Do you want your hospitality business to thrive? Build an effective Social Media Marketing strategy, and you will accomplish your goal.
Social media marketing plays a crucial role in the success of the hospitality business. Here is why.
Daily social media usage reached 144 minutes in 2019, and this number keeps rising. Modern users are getting more and more influenced by what they see on social media platforms. People want to visit places they’ve discovered on Facebook and eat food they’ve seen on Instagram.
It means that if you want to make your hospitality business a success, you should improve your social media presence.
Read this article to know how to build a strategy for this purpose.
Define your goals
The first thing you should do to develop a compelling Social media marketing strategy is to define your goals.
What specific results do you expect to achieve? How many new guests do you want to attract? How much money do you want to make?
Answer these questions and write SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, rational, and time-bounded) goals.
Here are a few examples of SMART goals that hospitality business might have:
- To increase the percentage of direct bookings by 20% in January 2021.
- To increase traffic to the website by 18% by the end of Q2.
- Grow average non-rooms revenue per guest by $55 by the end of Q1.
Be better than your competitors
What SMM strategies your competitors are currently using? Do these strategies work effectively enough?
Analyze social media posts that other hospitality businesses create and figure out what kind of content works best in your niche. Learn from the best practices and avoid common mistakes.
Here are five things to analyze when researching competitors’ Social media marketing strategies:
- Types of content used (videos, memes, reels, etc.)
- Length of captions
- Hashtags used
- Timing of social media posts
- A common call to actions
- Interactions with followers (see the way other hotels reply to comments)
Collaborate with influencers
We live in the age of Instagram and TikTok. And we should accept the fact that social media influencers run the world.
If you want to get your hospitality business noticed, you should collaborate with travel influencers. You should invite them to your hotel and make them enjoy their stay.
Here are a few important rules to follow when choosing an influencer for running a social media marketing campaign:
- Find someone who can influence your target audience’s opinion. For instance, if you own a family-oriented hotel, you should collaborate with family lifestyle bloggers, not solo travelers.
- Make sure that a chosen influencer has a good reputation and has never had any conflicts with other hospitality businesses.
- Check whether the influencer has an engaged, active audience. Use tools like TrendHero and HypeAuditor.
- If you can’t afford to collaborate with macro-influencers, work with-micro-influencers. It doesn’t really matter how many followers the influencer has. The only thing that matters is a high engagement rate.
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Hire talented content creators
While you are developing your Social media marketing strategy, think about who will implement it. Will you invite a social media marketer to your team? Will you use freelance services? Or will you collaborate with professional writers who work in the hospitality niche?
You should find content creators who have previous experience in promoting hotels and restaurants. Don’t work with newbies. 2020 has been a tough year, and now you have no room for error. You should work with professionals who will not disappoint you.
Leverage user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is a must element of a successful Social media marketing strategy for the hospitality business. Your happy guests can advertise your hotel more effectively than a team of professional marketers.
Encourage your guests to take photos and videos in your hotel and post them on social media using your branded hashtag. Share user-generated content across your accounts and on your website to grab attention and win the trust of potential guests. Just don’t forget to tag content creators in your posts.
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Use hashtags wisely
The hashtag is an effective social media marketing tool that helps to increase the visibility of posts. To promote content successfully, you should develop a hashtag strategy. You should decide what hashtags you will and how you will do it.
Here are three types of hashtags you can use:
- Branded hashtags. They must include your hotel’s name or its abbreviation. Examples: #HardRockHotel, #Marriott.
- Niche hashtags. Examples: #hoteldesigns, #hotellife, #hotelroom.
- Location hashtags. Examples: #Dublin, #NYC, #TheBigApple.
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You can add hashtags at the end of the caption or put them in the first comment. Choose whatever approach makes your posts look more visually appealing.
Focus on safety
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way people choose hotels to stay in. Now they pay attention not only to the hotel’s location and service diversity but also to health and safety measures. So if you want to attract new guests to your hotel, you should create content that shows what you do to keep your guests and personnel safe and healthy.
You can write a social media post on behalf of the CEO or make a behind-the-scenes video of how your team disinfects hotel rooms. Convince social media users that your hotel is the safest place to stay in the city, and they will become your loyal guests.
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Build an effective Social Media Marketing strategy for your hospitality business today!
Develop a Social media marketing strategy today and take your hospitality business to the next level. Use these seven tips to boost your marketing efforts and achieve the desired success.
Related article: Hotel Social Media Marketing Pain Points and How to Start Immediate Building a New Effective Framework
We are in this together!
I need to let you all know that we are in on this together. If you need to vent, talk, cry, or just have some to talk with then I am here listening. Since I am working part-time at the local Kroger, I will to the best of my ability to work it out around my schedule.
But you can reach me here:
Email: hotelblogger@aremorch.com
Also, join us at our Facebook Group – Hotel Social Media Community
We will get through this unprecedented event together! #hotelstrong #hospitalitystrong
For any specific information on COVID-19, I recommend go to CDC, WHO, AHLA, AAHOA, and HSMAI. Also, follow information from your local authorities.
NOTE
We are starting to reopen some hotels again (Yay!!!). Make sure you follow their guidelines and say THANK YOU to those that now show a unique spirit to serve, and helps us all get through this!! #hotelstrong #hospitalitystrong
About Are Morch
Hi, I am Are Morch. Your Digital Marketing Coach and Customer Experience Expert that specializes in creating effective digital customer experience offer for hotels while growing and scale customer acquisition and revenue.
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