Social Media Marketing for Hotels: Everything You Need to Know

Social media is the modern newspaper, the digital bullet board, and contemporary brand directory. Social media marketing for hotels is vitally important to your hotel’s digital presence and online reputation. With so many eyes on social, your hotel’s social media profiles need to pop and promote action. 

In this blog, we’ll be going over everything you need to know about social media marketing for hotels – strategy, benefits, and tips! If you’re ready to take your hotel’s social media to the next level, please continue reading, and we’ll get into it. RoomRaccoon, the world’s best hotel management software, has provided this blog to help empower hoteliers. 

7 Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Hotels

1) Increased Visibility and Brand Awareness

As a hotel or rental property, you want as many eyes as possible on your business. You can increase your hotel’s brand awareness with the right social media strategy. What’s the big deal about brand awareness? Well, it helps spread the word about your hotel and keep your property top of mind when travelers are looking to explore. This goes hand in hand with visibility – the more people or social users see your profile, the more likely you attract new prospective guests.

Remember to include links to your hotel website in your social media profile. It’s essential to have an easy-to-use hotel website builder so that you can create a user-friendly website geared for conversion. Already have a website? It’s also helpful to have a website builder that you can access and edit to make small changes. More control for hoteliers and better communication through digital channels.

2)Boost Direct Bookings

You can also boost direct bookings for your hotel through social media! Simply add your dedicated booking engine link in your social media platform bio. Your bio is a text-based area on your profile, used to highlight the main description and include any links. With RoomRaccoon, it’s easy to create and export your custom link with our built-in booking engine. If you want to learn more about how we can help you drive direct bookings with our booking engine, please read our dedicated blog.

3) Direct Customer Engagement

Social media is one of the only platforms that allow direct contact with customers or prospective guests. You can now reply immediately to comments, direct messages, or mentions. With the correct community management, your hotel can boost customer satisfaction. A rapid response time will also help to build trust with social media users and position your hotel as reliable and caring. 

Another way to communicate clearly with guests is with an integrated property management system (PMS). A good PMS will provide you with superior guest communication. With RoomRaccoon, you can set up automatic confirmation emails, personalized post-stay follow-ups, and revenue-generating pre-arrival emails. This helps build and maintain guest relationships throughout their booking journey to post-stay. Read our informative blog if you’d like to learn more about email marketing for hotels.

4) Showcasing Hotel Facilities and Services

Social media lends itself to visuals. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest all leverage photographs and videos as their main form of media. This presents the perfect medium for you to showcase your hotel facilities and services. With the ever-presence of smartphones, capturing pictures and video has never been easier. Take advantage of the technology you have handy, and get to creating!

Another great way to showcase your hotel’s special services is with add-ons in the booking engine of your hotel booking software. You can create unique add-ons for your guest’s stay with automated upselling. This allows your guests to pick and choose add-ons as they book their stay, bringing in more revenue and elevating guest satisfaction. As the cherry on top, you can even advertise your easy-to-use booking engine with add-ons on your social media profile!

5) Promoting Special Offers and Events

Creating exclusive deals is a fantastic way to reward loyal followers and your social media community. The benefits of communicating special offers through social media are its ease and convenience. Creating a new social post is simple and accessible for most tech-savvy employees. This helps expedite turnover time for getting a new deal live and out to your target audience. 

If you’re looking for an easy way to put out new prices for your hotel, look no further than RoomRaccoon’s channel manager. Imagine effortlessly boosting bookings, reclaiming precious time, and watching revenue soar. Our native channel management software works magic, synchronizing rates and availability across all booking channels. Free up your schedule to dive into other aspects of your business while we take care of the rest. 

6) Online Reputation Management

Reputation is everything. Your online reputation is a valuable and fragile commodity and should be treated as such. Social media gives you the benefit of more control over your digital reputation with community management. You also have agency over all of your communications – how, when, where, and why. 

Social media inevitably becomes an outlet for guest reviews, good and bad – and that is why it is so important it is monitored and managed. According to Expedia Group’s research, 73% of travelers peruse online reviews prior to booking their trips, and 72% show a greater willingness to spend extra on accommodations with superior guest ratings. We have a great blog on how to improve your online reputation with our awesome partner Guestrevu, where you can learn more on the topic.

7) Market Research and Insights

You can gain pertinent insights into your target audience or ideal guest by utilizing social media correctly.  Many social media platforms have native analytics dashboards. A native analytics dashboard is a platform-specific reporting feature that handles the analysis of your content’s performance. 

Most social media platforms are able to track followers, unfollowers, post engagement, and post reach at the very least. These handy reports help you to break down your follower’s online behavior and derive useful insights. If you’re interested in learning more about your hotel reporting for your hotel front desk software, please check out our blog on how to boost your property’s performance. 

Social Media Marketing Strategy for Hotels

As every good marketer knows, good marketing starts with a great strategy. We’ll be going over some key components of your social media marketing strategy for hotels. It’s important to have an overarching strategy led by goals. 

In this way, your social media marketing efforts will be measurable and allow for analysis and reflection. Analysis of your success in reaching goals can help provide a basis for new strategic tactics moving forward. So, let’s dive in and explore some key strategy components.

Utilize Existing Content

A great social media profile consists of great content. Luckily, as a hotel, you probably already have marketing collateral – and it’s important no good content goes to waste! It’s important that your hotel is ready for its close-up. Ensure to use any professional photographs and videos for your hotel.

