In this dynamic digital age, it is essential for the hospitality industry to have a strong online presence.
Hoteliers are using social media to increase their revenue and occupancy.
It can also increase brand awareness and drive direct bookings.
According to a recent Arrivia study, almost one third of travelers look for their next vacation on social media. Gen Z and millennials are the most likely to use social media when planning a vacation.
If you want more guests in your hotel, then strategic social media marketing will be key.
Learn how to use social media to market hotels.
Why Hotel Social Media Marketing Is Essential in 2023
Understanding the importance of social media marketing for hotels is crucial as we move into 2023. This section will explain why social media is an essential strategy for hotels to succeed in today’s digital world.
1. Role of decision-making
The journey to the lobby of a hotel begins more than ever with a simple swipe of the finger.
Social media is the new way guests search. They are also exploring, imagining and discerning. Social media engagement is a mix of beautiful visuals, great reviews and a feeling of connection.
Hoteliers need to step up their social media marketing and create a presence that is engaging and entertaining to attract guests to your hotel.
2. Direct Communication and Engagement
Social media platforms don’t only serve as a way to show off your hotel, but also a means of communication. The social media platforms break down the wall that has traditionally existed between a hotel’s guests and it, allowing for a direct and open line of communication.
Direct messaging makes it easy for guests to ask questions, request special services, or even book directly . This interaction allows hotels to showcase their customer service skills in real-time, improving the overall guest experience.
The Ritz-Carlton’s digital marketing strategy is exemplified by their quick and personalized responses on Facebook to guests’ questions.
The hotel’s online reputation is also managed by this practice, which makes guests feel valued before they have checked in.
3. Brand Awareness and Visibility
The social media channels of your hotel are like digital billboards. They offer you a golden chance to showcase your brand brilliance in front of an audience that is far beyond the reach and scope traditional marketing channels.
A vibrant tweet or Instagram post showcasing your hotel’s spa, or an engaging Instagram post showcasing your bar’s signature drink, not only highlights your unique amenities but also helps to bring your brand narrative to life.
Check out, for example, the Ace Hotel Group’s Instagram strategy. The Ace Hotel group uses a combination of professional photos and user generated content to showcase their many properties.
Each post is a snapshot into the unique culture of the hotel and its surroundings, creating a compelling narrative that increases the visibility of the brand. This is a digital showcase which hooks guests at every turn.
4. Competitive Advantage
A compelling social media campaign is the magic carpet to your competitive advantage in today’s digital age. Travelers are spoiled for choice and have many options. This is your opportunity to show off your hotel’s charm and engage with your audience in real-time.
Marriott, for example, used its #GoldenRule marketing campaign to stand out. It celebrated their staffs’ heartwarming gestures and made guests feel appreciated even before they checked in.
Social media is not only about being present, but also about how you use it to give your hotel an extra edge.
Hotel Social Media Strategies: 5 Cutting-Edge Strategies
We’ll explore five strategies that will help you to boost your hotel’s presence on social media.
1. Plan Your Seasonal Activities
A content strategy aligned with the seasons will help you to differentiate your hotel.
Your content should be in sync with the seasons, whether you’re promoting specials for summer in tropical locations or winter getaways in mountainous areas. This strategy goes beyond beautiful visuals. It’s all about aligning your marketing goals to the calendar.
In the summer, lush green trails are used to highlight the beautiful snow-covered slopes of Whistler Blackcomb.
When paired with property management software, this strategy can be used to maximize rates and inventory.
2. Maintaining Reputation and Pursuing excellence:
Every guest review in our digitally connected world presents an opportunity for growth.
Online platforms like TripAdvisor or Google Reviews provide a wealth insight into the performance of your hotel from guests. By engaging with the reviews, you can humanize your brand and show your commitment to customer satisfaction.
Take Hyatt Hotels Corporation, for instance. They demonstrate an active, empathetic and responsive approach to customer feedback on their Twitter handle @HyattConcierge.
They know that positive reviews can boost their brand’s image, while constructively responding to negative ones can demonstrate their commitment towards continuous improvement.
It is important to remember that improving guest experience doesn’t happen in a single sprint, but rather a marathon. You audience will be grateful for your unwavering pursuit of excellence.
