Hotel social media strategies can be varied and complex; they’re an excellent way to attract both existing guests and new arrivals as well as increase direct bookings.
Share unique or peculiar facts about your hotel or destination to capture attention and boost engagement. Feature staff members for added human touch.
Facebook should be an essential element of every hotel’s marketing strategy. It provides an unparalleled opportunity to communicate with past, present and future guests while showcasing property quality and offering insight into the hotel experience. While managing a successful social media campaign may seem intimidating at first, there are several best practices that can help hotels shine on this platform.
One of the key considerations when creating a social media strategy is customizing it to your target audience. Hotels catering to business travelers will have different needs than resorts or vacation destinations; your content should reflect this by speaking directly to them using their language – as per the 80/20 rule, at least 80% of your posts should focus on serving this target group instead of self promotion.
Another way to tailor your social media strategy is by creating a content calendar. This will help keep up with postings and ensure engaging posts; additionally, it allows you to prepare ahead for events taking place locally, on property, or national holidays.
At your hotel, it is also beneficial to establish a team dedicated to managing its social media accounts. This will ensure that content is posted promptly and that each account receives proper care and consideration.
While having a sound strategy in place is crucial, adaptability and responsiveness to changing social media landscape should also be at the forefront of your mind to maximize reach.
At the same time, social media users prefer authentic content – this can be achieved by posting more candid photos and videos of staff and guests in candid settings – making your posts feel personal can help establish trust with the target audience.
Instagram has quickly become the go-to platform for millennials and Generation Z alike, making it the perfect platform to promote your property. Instagram provides access to an array of filters, editing tools, video features and story features, ideal for showcasing what makes your hotel special while engaging your target audience. Furthermore, Stories feature allows users to post short videos/photos that only remain visible for 24 hours; making this feature ideal for specials/events promotion or just keeping people up-to-date about what is happening at your property.
Instagram Shopping was introduced as an effective means of turning viewers into customers by linking products directly to your website. You can take full advantage of Instagram Shopping by running paid advertising campaigns with customized ads featuring your hotel and products that target target ideal audiences.
Social media marketing can be time consuming, so having a content schedule will help keep you on track. When scheduling posts for Instagram, try scheduling them at times when your audience is most active to increase engagement and reach. Furthermore, taking note of which types of posts perform the best can help identify trends across posts for improved results.
Rather than trying to go at it alone, consider employing a social media management tool such as Buffer to plan and execute your Instagram strategy. Not only will this save time by automatically posting photos and videos at optimal times for visibility and engagement; but it can even provide content ideas by analyzing past performance data and suggesting hashtags and topics relevant to you.
Authenticity is of utmost importance when it comes to hotel social media posts. Don’t be shy to show off your personality and show staff and guests engaging in more candid, lighthearted moments – research has demonstrated that people connect more strongly with brands when they see them demonstrating real world human emotions and experiences.
Mind the social media landscape is ever-evolving, so your hotel must adapt its approach accordingly. Be sure to periodically evaluate your strategies and measure their success to ensure they continue providing optimal results for your business.
No matter if you run an independent hotel or part of a larger chain, social media is an essential component of business success. A social media plan will enable your hotel to connect with potential guests, promote its property and raise brand awareness – however it’s key that the channels chosen correspond with your target audience’s preferences – for instance if appealing to business travelers is key, LinkedIn could be part of your social media marketing plan, being the world’s largest professional network which generates leads 227% more effectively than either Facebook or Twitter!
One effective way of marketing your hotel on LinkedIn is through guest testimonial videos. By showing real reviews from your guests, these testimonials will encourage followers to book rooms at your hotel while serving as social proof – plus you can use these videos on other channels such as Instagram and Twitter for increased engagement.
Are You Wondering How to Increase Hotel Visibility on LinkedIn? One way of increasing hotel exposure on LinkedIn is through creating engaging challenges and contests on the platform. These may take the form of photo or video challenges or more unique contests related to your hotel – for instance a contest to “create the most creative room decoration” can attract new audiences while increasing hotel awareness on LinkedIn.
Utilizing hashtags is an excellent way to expand the reach of your posts, but be careful that you choose only relevant and popular ones – using too many irrelevant ones can make your post hard for users to locate. LinkedIn provides an effective platform for monitoring popular hashtags used by others – you may even discover hidden gems through this method!
Apply this hashtags in your own posts to join in the dialogue. LinkedIn also offers a search feature which allows you to identify specific topics or keywords, which is an effective tool for finding effective marketing keywords for campaigns.
Monitoring and responding to customer feedback on social media accounts is also vital to protecting your brand reputation, fostering positive reviews, customer loyalty and increasing satisfaction levels among your audience. Furthermore, creating clear customer service policies with simple terms could prove invaluable in maintaining an excellent service experience for all your clients.
As hotels strive to achieve their branding and marketing goals, a comprehensive social media strategy is an absolute necessity for reaching them. Unfortunately, with multiple platforms and content formats to manage simultaneously, creating a winning strategy may prove challenging; but by understanding each platform’s strengths and weaknesses as well as their uses in your favor you will establish a firm basis for future success.
Optimizing content across platforms requires knowing when it should be posted – an analytics tool can help you do just this, providing valuable information such as when your audience is most active on each site and likely to engage with your posts – thus helping to inform a content calendar and plan ahead.
Implement guest testimonials as another method for increasing engagement, showing off your property and driving direct bookings. In addition, testimonial content is highly shareable so it will reach even wider audiences.
Finally, social media should be utilized to publicize seasonal offers and events at your hotel. Doing this will increase brand recognition by creating an urgency among potential guests – if your resort offers tropical climate accommodations during monsoon season by offering discounted room rates – thus driving travelers towards booking during this period.
Maintaining and updating your social media content regularly is also key in order to keep audiences interested and make your hotel appear more professional and trustworthy.
Social media can transform your hotel into an engaging and recognizable brand through strategic use of social media marketing. By following the advice outlined here, you can set your hotel apart from its competition and build lifelong customer loyalty. Don’t be intimidated to test different approaches until you discover which work best for your hotel – by continuously testing, adapting and improving strategies you will create an effective campaign that increases brand recognition, bookings and ultimately strengthens its bottom line.