Leverage social media in hospitality to gain the larger impact in this era of Digital Worldon businesses. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have gone beyond their initial goal of bringing people together, they started out as platforms where people come together and have become places for businesses to market, engage with customers and build their brands. Social media is practically a requirement for hotels, restaurants and many other hospitality businesses as well.
Keep reading the article and learn more about how your business can create brand messages that resonate with potential guests, through social media communications to target customers in a measurable way.
Where Social Media Stands in Hospitality?
To leverage social media in hospitality you can connect with an enormous audience, communicate with your customers instantaneously and not to mention show off what makes your business different. Rather than the one way communication experienced through traditional advertising, social media enables two-way dialogues and for businesses to sooner form relationships with potential guests off property.
This is especially helpful for the hospitality industry. As a boutique hotel, luxury resort or cozy bed and breakfast more than anything your success is going to depend on how well you manage to connect with the people who are paying good money for their leisure stay. So you do, on social media where the story takes place and from here it bursts into a thousand pieces that illustrate your services but also helps to interact properly with visitors.
Engage with Potential Guests in Facebook
Facebook is still one of the most important social media platform for businesses to reach and interact with potential clients. Facebook has more than 2.8 billion monthly active users making it a platform that can reach just about anyone, and with paid advertising you have the opportunity to target specific demographics as well. Of course having large numbers, but the real success on Facebook comes down to one word and that is Engagement.
- Build a Community: People are already talking about your brand on social media, so why not respond in kind and build community around it. This can be achieved by maintaining a Facebook page where you provide regular updates, share photos and comment back to responses. Incentivize your guests to review and share their experiences with you, building a brand community full of trust.
- Facebook Groups: One more way to go about it is by creating Facebook groups or simply being a part of the right kind. For example you have a beachfront resort then something like “Beach Vacationers” might be your perfect group. It helps you to reach and engage with an extremely targeted audience, spread the value contents but also do a reputation of your brand in that niche.
- Run Targetted Ads: God bless Facebook, which permits you to use their advertising platform for pointed ads leaning on demographics, interests as well behaviors. You can use this to target people who are more likely than the average person highly interested in what you have. Drive engagements and conversions with attractive visuals, streaky copies & vivid CTAs.
Instagram: The Art of Visual Storytelling
With its visual nature, Instagram is an ideal platform for the hospitality industry. If your property is beautiful and unique, Instagram will likely be the perfect social network for it. It’s more than just sharing a series of aesthetically pleasing images though. It is about weaving together a narrative that speaks to your audience.
- High-Quality Visual Content: Instagram is all about what your photos and videos look like. Professional photography or high-quality images taken with a professional camera of your property, amenities and the surrounding area. Edit your photos with the editing tools on Instagram, make them attractive but then remember not to over-edit and miss out that it is vital for a photo to be authentic.
- Leverage Instagram Stories and Reels : You can use the most sought after tools like stories and reels to engage with your audience. On Stories, you can share guest testimonials or a peek behind the scenes on property and run short term offers. On the contrary, reels are perfect for clips made around a 15-second short video length that can easily go viral and be seen by more people.
- Engage with Your Audience: Engagement on Instagram ≠ likes & follows. It has to do with forming relationships with your audience. From there, the amount you can sell them is endless! Like their comments, reply to relevant messages and engage with people who are tagging your account or business in posts since it will drive up excitement around an event.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage guests to share their experience on Instagram and tag your business. Reposting user-generated content (UGC) not only helps populate that with real, resonate and live-worthy posts on your feed more efficiently but also improves the chances of retaining valuable returning guests who would feel valued after you chose him to repost.
Twitter: Real-Time Engagement
Twitter is not as attractive to look at as Instagram but it offers you something just as important “live engagement”. This is perfect for keeping your audience Updated and Engaged with its fast-paced nature.
- Ensure Timely Updates: Whether it is a special offer, event or weather updates; twitter allows sharing of real time on go experience. This is a particular benefit for businesses who need to reach their audience, on the spot and clear.
- Pay Attention to Feedback: There’s no question Twitter is frequently the destination for customer feedback, good and bad. By keeping an eye on brand mentions you can act fast to reply directly in the social network, resolve any issues as soon as possible and transform a potential negative experience into a good one.
- Contests & Giveaways: Conducting contests and giveaways is a proven way of raising the excitement levels and energizing audience on Twitter For wide-spread visibility and reach exhort the users to retweet, follow or use a particular hashtag based on your campaign goals so more people are able to enter.
The Significance of Consistency and Authenticity
Every Social media platform comes with its own strength, however what matters more is the consistency and also about being authentic in all of them. In order to run a successful social media strategy, continuous high-quality posting, audience engagement and consistently maintaining your brand voice are essential.
If one more than that, the authenticity is necessary. People know when they are being sold to on social media. Instead, you want to produce on-brand content that speaks to your target audience. Why not share your stories, give a spotlight over the team members and what makes you different?
Measuring Success
In order to leverage social media in hospitality effectively, you need to be able follow your statistics and pivot your strategy when needed. Image from Buffer Analytics tools are provided by the majority of platforms so you can check and see how your content is doing. Track metrics like engagement rates, reach and conversions; iterate your strategy with this data.
At the end of day to leverage social media in hospitality is more than just posting on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Instead, you need to leverage these platforms as tools for talking with potential customers and building relationships that will grow into a community surrounding your brand. This way, you can optimize your booking experience which would help to improve website rankings and bring in more bookings, loyalty from customers as well as growth for the business.