With the coming of modern technologies and social media networks, it is now much easier for hospitality companies to communicate with new and returning customers without spending a lot of money. Hotel brands must be mindful of and react to changes in market norms now more than ever.
Social media is being used by businesses in every industry, with more than 58 percent of marketers believing that their social media activities are vital to their marketing strategy. Efficient use of social media will boost your hotel’s brand presence while still bringing in a steady stream of revenue and bookings. In today’s fast-paced world, hotel brands can no longer neglect the fact that consumers expect them to be social media and tech-savvy.
Because of the rise of social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, social media marketing has become more critical than ever before. It offers a plethora of benefits to those in the hospitality industry. Continue reading for some helpful hints on how to promote your hotel online through various social media platforms. But, first of all, let’s tell you what social media marketing means.
What is Social Media Marketing?
The method of gaining recognition and visibility for a company or brand through the use of social media platforms is known as social media marketing. This type of promotion can take several forms, including uploading or sharing images or videos, linking to external websites or material, and even running paid advertisements on social media platforms.
It is particularly beneficial to those in the hoteliers, as social media channels such as Twitter are excellent ways to communicate with current and potential customers. Also, most social media sites have analytics tools that enable hotel management to track interaction. Furthermore, social networks also provide helpful hotel marketing features such as customer feedback and inviting users to events.
Why Should You Consider Social Media Platforms?
Having an online presence is massive and provides some advantages to a business. However, the advantages and disadvantages should be considered. A website may be more trouble than it’s worth. Setting up and maintaining it can be expensive, and, despite your inputs, it may not even appear in Google search results to give you the needed boost in sales.
Hospitality companies can maintain an online presence and reach a large audience by using social media. But they can have it for a significantly reduced price – or, if you’re fortunate, for free! This is enough to have you prioritize social media channels over a website, though they are both excellent for higher productivity
What are the Social Media Channels to Use?
Facebook is the most widely used social media platform. Facebook, which has over one billion active users, will help your restaurant or café gain a lot of attention.
You can use a Facebook page to promote your company, show off photos, share your story and contact information, and connect with customers. Supported advertising on Facebook is also a brilliant and low-cost way to get your name out there.
Instagram is a great way to show off what your hotel does best, whether it’s the food or the decoration. The highly visual social media site now has more than 400 million monthly visitors who use it to share their own stories and find life inspiration.
By building a business account on Instagram, hospitality businesses may join the trend. To broaden your scope, include a link to your company’s website in your company profile and post photos with related hashtags.
Twitter is a perfect place to share regular sales and specials. A great way to keep your customers updated is to put your Twitter handle on the menu and encourage them to follow the restaurant to stay up to date.
Participate in popular culture, send jokes via Twitter, and have a good time. Remember that whatever you tweet reflects your business, so keep it professional unless you’re aiming for a controversial look!
Other social media platforms that are thriving well and worth considering for your hotel business are as follow:
- Dimmi
- Menulog
7 Tips to Manage Your Hotel’s Social Media to Drive Sales
We’ve compiled a list of social media marketing tips that are particularly important to hoteliers and can assist marketers in developing an efficient and systematic plan to improve sales.
1. Set A Specific Goal
Before you join Facebook, Twitter, or another social media site, you must first devise a plan. There must be a blueprint you’d like to use. Your objectives, or what you intend to achieve from the initiative, should be included here. Perhaps you want to increase the number of visitors to your website by a certain percentage or receive more than twenty new bookings per week.
These fundamental objectives help you narrow your attention and ensure that your efforts aren’t wasted. Remember that whatever goals you set must be precise, measurable, attainable, applicable, and time-bound.
2. Create Shareable Visual Contents
Visual material, such as images and videos, is more common than ever, and it consistently generates more interest than a text-based message. Concentrate on creating content that people would want to share. Taking pictures of your hotel and the visitors who are having a good time is one way to do this.
Remember to keep things easy when taking marketing-worthy pictures. Less is always better, as it is in most stuff. You don’t want to reveal anything about your hotel; instead, you want to entice potential visitors with some of the most exciting features.
3. Optimize Your Social Media Pages
It’s time to optimize your hotel’s social media pages now that you have a basic strategy in place and some more concrete goals in mind. Optimization means ensuring that organizational information is listed, that guests have access to location information, and that material is organized logically.
You can also use a high-quality image of the company logo as your profile picture, upload plenty of images of your hotel, and include a link to the main hotel website on your social media accounts. This optimization is so effective to ensure that the social media platforms get views and visitors transferred to the hotel’s website.
4. Ensure Consistency
Like they say, “Rome was not built in a day,” which means that there must be a consistent effort to get you competitive. Audiences on social media prefer continuity and hate erratic content promotion. So, log on to the internet and begin writing.
You’ll begin to establish a voice for your hotel by building profiles and sharing high-quality content regularly. Keep the brand’s voice consistent — followers want to feel like they can get to know a brand in the same way they can get to know a human.
Many interested in your content would be more likely to visit your profile on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn and actively check it out, connect with it, and share it with their followers if they know new content is coming.
5. Engage with Your Audience
The ability of hoteliers and audience to interact one-on-one on social media makes the experience more authentic and personal. Take the time to respond to comments on your social media accounts thoughtfully and respectfully, even if the initial message was negative.
Taking the time to respond to their questions, converse with those who leave feedback on the material you post, and generally interacting is what this interaction entails.
When discussing specific topics, particularly those that are trending, try to use hashtags to gain momentum with your posts and responses. This improves the searchability of your content and makes it easier for new users to find it.
6. Make More Publicity with Paid Advertisements
Many marketers employ social media as part of their marketing campaigns because it allows them to produce results without investing any money. Paid advertising is available on almost any social media website, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Paid ads, when combined with daily posting, can be highly successful.
Take into account that more than half of Instagram users follow at least one brand. As a result, anyone who is loyal to a brand is more likely to buy from them. Paid advertisement raises awareness of your hotel, encouraging more people to learn about it and ultimately become visitors.
7. Do Not Reveal Too Many Details
Finally, while daily social media updates are beneficial and a consistent approach to content creation is even better, it is critical not to overdo it. Although it is usually acceptable to post on Twitter daily to maximize visibility, people are less tolerant when a Facebook business page publishes content regularly.
According to studies, the optimal number of posts on a Facebook business page is about seven per week, with no more than two per day. You can always respond to feedback and questions from your audience, but you should be considerate when uploading new content and avoid spamming people’s timelines.
Closing Thoughts
Marketing is an essential strategy for hotels looking to improve bookings and revenues. Hotels create viral visual content, which creates more attention and, in turn, more followers than their social media strategy. To get the most out of your own social media marketing, use the tactics mentioned above. If you have any questions, contact our support team to get a real-time response.
About Booking Ninjas
At Booking Ninjas we give you a reason to not have to build an online management system from scratch and let your concentrate on giving your clients the utmost satisfaction they deserve.
With our advanced system which allows you to manage reservations, update your rates, and tailor customer experience according to your whims, among other powerful features, Booking Ninjas is leagues ahead of our competitors in the game.
We also efficiently keep track of and handle all your transactions so you don’t have to stress yourself over them.
With us, your clients will always be left feeling secured, satisfied, and smiling.
For more information, check out Booking Ninjas solutions.