 You can start by auditing your hotel’s marketing content and organizing for different use cases. A content audit helps you to understand what you have before incurring new costs on content creation. Ensure to make use of any professional photographs and videos for your hotel. Social media is your opportunity to show your property off and communicate its personality. Don’t be shy when it comes to using technology and AI to improve your existing content. For example, you can use tools to create automatic subtitles for your videos. This can open up your content to people who are hard of hearing.

Craft Your Persona

Social media is a marketing channel where your brand can be bold and daring. This is your opportunity to have a little fun with your customer communications. But remember, deciding how your brand will interact and present itself on social media is vital. The brand persona and personality should be consistent across profiles and platforms.

A brand persona will help set the tone for your engagement and communications. Remember to stay true to your hotel and embody a persona that reflects the brand. Your followers will come to know and love your social profile and be accustomed to the style. Don’t get swept up in viral trends that have nothing to do with your hotel’s brand or the end goal of your social media strategy.

Get Personal

A great way to create an authentic connection with your social media followers is by getting personal – in a professional way. You can show behind-the-scenes of room preparation or event planning for the hotel. Think about the content you resonate with as a hotelier and share the same personable content on social media. 

Showcasing the faces that make your hotel is also a great way to bring a personable aspect to your profile. You could interview employees to let followers learn more about them. You could also feature videos and quotes from hotel owners and managers. The end goal of this strategy is to forge a strong personal bond with your followers. Let that guide your posts!

Connect with Community

With social media platforms, community really is everything. Fostering a good community on your socials will help drive engagement and build a loyal follower base. This helps establish your hotel or property brand within the hospitality sphere. Think about it as creating a digital network of like-minded individuals and businesses.

To connect with your community, you can follow similar pages, such as hotels, and follow users who post travel-inspired content. You’ll find that once you’ve found your target audience, you’ll receive more mutual ‘follow-backs’. Following profiles that follow you back is a great way to show your interest in their social media accounts and cultivate your relationship.

Create Exclusive Deals

Another way to give back to your social media community is through exclusive deals. This will encourage social media users to follow your account so that they are in the know and privy to offers. You can reward your loyal followers with first-to-know announcements or special deals only advertised on social media accounts. 

A great way to build your loyal following is by hosting a giveaway, but we have more on that idea a little later! You can offer flash discounts announced on social media. You can also release seasonal discounts that integrate directly with your booking engine. This awesome feature allows guests to easily paste or type in a discount code for their stay. You can learn all about RoomRaccoon’s booking engine in our comprehensive blog.

Consider Influencer Partnerships

Social media influencers got their name for a reason – they hold some significant social influence! If you partner up with a well-known influencer who promotes travel and accommodation, odds are you’ll reach your target audience rapidly. You can gain great exposure and engagement by working with travel influencers.

Remember to partner with influencers who are right for your brand. If you are an eco-hotel, you’ll want to work with an influencer who promotes sustainability. If your hotel is a high-end destination, you’ll partner with an influencer who works with luxury brands. The partnership should be organic and benefit both parties.

Social Media Marketing Ideas for Hotels

Team Videos

Short-form video is one of the most popular forms of media consumption. Don’t be afraid to pick up your phone and start recording! A great way to connect with your audience is by featuring your staff. You can do mini-interviews, fun questions, or even viral challenges. This gives potential guests insight into your hospitality staff and the atmosphere of your hotel. Your videos could be luxurious and serious or funny and light-hearted. 

Getaway Giveaway

As we mentioned earlier, a giveaway is a fantastic way to build your social media following. You could, for example, host a getaway giveaway where followers can win a short stay at your property, along with a personalized gift, like a custom cap. If you ask entrants to follow and tag friends, it will help expand your customer base. You can also offer a bonus entry if they post it to their story, which cultivates brand awareness and visibility.

Hidden Deal Hunt

Social media is the perfect platform to place easter eggs; we’re not talking about chocolate-filled ones! You can drop clues or hidden messages in your social posts and hint at them. Followers who crack your code can unlock a special 15% discount on their stay at your hotel. This fun idea is egg-citing and perfect for ramping up engagement. Everyone loves a deal, and everyone loves solving a puzzle. 

Room Tours

Prospective guests want to know the ins and outs of your hotel before they book. So why not give a sneak peek of what your rooms have to offer? You can do this with photos, but video is always a good idea. You can create short-form videos that showcase your rooms and what makes your property special. Remember to create short and memorable videos for the best social media results. 

Local Activities Showcase

Travelers are explorers at heart. A great way to attract potential guests is to highlight local activities that travelers can enjoy. These can range from special experiences, guided tours, or special services. With an advanced PMS, you can use automated upselling to offer special services when guests book directly through your booking engine! So get out your phone or camera and document all of the amazing activities near your hotel to share on social media.

Invest in an All-in-one PMS

Investing in hotel reservation software is the first step to elevating your hotel’s operations. Experience the full potential of RoomRaccoon’s hotel management software, meticulously designed with modules to optimize revenue and simplify hotel operations—from a user-friendly platform. 

Dive into a 30-day free trial, where no credit card is required, and the flexibility to cancel anytime is at your fingertips. If you’re interested, please check out our pricing page to discover your perfect PMS solution. Unlock our software’s efficiency and convenience to your hotel management experience.

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