Luxury Hotels Were Made for Social Commerce

In marketing terms, social commerce is an amplification of your e-commerce strategy across all social platforms. It builds on the fact that you already have a strong presence and big audiences engaged with your brand, property, and lifestyle. Through social channels, luxury hotels have huge new windows for brand product exposure and transactions. Basically, you can make anything in your content shoppable. This works in paid and organic. You can tag the products for discovery and purchase and drive people directly to your social e-shop. Even better, social channels reach people across multiple stages of the consumer journeys. When traveling, the shoppable content is very oriented to audiences who already trust the brand and property. Successful conversions are more likely because this revenue stream acts like a loyalty channel, exciting consumers and extending beyond rooms and amenities to tap into their pride of ownership.

Choose the Social Media Platform Best Suited for Setting Up Your Storefront

Location. Location. Location. The old real estate adage applies here too. Deciding where to build your storefront is all about your brand and your strongest social channel. All of the main social platforms are ready to integrate a social shop as a brand channel. However, we generally recommend that you choose a platform with the historically best user experience and proven sales performance. At the top of our list are FB, IG, and TikTok. These platforms make the shop set-up relatively simple, and if you’re already working with an e-commerce platform like Shopify, they integrate easily.

Revisit Your Overall Strategy to Include the New Components of Social Commerce

In setting up a social commerce program, you want to determine how it will fit within your larger strategy. When your portfolio of products becomes available to purchase through social e-commerce, your existing content and paid strategies might require a little re-alignment. Consider that these new campaigns will exist alongside all the different hotel goals, including social engagement, promotions, bookings, and food and beverage. Just as you do with your programs, the social commerce content has to be properly tagged to stand out and feel organically integrated with the hotel experience. Another alignment tip is to create a mini-funnel where specific audiences engaged with social commerce can be retargeted with e-commerce ads. It’s a great way to create a funnel in a natural flow.

One Big Factor to Consider Before You Launch Social Commerce

First, ensure you have a clearly identified portfolio or products to sell. This sounds obvious, but it helps start with items you know are coveted and readily available to stock, ship, and maintain. For first-timers, we recommend partnering with a shopping platform that will make the integration easier, faster, and more efficient–for you and your guests!

Learn From the Luxury Masters

The gold standard brands already do an amazing job in social ecommerce. For example, Four Seasons allows you to basically buy all the products you love from the property for your own space. Their content strategy focuses on the hotel experience, and the shoppable posts are only displayed when the product contributes to that experience.

Think of Social Ecomm as Marketing Feng Shui

You have a storefront. You’ve identified the luxury items most coveted by guests. They are available in reliable quantities. Now you’re ready for the perfect arrangement of products, channels, and media. Your brand will never aspire to be a commercial retailer offering BOGO sales. Instead, your strategy is infused with just the right amount of ecommerce, creating harmony and unity in your marketing world!