We recently began offering engaging workshops to our member hoteliers and their teams, to provide them with the opportunity to increase their social media skills and insight. After receiving such a positive response, we decided to share our top 5 tips on how you can promote your hotel on social media.
Social media is a powerful tool. Today, there are 4.9 billion social media users globally who use social media to inform and educate themselves – an audience that you should be trying your hardest to reach.
For hotels, the point of social media isn't just to educate users but to increase brand exposure. Whether it’s TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter) or Instagram, there are plenty of social media platforms out there that you can use to promote your hotel.
Whatever the platform, social media is a tool that can help you communicate directly with the guests, build awareness and bring in more customers and more bookings through inspiring content which highlights your hotels unique features and things to do within the local area.
But we know social media can also be daunting. There are a lot of do’s and don’ts you need to follow in order to succeed on social media but we’re here to help you out.
If you want to start promoting your hotel on social media and bring in more bookings, here are 5 steps to follow.
The first way to promote your hotel on social media is by showing off your brand voice and personality.
Social media users want to get to know your hotels and your brand in a more personal way, so instead of having a business-orientated online presence, show users what your hotel is all about.
Create and share posts that align with your values and personality and develop a human connection with users.
You can do this by sharing content that features images or videos of hotel employees – if people can see the faces behind the hotel account, they’ll be more likely to feel a personal connection to your hotel and will remember it next time they need to make a booking.
If you want to increase the number of hotel bookings you’re getting, and increase brand awareness, one of the best ways to do this is by putting money behind your posts.
Paid ads help you display your adverts to a targeted audience or specific demographic and have the potential for large reach.
You’ll be able to put your posts in front of a relevant audience and attach a CTA – a call to action which could be in the form of encouraging people to make a booking or find out more about your hotel.
Don’t forget though, paid ads might require testing to find the right format for your audience – the success of it also comes down to the words you’re writing, the images/videos that accompany the text and the amount of money you’re putting behind posts. So don’t be afraid to test different variations of posts.
There’s nothing more popular than influencer marketing at the moment. Social media influencers, or content creators as they are now often referred to, have a large following and can be very valuable. This is because influencers have built online communities that trust them and who are therefore more likely to be inspired by their content over a brands.
Do your research to find an influencer that aligns with your hotel’s brand and voice, and whose audience is similar to yours. If you’re looking at major influencers who have hundreds of thousands of followers, make sure you have the budget to back up your request.
If not, reach out to micro-influencers (those with 1,000-5,000 followers) instead who have loyal followers across different platforms. Offer them a free stay at the hotel, cover the cost of transport and add in food or drinks and then reap the benefits of influencer marketing.
We all love a good deal, especially in today’s day and age where the cost of living crisis is forcing many to save money.
Use social media as a platform for exclusive deals. Run competitions or offer discounts for those who follow you on a specific platform – this will show followers that they matter to you and you’ll be offering them something they can’t get anywhere else.
Exclusive social media deals will help you create a loyal customer base and will help boost engagement.
How many of us can concentrate on something for a very long time now? Social media has caused many of us to have a short attention span, which you need to take into consideration.
If you want to promote your hotel by creating and sharing long videos on social media, you’re making the wrong decision.
A short form video is anything less than 60 seconds. According to research, 96% of consumers prefer to watch a short-form videos to learn about a product or service, 30% of all short-form videos are watched 81% of the way through and 47% of marketers agree that short-form videos are more likely to go viral.
The stats are there to back it up - short form videos perform best on social media, so you need to tap into this area.
Create videos where you showcase not only your hotel but also the location too; short form content is a great opportunity to inspire staycations and put yourself in front of new potential guests. You can then share them across a variety of platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram Reels. Additionally you can put them on your website, or in email marketing material to reach a wider audience.
Whatever it is, try to keep it short and snappy and all a call to action encouraging people to make a booking.
For inspiration for how you can showcase your hotel on social media be sure to check out our own profiles @bestwesternhotelsgb, we have a whole range of organic imagery and short form video content which we have captured at our hotels throughout the year.