3. Making a human connection
Social media allows you to tell the stories and faces behind the brand, which makes it more memorable and relatable.
Kimpton Hotel, for example, features their staff, including housekeepers and chefs, on Instagram. This helps to put a name to a face and fosters a feeling of connection with the brand and loyalty.
The social media sites engage their audience with fun contests and polls as well as regular Q&As. They encourage user-generated content, while also fostering an active online community.
4. Influencer marketing
Influencers are another important cog in the social media wheel for hotels. Influencers are able to convert their followers into customers, and they play an important role in the social media campaigns of hotels.
They give the brand a more authentic voice and help it reach a larger audience.
Check out, for example, how an hotel used influencer marketing to grow their traffic by 4% per month over the course of a year-and-a-half, reaching a peak of 8% in 2019!
This case demonstrates that influencers are a powerful tool to increase online visibility, drive direct bookings and ultimately boost revenue.
This approach is successful because it combines the creation of engaging content with an audience that’s perfectly aligned to the brand of the hotel.
5. Videos are powerful.
Video can immerse the viewer in an experience. For hotels, videos bring to life the ambiance, local attractions, and services.
A study by Social Media Today found that videos generated 1200% more shares compared to text and images. This highlights the importance of video in viral marketing.
Marriott Hotels, as an example, uses short, compelling video clips on their Instagram account to highlight their services, their events, and their local flavor. This increases brand awareness and encourages engagement from customers, sharing, and ultimately future bookings.
Aren’t these some clever hotel social media marketing tactics?
We’ll now discuss more specific hotel social media marketing channels.
Four Channel Specific Social Media Strategies
It’s important to customize your social media strategies according to each platform. In this section we’ll dive into four major social media platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn Instagram and TikTok, and examine how you can leverage their unique features in order to boost your hotel’s online presence.
Let’s get started!
1. Facebook
Facebook is an excellent platform for connecting with your audience. Here are some tips on how to maximize its potential.
Engage Your Audience Facebook is a platform which encourages conversation. Engage with comments made on your posts. Create posts that encourage your audience to engage. This will not only build a community, but also increase your visibility.
Use Facebook’s multi-media capabilities to showcase your hotel. Post photos and videos in high quality of your hotel’s rooms, amenities and unique features. Facebook Live allows you to show your audience what is happening in your hotel.
Promote Special Deals Facebook is an excellent platform for promoting special deals, discounts or packages. Use targeted ads to reach specific audiences, and ensure that your offers are seen by those most likely to be interested.
Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaanfushi uses Facebook in a creative way to highlight its guests’ unique experiences, hotel highlights and interactions with them.
Share local insights: Promote your hotel’s expertise as a local by posting about local events, attractions or insider information. It not only adds value to your audience, but it also improves the image of your hotel as an expert local guide.
2. You can find us on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is an excellent professional networking tool that hotels can use. Here’s how to leverage it:
Establish Your Hotel As an Industry Leader Share industry related news, insights and thought leadership content. This will position your hotel as an industry leader and attract a professional audience.
Promote business services If your hotel provides event spaces or other facilities for businesses, LinkedIn is a great platform to advertise them. Use targeted ads and highlight these services in posts to reach business-oriented audiences.
This strategy is executed by the Four Seasons Hotel, which showcases its impressive corporate and event facilities. The Four Seasons Hotel is a great place to build business relationships and collaborate.
Connect with Other Businesses : Make contact with other businesses around you or in the industry of hospitality. This can lead you to valuable collaborations and partnerships.
3. Instagram
Instagram is an excellent platform for showcasing the aesthetic of your hotel. Here’s what you can do to get the most out of it.
Highlight Your Hotel’s Visual Appeal Post high-quality images and videos to highlight your hotel rooms, amenities and unique features. Instagram Stories are a great way to get real-time updates.
Take the example of @sheratongrandsydney, and how it excels at showing off its unique features, atmosphere, and the vibrancy of local attractions.
Engage User-Generated content: Encourage your guests to share photos and videos of their stay at your hotel. Tag your account. Share the user-generated content to increase your credibility.
Use hashtags strategically: Use popular, relevant hashtags to boost your post’s visibility. Use general hashtags related to travel or create one for your hotel.
