Social media provides hotels with an essential means of increasing exposure and direct bookings while also offering the chance to share the hotel’s special offerings and values with both existing guests and new arrivals.
User-generated content, like photos or videos tagged with your hotel, travel advice and staff highlights is an effective way to engage your target audience and generate engagement with local businesses through deals or promotions.
1. Monday – Friday
Social media can increase hotel visibility and audience engagement, but posting at the optimal times is essential to making it work effectively. Aligning content with the rhythms of followers’ posting patterns will unlock greater reach and engagement that helps achieve business goals more quickly. No matter whether you run a bed-and-breakfast or luxury resort, understanding how to optimize social media presence will enable you to devise and implement an effective strategy.
When posting to Instagram, the optimal time depends on your industry and target audience, but generally weekday afternoons and evenings tend to be most effective. Your target audience likely uses this period as lunch breaks or between meetings to check their social media, making this an excellent time to share high-quality images or informative posts about your property.
When it comes to posting on Facebook, determining the ideal time can be more complex than initially anticipated. Facebook’s algorithm considers various factors relating to location, industry and niche as well as social media behavior of your audience. Rival IQ offers its Facebook Insights feature for giving an indication of when they’re online – just head to your page and select Insights on the left navigation bar.
As another way of understanding when your audiences are most active, it may help to examine peak times across several industries. Retail brands (like hotels) usually see maximum engagement during midmorning on Tuesday and Wednesday; on X (formerly Twitter), however, tech enthusiasts searching for news updates make their most frequent interactions during weekday lunchtime hours.
Travel professionals typically experience higher engagement on Instagram during Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Furthermore, TikTok (which is owned by Instagram) boasts its highest engagement rates during weekdays from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m.
2. Saturday – Sunday
Finding the optimal time and place to post on social media depends heavily on both your audience and content type. Every platform has different peak engagement periods that should be tailored specifically to your industry, audience and goals; but finding these times may be challenging – particularly if you are just starting out without an established following or strong followership on one platform such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter TikTok and LinkedIn. Luckily there are quick insights available which provide quick recommendations on optimal posting times across platforms such as these.
Instagram posting times that will give you maximum impact include weekday morning and evening posts. Doing this can increase engagement rates while increasing chances of reaching target audiences with your content.
As most people are away on holidays or have other plans during this timeframe, unless your hotel is open 24/7 it is wise to limit posts during weekends to special offers or events happening at your establishment. If this cannot be avoided then use it for special offers or events at your establishment instead.
On X, an engaging social network for professionals and enthusiasts, the ideal time to post is weekday mornings between 11 AM and noon (primarily Mondays and Thursdays), particularly between 11:00 AM and noon (these are when audiences check X for industry updates) making this the ideal moment to showcase new products or promotions.
LinkedIn is a professional networking website that allows users to build connections in their field and discuss industry topics. The best time for posting on LinkedIn is weekday mornings between 10 AM and 11 AM (peak activity being Tuesday mornings) when business leaders are more active on the platform; posting at this time may help reach more targeted users.
Hotels should prioritize user-generated content (UGC) beyond promoting their own material, as this can have a tremendous impact on brand perception and reputation. UGC may take the form of photos, videos, status updates or reviews; responding to both positive and negative UGC is key to maintaining high customer service standards and providing guests with positive experiences at your hotel.
3. Monday – Thursday
Social media content for hotels is an integral component of driving engagement and brand recognition, providing an opportunity to reach past or prospective guests while forging long-term relationships. Instagram and other platforms each have their own peak engagement times based on user behavior and algorithm changes that determine when is best time to post.
Instagram experiences high engagement rates during midweek mornings from Tuesday through Thursday; for Facebook this period typically spans midmornings to 5:00 PM each weekday.
These guidelines should only serve as general guidelines, so for maximum effectiveness it’s wise to experiment and monitor results on each platform in order to find the most efficient posting times for yourself. You can use tools such as Sprout Social to optimize posts and increase chances of engagement based on target audiences and content types; such tools provide recommendations based on specifics of both.
Utilizing these tools is especially helpful when determining the optimal time and place to post on TikTok or other video-centric platforms like Instagram. Videos are an immensely popular form of content to share on social media, often appearing at various points throughout the day; but if you want your video to stand out, making an impressionful statement, posting at specific times is crucial for maximum engagement and visibility.
TikTok and other social media platforms tend to be most successful when posting in the afternoon when users are relaxing from work or school – this makes for an ideal time to post videos, tutorials or other forms of content requiring greater audience attention.
When sharing photos or other visual content, try posting at peak times for each platform in order to reach as many people as possible and increase interactions and conversions.
4. Friday – Sunday
Social media is an indispensable resource for hotels looking to increase visibility and audience engagement. From small bed-and-breakfasts to luxury resorts, leveraging the art of social media marketing can propel their businesses to new heights in this digital era. Knowing when and how often to post can only go so far; for effective strategies it is also vital that audiences are targeted appropriately with optimized content for each platform.
For this to work effectively, it’s crucial that you understand when each platform receives the most engagement. Since optimal posting times depend on industry type and post frequency, analyzing your own analytics and monitoring performance of posts to see when they have had the greatest success is vital to success.
Facebook is the world’s premier social media platform with three billion monthly active users. Engagement rates peak on weekday afternoons when people take a break from work to look at social media or look for short distractions from reality.
LinkedIn is a professional network that allows users to build connections, make business contacts, and showcase their career skills. The optimal times for posting are Monday and Tuesday mornings as well as during lunch breaks or Thursday evenings.
Instagram, the photo-based social media platform with over two billion active daily users, provides the ideal opportunity to engage with potential buyers. The ideal times for posting are Monday-Thursday between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Saturday around 10 am.
Twitter is a real-time messaging app used for communicating with followers, customers, and the general public. Twitter offers hotels an effective platform to share news and information. Engagement rates tend to drop most significantly on weekends when audiences may be relaxing or traveling for business purposes.
With these tips in mind, you can devise and execute an effective social media marketing campaign for your hotel. By targeting audiences at appropriate times and optimizing content across platforms, you can increase visibility and boost bookings.