Social media has changed the way hotels reach guests. By following the right social media best practices, properties can increase direct bookings and get more eyes on their offerings.
If you’d like to improve your overall social media strategy, here are few hotel social media best practices to follow.
Put a social media strategy together
Jumping on social media and seeing what sticks won’t help you find your niche with an audience. Before you get started, you need to sit down and define what your goals are. Come up with the metrics you most want to hit and take the time to determine who your core audience is.
Knowing who your audience is can help you figure out where best to reach them. Even if your social media plan is all about organic growth, you should do your research to see where your ideal audience is already engaging. What hashtags are they using? What other accounts do they follow?
A strategy is everything from deciding on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to planning out how often you’re going to post. It will help you stay on track and better understand if you’re meeting your goals.
Consistency is key
Companies are continually chasing that viral hit. Truthfully, it’s more important to have consistent, quality content then clickbait that may or may not go viral. If you’re looking to build a following and gain impressions, your content needs to be front and center all the time. Part of the plan we mentioned before should involve a schedule, so you know what days and times to post your content.
The more consistent you are, the more likely you are to build a dedicated following. Think about it this way, the more a follower sees one of your posts, the more likely they are to engage with it. That engagement could eventually turn into bookings.
Keep engaging with your followers
Just like consistency is a big deal to followers, so is your engagement. Social media is a two-way street. The same way you’re hoping for users to like, comment, and engage with your content, you need to do the same with theirs.
This can be something as simple as sharing a photo that a guest posted on their Instagram account or commenting back to users who mention you on Facebook. Take some time every day to find ways that you can engage with guests and other users. Find conversations to join in. 45% of users are more likely to buy if a brand is responsive and engaging. Just another reason to keep doing it!
Highlight what’s great about your area
Showcasing photos of your guest rooms and property is fantastic, but highlighting the exciting things about your location is also important. Part of your social media strategy should be about showing off your location. Post about local events, take photos of landmarks and tell guests about what’s happening.
Social media is all about sharing. Hotels that come at it with a great strategy in place and follow hotel social media best practices will see growth, which will lead to more direct bookings.
