Social Media for Hoteliers: 7 Tips for Better Guest Engagement Online
Social media is a pivotal part of your hotel marketing strategy. As such, you might be wondering how to leverage it for the best benefits.
In this article, we look at social media for hoteliers and seven tips for better guest engagement online. First, though, let’s look at the importance of social media.
The Goals of Social Media
Posting on your social platforms is much more than simply posting. You want to have some goals in mind.
The purpose of social media is to build guest engagement and encourage relationships with your current and future customers. This in turn increases brand awareness and improves your overall retention rate.
The first goal of social media is to generate online leads. You do this with a better content strategy and quick responses.
The second goal is to increase engagement which really is the pivotal piece of your overall strategy.
Finally, the third goal is to build brand awareness and recognition. By creating your brand and sticking with it, you encourage better guest engagement. Creating this awareness means sticking to one voice, humanizing your hotel, listening to what people are saying, and utilizing proper hashtags.
Now that you know the goals, we can look at how to build better guest engagement.
#1: Always Ask the Purpose
Before you post something on social media ask yourself why you are posting it.
For example, if you’re sharing a video of guests swimming in your beautiful pool, you want to know the goal as well as the target audience of the post. Are you posting to simply show a gorgeous pool, or are you targeting families to let them know of your amenities?
#2: Interact in Real Time
You want to answer social media users’ questions and engage with them in real time.
For example, if someone asks a question about your swimming pool post, you want to answer it immediately instead of waiting until the next day when you look at your social media comments.
By responding immediately, you open a conversation and let users know you are there and ready to engage.
You want to stay active on your social channels. This means more than posting every day. It means engaging with users all day long.
#3: Plan Your Content
As you create a social media content strategy, pay attention to the seasons.
Your best bet is to use a content calendar to plan your content. You can actually plan content using the different holidays and seasons. Check out the website Holiday Insights as you can gain many ideas from the unique holidays listed there. Use the ones that work for you.
In addition, plan your content around your peak season, low season, and mid-season. You want to change your content based on your goals during these different times of the year.
When planning content remember that most of it should be relationship building. About 20% of it can be promotions, packages, and specials.
Other times you want to share content that resonates. People love to see the inside of your hotel. Share customer and employee stories.
Give them an inside look at what goes on inside your hotel and in the outside area.
This helps encourage bookings.
#4: Create Video Content
Today’s social media users like content that moves. They also like a visual story, and video has never been more important to a hotelier’s content strategy. (tweet this)
Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, video is key. When you use video, users stay on your page longer. You have more time to engage them and encourage the booking.
What’s more, the social media algorithms love video content, so you’ll notice your organic reach automatically improves.
#5: Know Your Audience
Each social media platform is a little bit different, and the users you find on them are unique as well.
You have the opportunity to market to multiple audiences on the different platforms. So, while staying true to your brand, tailor your content for each platform.
For example, on Twitter, your posts will be shorter. On Instagram, you’ll focus on visuals. On Facebook, you can use longer posts and longer videos.
You can use the same content, just make sure to tailor it for each platform.
#6: Create Viral Content
Creating content that people want to share means you’ve succeeded with guest engagement so much that people are excited to share it.
To do this, you have to know your audience as we mentioned earlier.
Showcase everything about your hotel and the surrounding area that your audience will engage with. Make your hotel stand out with brilliant images and enticing videos.
Once you’ve created shareable content, you’ll notice you not only improve your retention rates, but you end up with new followers and a whole pool of new potential guest.
#7: Track Engagement
You want to track likes, shares, and comments to actually know if your engagement strategy is working. Also look at your impressions and your reach.
In addition, you can track how your followers grow over time to see if you are growing or declining.
You also want to look at how people are engaging with posts, images, videos, and your stories. Don’t forget to consider how many people message you.
When you look at these metrics, you can also easily see what types of content perform the best for you. Is it images or video? Is it memes or customer stories?
Last Thoughts on Guest Engagement
You can strengthen guest relationships with social media. By posting regularly and consistently with content that resonates with your hotel guests, you set up your hotel for success.
As a hotelier, you have a unique opportunity to connect with your guests well after they’ve left your property through unique content and timely response.
You’ll not only build customer loyalty, but you’ll encourage brand ambassadors who share your great content and encourage new reservations.
Your overall customer experience should extend well beyond the stay. It starts online on social media and continues there as you work to improve customer relationships and engagement. (tweet this)
Stay active on social media, create a strong strategy, respond empathetically to reviews both positive and negative, and watch your metrics.
You’ll soon notice that you naturally improve your bookings as your engagement level increases and improves.
We are your hotel’s digital advertising specialists and can help you position your hotel for success. As experts in website design, we can create a new website that works seamlessly with your social media. And we can also help with search engine marketing, online booking, online listings, and social media marketing, we are here to help. Contact us today to start a conversation about your digital advertising needs.
Images: Raphael Wild and dlxmedia.hu on Unsplash
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