Technology has transformed the hospitality industry: Google, booking websites, word-of-mouth, and social networks replaced the traditional travel agent experience, and hotels that embrace the digital age are seeing the benefits of providing a seamless experience for their customers.

Social media acts as a hub for people to connect with their communities, whether by sharing photo albums of their life story, communicating with friends, or staying in the know about trending events. Billions of people use apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram every day.

This means that social media is key for the travel industry to share, connect, answer questions, address concerns, and make a sale. Social media shouldn’t be seen as a distraction to sales, and it’s about time for the hospitality industry to become social media savvy.

Here are five reasons hotels need to know about social media marketing:

1. Planning for Your Social Media Marketing

Before you even start sharing via social, I always recommend starting off with a plan. Creating a strategy for your overall marketing helps you align your content for social media with your main goals for your hotel.  

By knowing your main goal, you can work your way back with social media tasks like planning out content for the year, or the next few months, and creating a series of Facebook ads for promotions you have coming up. Of course, if you need any help figuring this all out - let me know!

 2. Invest in Quality Photography

 No secret sauce here…. The imagery of your hotel should be more than just educational, they should be inspirational. You should be showing off your luxurious rooms, the gardens, and the views.

Images are the place to share an emotion that you want your guests to feel even before they stay with you.  Marketing is about connecting with people on an emotional level so they can get a sense of what the EXPERIENCE is at your hotel. Trust me, social media is not the place for the boring features of the hotel rooms... It is about the experience for the guest. The location, the activities, the drinks, the excursions. 

A quality photographer that aligns with your goals is a necessity. You can get away with iPhone photos for social media IF AND ONLY IF the social media manager knows how to take a quality pic. If you choose to hire a photographer and a stylist to create beautiful, inspiring images for your website, TripAdvisor, and Yelp page, ask them to take some extra shots for social.

 2. Words are Just as Important as Pictures

It is easy to forget the importance of  a great caption now that social media is all about images. But, the caption and the hashtags are still just as important. Especially on sites like Pinterest - which honestly, is a search engine, not a social network, and Instagram where using hashtags that align with your dream customers matter.

Your voice is the way you communicate everywherein your hotel. How you carefully pick out words to evoke an emotion on your website or email newsletters, how you talk to customers in the hotel lobby, and how you connect with them after they leave. It all goes back to how you want the customer to feel about your hotel.  If you haven't created brand guidelines around your VOICE, I definetly recommend working with a consultant to help you craft your story. 

Cough, cough.. Hey, I may know a person...   

4. User-Generated Content

Your hotel guests have been sharing photos from your hotel long before social media came around. Now you have the opportunity to see what is being shared and reuse that content in your own social channels—if it’s good, of course. User-generated content is about seeing your hotel from a new point of view (a new lens), and sometimes this content gets better engagement than your heavily produced images.... 

WHY? Well, people want to see what’s REAL. Guests can see the grounds from a different perspective that you may never have noticed. Even better, they show the real experience, not an image manufactured just for the internet.

Make sure to ASK to use the picture before sharing it (a simple message on Instagram saying "Hey we love this photo, mind if we reshare it on our website/social/etc and give you credit"), never edit the image, and always give credit by tagging them in the photo itself and in the caption. 

5. Connect with the RIGHT Influencers

As a brand, you may get bombarded with requests from “influencers” who want a free night stay in exchange for social media exposure. I use quotes around the word influencer with good reason: anyone can say they are an influential social media user, but not everyone has the right type of influence for your brand. By starting with a brand game plan and an idea of what your goals are, you can have a better idea of who you want to connect with for the best exposure.

Some of the people who try to ask for freebies may actually be people you want to connect with. Make sure to vet them and see how many fans they have, if they are engaging back with people who comment (IMO, no engagement = no true community), and if their pictures align with your brand aesthetic.

Does that mean you should ignore all the people who try to connect with you? No way! I recommend messaging them back and providing them with a coupon code for Instagram. Use the notes section of your phone to save a quick message saying:

“Thank you so much for connecting. We love our Instagram community and would love to see you stay with us. Head over to XXXXX.com and use the code #Instagram for a XXX deal just for our Instagram friends.”

This is a great way to say no while still giving them something.

6. Social Media is about being SOCIAL

Every job position at a hotel revolves around giving guests the BEST possible experience, so your social media marketing shouldn't be any different. You can extend the experience by simply thanking someone who shares an image from your location. That interaction is memorable, and usually, the guest will remember it… and tell friends.

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By now, the reasons that social media shouldn’t be ignored are becoming clear. Now it’s time to create a strategy for telling your story, connecting with customers and turning your social media community into brand-loyal guests. Connect with me to chat more!