4. TikTok
TikTok thrives off of trends and creative content. Here are some ways you can use it to promote your hotel.
Jump On Trends : Take part in trending challenges, or use popular songs in your video. This will increase your exposure on the platform, and you’ll attract a younger crowd.
Consider the example of @small Luxury Hotel, whose TikTok strategy highlighting different properties attracted hundreds of thousands views. They used a Bridgerton tie-in to promote The Retreat Elcot Park and gained an audience of 50,000 people, 86% more than before.
Create Engaging challenges: Building off the point made above, you might want to create a challenge that is unique for your hotel. For example, a dance contest in your lobby, or a contest for creative room decorations. This will engage your audience and encourage user-generated material, as well as increase brand awareness.
TikTok is about fun and creativity. Highlight Your Hotel in an Innovative Way . Showcase your hotel with a unique, entertaining approach, whether you’re doing a tour, showing a day in your hotel employee’s life, or creatively displaying your amenities.
Engage Your Audience : Reply to comments made on your videos. Engage in user-generated content. Create videos that encourage your audience to engage. This will not only build a community, but also increase your visibility.
Real Social Media Success for the Hotel Industry
Real-world examples are the best way to demonstrate social media’s power in the hospitality industry. Let’s look at two compelling case-studies that demonstrate the impact of social media in the hospitality industry.
Case Study 1: Hotel Regina Wengen’s Social Media Triumph
The charming Swiss Hotel Regina Wengen took a social media strategy that produced impressive results. The initial goal of the hotel was to generate excitement about their reopening after the Covid-19 Lockdown. Within a quarter they had a 13.4% increase in followers, far exceeding the average growth rate of 1.5% for the industry.
They used video content to create a compelling narrative for Instagram. This strategy led to an increase of 232% in engagement on Facebook and 16,6k views. Their unique advertising campaign also reached 90,000 individuals, creating a retargeting list of 10,000.
Hotel Regina Wengen’s social media strategy shows the power of storytelling and effective video content. This case study shows how social media can be used to increase engagement and reach. The full case study can be read here.
Case Study 2: Social Media Marketing in Four- and Five-Star Hotels of Makkah, Saudi Arabia
This academic study examines the challenges of using social media effectively as a tool for marketing in the hotel industry. This study highlights the fact that many marketing managers do not realize how important it is to use social media as a tool for engaging customers, including responding to comments and questions, dealing with negative reviews and participating in online discussion.
The study recommends that social media platforms be used to engage customers in a proactive manner. The study recommends a more proactive approach to customer engagement on social media platforms. This includes responding promptly to customer inquiries, managing negative reviews effectively, and participating actively in online discussions.
Hoteliers should use social media to promote their brand, maintain an online presence and attract new customers.
The findings of the study highlight the importance of customer-centric strategies and active engagement in social media marketing. The study also highlights the importance of hotels fully recognizing and leveraging the potential of social networks for customer acquisition and branding promotion. The full case study can be read here.
SocialPilot: Measuring the success of your social media marketing
Social media marketing has many facets. Not only is it about creating and posting content, but also meticulous planning, tracking, analysis, and much more. You need to ensure that your actions are aligned with your social media objectives. SocialPilot can help.
SocialPilot offers more than a simple tool to post content. It’s a guide for navigating the digital world. This tool removes the guesswork from your social media initiatives, and provides tangible metrics that measure the success.
SocialPilot is a suite tailored for hoteliers. It streamlines your social media management by automating bulk scheduling, content curation and determining optimal delivery time. The real value of this tool is its analytics.
SocialPilot analytics allow you to get down to the details of your social media performance. You can track engagements, likes and shares, clicks and even conversions. This platform is your social media strategy guide, giving you clear direction on your online efforts.
SocialPilot allows you to make informed decisions about your social media strategy.
The conclusion of the article is:
Digital connectivity is the foundation of success for your hotel.
Social media can be a great way to showcase your hotel’s unique features to potential guests. It is also a platform that allows for feedback, interaction, and reputation management.
Each post, click and like is an opportunity to attract customers, improve their experience, and increase your revenue.
Use social media to change the narrative of your hotel.
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