Boosting Your Brand: Social Media Tips for the Hospitality Sector

Drive the conversation

Social media platforms are the modern town square. Millions of people gather to post photos, discuss the news and share their stories with others. They also seek out experiences they might want to share—and this is where your business comes in.

Whether you’re looking to provide guests with a home away from home or a place for people to watch the game with their friends over some good food, the hospitality business thrives on social media connections. This guide will help you find your online voice and get the most out of your content, whatever platform you decide to use.

Establish your brand’s voice with your content

As an owner, you want to make your business part of the conversation. While advertising special holiday rates or offering coupon codes can be a part of your social media strategy, it shouldn’t be your only strategy.

Instead, use your social media accounts to establish and grow your hospitality business’s brand voice. For example, is your hotel a posh, luxurious destination where guests can have their every whim catered to? Or is it a cozy little getaway from the hustle and bustle of the big city? 

Your social media content should reflect whatever vibe you’re looking to provide, acting as a digital extension of the in-person experience. Establish that voice through the images, videos and text-based content you post to solidify that brand in your followers’ minds. Creating content such as virtual hotel room walkthroughs, Instagram-quality pics of your restaurant specials or first-hand guest testimonials will help you achieve that goal.

Tailor your content to the platform

There are benefits to engaging across the broad spectrum of social media platforms. For example, Instagram is a highly visual medium, allowing you to leverage the look and feel of your business with the images you post. Meanwhile, TikTok will enable you to reach a younger audience with personal and authentic short-form video content. Then there’s Facebook, with a massive user base that continues to provide ample advertising opportunities.

Which platform you choose to use will likely reflect your business goals and the resources it has available. Posting content across multiple social media platforms is typical and expected—however, you cannot expect content posted on one platform to work well on another.

Each social media service has its own quirks, such as style, tone and audience expectations. For example, viewers on YouTube expect long-form content filmed in widescreen, while TikTok users expect shorter videos filmed in portrait mode. Rather than posting the same video in multiple places, your content will likely perform better if it’s customized to fit the platform’s unique characteristics.

Your hotel can be a destination for work and play. Learn how by reading What Are “Workations” & How Can Hotels Maximize Them?

Partner with micro-influencers to reach your audience

Potential customers are more likely to trust your hospitality business’s advertising when it comes from someone they trust. For many, that trust comes from the influencers they follow on social media. One study found that nearly 40% of people are more likely to trust social media influencers over the brands themselves, making them an invaluable resource for driving new business.

For a good return on investment, consider looking for a micro-influencer who caters to your target audience. These social media accounts tend to have fewer than 10,000 followers, yet their highly engaged audiences respond to content at a far greater rate than the audiences of influencers with million-plus follower counts. The raw engagement numbers won’t necessarily be as high, but you’ll likely see a far greater return on ad spend (ROAS) when working with a micro-influencer.

When working with influencers, it’s important to allow their voice and authenticity to shine through in their content. You can collaborate on a content plan and develop ideas together, but then step back and let them do their thing. Otherwise, their content might feel a bit too much like an ad, and their audience may react negatively to the content and your business.

COVID-19 changed the way the hospitality industry cares for its guests. Learn more by reading Top 7 Post-COVID Trends Shaping the Hospitality Industry. 

Encourage reviews & engage with feedback

Positive word of mouth is the lifeblood of any successful hospitality business. In the 21st century, this means online reviews—and your review score can mean the difference between finding success and barely squeaking by.

Setting up profiles through Google and consumer review platforms such as Yelp is a critical part of running a restaurant or hotel. This is in part because those platforms automatically generate a profile for your location whether or not you control it.

Taking ownership of those profiles will allow you to keep important information, such as your hours and location, up to date. It’ll also give you direct access to the people who leave reviews on these pages, allowing you to respond to positive or negative feedback. Leaving a response will show your reviewers, as well as prospective customers, that you’re receptive and engaged.

You’ll also want to drive current customers to leave a review so future visitors see you’re busy and highly regarded. Leave reminders throughout your establishment, put a note on receipts and ask customers directly to encourage them to share their positive experiences. Avoid offering incentives (like free items or discounts) for leaving a review on these third-party platforms, though—doing so might flag your account.

Want to boost your online rankings? Read Hotel Supplies: The Complete Operators Checklist and discover which amenities no hospitality business should go without. 

How to measure success

Before you launch your social media campaign, you must ask yourself this question: “What does success look like?” The answer will inform which key performance indicators (KPIs) you should analyze most once your campaign has finished. Here are some worth examining:

• Engagement: Are you looking to bolster your social media presence? Look at how many likes, shares and follows your content gets across all your platforms. Be sure to check how many visits you get from the links you post, too, so you know which channels drive visits to your website.

• Conversions: Do you want to boost profits? Look at conversion metrics like the number of online bookings or reservations, the total number of orders or the revenue collected during the campaign to see how much it’s affecting your bottom line. Calculating ROAS is the clearest way to see a direct link between the money you put into advertising and the revenue it generates.

Keep on posting

Whatever strategy you take and whatever platform you use, the important thing is to keep showing up. Consistency with posting on social media is crucial. It tells the platform algorithms that you’re engaged with your audience and it provides more data to guide you toward improving your content—along with your KPIs.

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