For brands, social media can be a complicated tool to master. You want to give your followers an authentic look at your brand, while still serving the right marketing message. And with so many social platforms in use today, it’s difficult to recognize which ones might work best for your hotel.
Determining how often to post on social media adds another layer of complexity. You need to strike a balance, where you post often enough to remain on your fans’ radar but without bombarding them with promotional material.
When creating your hotel social media strategy, there are a few important points to keep in mind. Keep reading to learn what to know about hotel social media principles, including best practices for posting on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
How to get started
The thought of developing a social media marketing strategy can be enough to scare off many hoteliers. However, with the right foundation in place, social is simple to execute and drives long-term rewards.
Before you begin sharing content with your followers, it’s essential to craft a well-researched social media strategy. It should include details such as:
- Defined target demographic
- Internal stakeholders
- Content themes
- Relevant hashtags and handles
- Social media content calendar
What to post
Much of the concern that hoteliers have around social media marketing stems from not knowing what to post or when to post it. Here are some tips and ideas for what to share on your brand accounts.
Local activities and events
If there are any exciting or quirky events coming up in your area, highlight them on your social accounts. Instagram and Facebook are perfect platforms for this type of content since they make it easy to share and comment on posts.
Content from visitors
It’s not always easy to generate your own content, so why not take advantage of user-generated content? If a guest has tagged your social account in a post, reach out to them and ask if you can repost their content (with credit, of course). This is a very common strategy for hotel Instagram accounts.
Run a contest or giveaway
Contests are a great way to generate engagement and new followers. You can raffle off a small prize (like a one-night stay at your hotel) or team up with other companies in your area to give away a complete getaway package. If you want to boost the visibility of your giveaway even more, you can run it as a sponsored post on Instagram or Facebook.
Humanize your hotel
While most of the other ideas listed here are best suited for personal-oriented social networks (like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook), you can also use professional networks like LinkedIn to showcase your brand. Many hotel chains use their LinkedIn pages to advertise jobs and recognize high-achieving employees.
How often to post
If you’re going to use social media to promote your hotel, you need to publish on a consistent basis. Guests will be immediately turned off if they try to visit one of your social profiles and all they see is stale, outdated content.
There’s no magic formula for the number of times you need to post on each social network to see success, but once a day is generally a good rule of thumb. Less than that and your followers might disengage. More than that and your followers may be turned off.
That said, there are platform-specific guidelines that you can follow to optimize your presence on each network. For example, Twitter is more fast-paced, so you can get away with posting more content each day.
Learn what works for you by monitoring the results of your posts and your follower counts. By keeping an eye on your metrics, you can see when and why your followers are disengaging. Over time, you’ll learn what’s optimal.
