Social Media Marketing for Hotels
Published On: 20 March 2023
Published On: 20 March 2023
The domain of social media can be daunting. For first-timers, devising the right strategy for a butter-smooth social media can be a chaotic experience. In addition, the expenses act as the perfect cherry on top to make the ordeal all the more overwhelming. However, good things happen when you get out of your comfort, and the same goes for new-age marketing tactics.
Social media and the ensuing marketing are indispensable aspects of every industry, including hospitality and hotel management. With the world slowly becoming a global village, the benefits that hotels can reap from social media marketing are paramount and near infinite. For instance, 55 per cent of consumers learn about brands from social media. Thus, if you want to ace your hospitality social media marketing game and rope in the right people into your hotels all with the click of a mouse, read ahead!
Google regularly updates its ranking algorithms throughout the year to offer users a better search experience and more relevant search results. Such changes can affect the SEO performance of your hospitality social media marketing strategy. Although Google refurbishes its algorithm 500 to 600 times a year, most of these alterations are too minute to dramatically influence your digital marketing formula.
May 2022 Core Update – It was a broad core algorithm update that targeted content of all types and focused on E-A-T, that is, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
July 2022 Google Algorithm/Core Update – It was more of a refresh than a new overhaul. It pressed on the importance of video indexing, elucidating the surge in popularity of video content among audiences of diverse cohorts.
Such algorithm updates can drastically or subtly affect your social media marketing 2023 strategy. However, the right tactics, prompt decisions, and diligence can help swerve the changes effectively and crack the algorithm. How? By focusing on the quality of the content!
We all have heard the phrase, ‘content is king.’ The statement has unrivalled significance in today’s day and age. Your social media and digital marketing strategy should centre on the E-A-T rule. You have to generate content on social media, both short-form and long-form, which establish your expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness as a top-tier hotel.
Rather than churning out mass-produced content on whatever is ‘trendy’ on the top social media sites, such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, you should provide your audience with content they are looking for and care about! Your social media strategy should etch your name as a towering presence within the hospitality sector. Simply put, you should be equipped to turn both content produced in-house and by happy customers into SEO scoring machines by doing the proper legwork research on hashtags, keywords, and other SEO boosters that feel natural and organic to audiences.
Regarding hotel social media marketing for 2023, images and videos is your best friend. The Google Core Update of July 2022 had already illustrated the growing importance of visual content, including videos, as a way to crack the algorithm. As such, the best way to devise the right social media strategy for your hotel is to include images and videos skillfully. For instance, a recent study reveals that 2 out of 5 millennials assent that hotel and travel images on social media affect their booking.
The crux remains that consumers, nowadays, will not choose a hotel for their stay without adept ‘social proof.’ Apart from reviews, Google My Business Pages, Testimonials, and an excellent and swift website, a vibrant social media presence that reflects your hotel’s values and visions. So, take out the camera and click ‘aesthetic’ pictures that encapsulate your hotel’s beauty, authenticity, and ‘vibe.’ Some of the on-demand photos and videos that you can incorporate as part of your hotel marketing strategy for 2023 include the following –
• Images of your hotel’s interiors
• Images of your hotel’s exterior
• Images of fun activities in your hotel
• Images of guests
• Images of guests enjoying
• Image of the view from the window
• Images of neighbouring areas
• Behind-the-scenes videos of your staff preparing the hotel rooms for guests
• Videos introducing the hotel
• Short videos/reels on trends that are also relevant to your hotel
• Video of guests providing a testimonial about the hotel and their stay
The third way to devise a robust social media marketing strategy for your hotel is to hold content and focus on the upcoming holiday season. Needless to say, the hospitality industry has its peak season during Christmas, New Year, Fourth of July, and other similar occasions. Thus, you are responsible for co-opting such events and using them to ace your hotel marketing game. Some of the benefits of running a contest as a social media strategy include the following –
• Your Social Media Base Skyrockets – Contests, especially those premised around the holiday season, can bolster your social media base unlike anything else. For instance, if you hold a contest on Instagram, and 100 out of your 500 followers decide to like the post and share the post, a snowballing of events will start that will exponentially increase the engagement on your page.
• More Engagement = More Favors: The higher the engagement on any of your social media posts in the form of likes, comments, or shares, the greater the chances of you cracking the algorithm. Similar to Google’s algorithm that depends on activity, the algorithms of sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok favour accounts where audiences efficaciously engage. Thus, a contest can help you get a better engagement rate, which will compel the algorithm to show your post to more people.
Thus, hosting a contest or giveaway before the holiday season can be a great way to stay on top of the hotel marketing game in 2023.
Last but not least, you can also share vouchers on your social media platform to have a direct link with your potential consumers. Vouchers are a great way to ignite the interest of people in your hotel and also have many of them book rooms. Posting links to vouchers is handy during the holiday or other peak seasons when you typically expect more guests. Make sure to distribute the link on your social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Agoda, Twitter, TikTok, and more.
So, there we have it, the four best trips for top-tier hotel social media marketing in 2023.
