Scrolling to Selling: A Hotel Social Media Playbook
Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.hotelexecutive.com.
Social media marketing is a bit like sowing a garden. You don’t toss seeds in the dirt and expect to be slicing into heirlooms the next day. But if you work to create healthy soil and add fertilizer when it makes sense to do so, a healthy crop will take root and create the potential for bigger, better yields, year over year.
There are a few different ways to navigate the social media landscape to drive top funnel interest and revenue, starting with the long game. Organic social media casts a wide net to an audience of people who are looking to be entertained, educated, or inspired.
Organic social media is all about sharing little slices of hotel life. The destination, the gorgeous rooms, UGC, and soft calls to action to follow, comment, or share the post to effectively spread the word. Inviting influencers in on trade for content agreements is a great way to create social proof as well. Organic social isn’t about a hard sell, or promoting everything happening at the hotel billboard style, in fact, these are sure fire ways to miss on social media.
For hotels that are not yet open, including one we’re launching near a well known National Park, our strategy to reach a broad audience at the top of the funnel is most pronounced. In this case, before the hotel is open, assets are often limited, and we’re selling the idea more than the actual experience since it is yet to unfold. This is where dreamy destination footage often in partnership with local DMOs is critical to inspiring future travelers while there’s nothing to book. A soft CTA to follow the account is one of the best ways to fortify future reservations.
The key here is to cultivate relationships. Start by building community with potential and future guests so that when you open your doors, your followers are eager to be the first to experience your hotel.
We want social media users to follow us, get intrigued, and eventually turn their daydream into a reservation. It’s about planting seeds that will grow over time. Ensure your social account is watered and consistently maintained. Keep track of KPIs like reel plays and impressions which are not limited by the size of your account, but by the content you capture, curate, and share.
Social Media Content Strategy: Remaining Relevant
When onboarding a new hotel, I have lost count of how many times I have been asked where my team is located, implying that our central location is a limiting factor. We have successfully marketed dozens of hotels from launch to anniversaries, from Maui to Manhattan. We see our centralized HQ approach as a hidden advantage because it allows us to uphold the hotel marketing strategy without getting pulled into the minutiae of daily operations.
When onsite marketing managers are relegated to promoting daily specials, posting flyers, and capturing last-minute happenings, your north star strategy falls by the wayside. Social media is not a bulletin board, and all too often, helmed by an in-house employee with limited time and expertise, it becomes exactly that. A mix of ill-formatted flyers and candid-camera style low quality footage from the lobby does the opposite of what’s intended, turning people off from your hotel.
If you’re using social to promote time-sensitive daily offers, onsite events with horizontal imagery, or low-res flyers uploaded to your feed multiple times a week, you’re selling too often and too hard. Adept social media marketers can ensure the right messages are going out in the right places, to the right audience.
For instance, events that are geared towards locals in your market should be posted on Facebook Events, which is served to your local followers and their friends. This local advertising does not cost a penny more than the time it takes to add your event. Last minute event flyers do not need to be posted to the Instagram grid, they will be seen and heard better as Instagram Stories which are served at the top of the feed making them highly visible, ideal for time sensitive messaging.
Moreover, your imagery and video can make or break your reputation on social media. Low resolution photos, outdated graphics, and content that is not sized correctly for the social channel are critical errors that can hurt your visibility on the channel, costing you future reservations. Consider working with local photographers, flying your social media team out annually, or enlisting influencers to capture high quality content for social media, or build a foundation with a professional lifestyle photoshoot if budget allows.
Another thing we see all too often is hotels relegating their caption writing entirely to AI. We use AI to streamline our processes, not as our copywriter. If you own and operate an independent hotel, how can you rationalize paying a third party to auto generate caption writing? You’ve worked hard to create a following, build awareness, and gain exposure throughout your launch.
It may be tempting to have AI write your captions as a shortcut, but without good prompts, your content will read as generic as the next big box hotel. All that work to define your brand for what?
We notice that social media agencies are using AI more and more as a shortcut for caption writing. When reviewing captions, if you cannot discern its meaning, chances are the content is also too flowery for the average reader.
Instead, we suggest tackling caption writing on social media as an extension of content you are writing elsewhere. For example, if you have written a seasonal guide on your website, you have content at the ready to repurpose on social media. Shorten it, make the language more conversational, sprinkle in some emojis and a CTA, and you have yourself a social media caption, if not several.
Take it a step further by creating an Instagram Stories series dedicated to the seasonal guide, then pin it to your highlights. Remember to add your guide to your link in bio to get clicks to your website, too.
The Conversion Conversation
While organic social media is great for top-of-the-funnel engagement, the real magic happens when you slide into your prospective guest’s inbox. Once you’ve convinced a social media user to subscribe, you’re heading down the funnel to the home stretch: your pitch. From five and six figure impression numbers on social each month, very few people convert. But, those that do convert are ready for your offer.
Use your link in bio and Instagram Stories link stickers to invite social media followers and viewers to subscribe to receive offers to their inbox. Reserve certain offers, or the deepest discounts, for your email subscribers to create the incentive to subscribe.
We see much higher conversion rates from email campaigns than social because subscribers have take the step to sign up, rather than being served what the algorithm wants them to see, and they are therefore far more likely to book a room.
We typically grow our email lists through past guest data, paid social media campaigns, and sign up incentive offers. If budget allows, strategic giveaways are another great way to grow your list.
While your subscribers are more likely to convert, you have to respect their inbox. Don’t oversell or you’ll risk the dreaded unsubscribe. For hotels, I recommend two emails per month. One is more nurturing, where we share programming, events, and destination highlights, while the second is usually offer based. When the offer email deploys, we see a spike in opens, clicks, and a higher conversion rate.
Strategic Use of Paid Social
Now, let’s talk about paid social media, one of the most sophisticated ways to reach your desired audience, thanks to the Facebook Meta Business Suite. The more you know about your prospective guests, the better. With Facebook Ads, you can match your ideal guests with an offer that speaks to them based on their behavioral and demographic information. Paid ads are great for their ability to pinpoint exactly who you want to reach.
For example, to get weddings to book in your ballroom, you can create a Facebook ad and target young women ages 20 to 40 whose marital status has just changed from single to engaged within the last three months. Put out an ad along the lines of "Congratulations, you’re engaged! This is your moment, and we have the perfect venue." The ad speaks directly to a future bride in the early planning stage of her wedding which is typically when the venue is booked. The ad would lead to a landing page showcasing the venue, concluding with a simple form to start planning the big day.
Paid ads allow you to be laser-focused, making sure the right people see the right message at the right time. Combine this with your organic efforts to create a well-rounded strategy that reaches your future guests at various points along their customer journey.
Social Media, But Better
Social media is not a box to check off in a silo, instead it should be utilized strategically as part of your hotel marketing strategy. From the slow burn of organic engagement to the precision of paid ads, and the conversion power of email marketing, each piece of your social strategy plays a role in driving revenue and building relationships with your future guests. Whether you’re planting seeds with organic posts, capturing emails like a pro, or running paid campaign to promote a specific offer, always keep the big picture in mind.
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