typically good to have on the social media team since they are on the ground floor and know what’s going on at the hotel on a daily basis. Breitenbach said younger employees and those savvy with smartphones and other mobile technology are ideal candidates to help.

Hyman discussed the effect TripAdvisor, and in particular a negative review, could have on a hotel. For example, a quick Google search displayed how high up in search results TripAdvisor reviews were. Monitoring TripAdvisor can help hotels learn how to avoid mistakes that have led to criticism, but also provides an opportunity to respond and correct those errors.

Another key point came from the audience: Don’t ignore foreign social media sites, especially if your hotel caters to an international audience. Carrillo was on top of it, saying for example that social networking site Orkut is far more popular in Brazil than Facebook.

Measuring a return on investment was a trickier question for the panel. Tracking bookings and referrals that come from social media sites is possible, but putting an accurate measurement on the total impact of followers and friends on sites like Twitter and Facebook to the hotel’s bottom line is almost impossible. Despite that, the panel agreed ignoring social media would be a costly mistake for any hotel, let alone a boutique.

Lodging Hospitality produced the conference at the Fontainebleau in conjunction with HVS Hotel Management.