CHANGING HOW HOSPITALITY DOES SOCIAL
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These days when someone searches for a resort or high-end travel destination, they are inundated with hotel social media ads. So what elements make some ads stand out? There are definite constants in crafting great ads to deliver ROI for luxury properties.

It starts with the eyes.

Striking images are the backbone of a great social ad. The exact mix of visuals varies based on the platform, but we recommend a healthy rotation of lifestyle and still imagery. Taking the production up a notch, these visuals are best leveraged as video or dynamic creative. Use most of your creativity to highlight the product or service with a little wow factor. For hospitality, think of different suites, amenities, or on-site dining. Demos also raise awareness and get consistent engagement. From a design standpoint, frame your creative for mobile viewers first. Then start work backward from a mobile view to a format that also works for desktops.

It moves to the head.

Headlines are the most powerful way to move a viewer to a click. If the job of the visual is to showcase a stunning focal point and stand out in the newsfeed, the headline needs to keep you from swiping. The best headlines work seamlessly with the layout. They are simple enough for users to understand at-a-glance before deciding to click the call-to-action button on the ad–and engaging enough to make them want more.

Think of it as a game of connecting the dots. Is the headline paying off a visual and an offer for a seasonal or holiday promotion? Does the property offer a special service for certain demographics, such as couples or families, during a specific time or at a discounted rate? Is there special pricing for a limited time? These details qualify the viewer you’re hoping to reach. Follow up with some supporting copy, and you’re on the path to conversions.

The Heart of a Great Social Ad Campaign is Targeting & Testing

Creating ads that connect with people is key–as long as you’re connecting with the right group. For targeting, you will want first to consider your goal. Are you trying to drive revenue or awareness? Is your goal to generate engagement? or clicks? From there, you can determine whether it is better to target users based on known data points, for example, their location, their interests, or their activity across the website and/or the property’s social pages. Once you have your base targeting down, A/B testing is a proven way to optimize your campaign. For example, you can test the same creative with two different audiences, such as interest-based vs. remarketing audiences. Or try testing two different creatives with the same audience. Another classic testing model involves tracking how a single audience engages with two different offers. Targeting and testing will help you increase conversions as you learn more about your audience.

Hit a Nerve with the Right Call To Action

You generally test how your campaign performs based on your objective, i.e. engagement, reach, clicks, etc. The CTA is critical to driving this engagement. The succinct, compelling message needs to fit with the tone of the graphic and the headline. For the mobile ad format, a call-to-action is best incorporated within the creative and should be simple, straightforward, and engaging, ultimately helping guide users through the immersive ad experience without interrupting the flow. For in-feed placements, we think along similar lines to what we have in our headline, something that connects the dots and is equally engaging and catchy.

Great Examples of Hotel Social Media Ads

Now that you have the anatomy of a great ad, have a look at some examples of our work. Our paid media team puts together case studies on a quarterly basis for different ads, audiences, and objectives to showcase optimal campaign results. And they love to share those case studies from highly successful campaigns. Send us a note and indicate if you’d like to see one of these case studies, or something on another topic.

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!

The holiday retail deals around Thanksgiving have become almost as important as the Thanksgiving turkey. In fact, not only are people looking for deal around this time, they are also booking travel for the rest of the year. Here are some proven strategies to capitalize on all of these opportunities.

Strategy #1: Build Buzz & Anticipation During The Suite Spot

Determining when to start marketing a big promotion like Black Friday/Cyber Monday is as important as the offer. You want to find the balance without cannibalizing current or evergreen promotions and rates while still conveying some level of exclusivity to consumers who may convert. Consumers are already in the mindset of time-sensitive promotions this time of year with the holidays on the horizon, so they’re trained to act more in the moment out of fear of a deal expiring before they can pull the trigger.

A few weeks before Black Friday you’ll want to figure out the following:

  • What is the offer going to be?

  • What assets do you need to create for this? (ex. Ad creative, landing pages, etc.)

  • What channels do you want to run on?

Once that is all sorted, go live with the campaign 7-10 days ahead of Cyber Monday. Again, this lead time is the suite spot giving a significant amount of runway to build momentum across channels.

Strategy #2: Start With Your Loyalty Program Members

Effective targeting is the key to any successful campaign, including BlackFriday/Cyber Monday. Of course, reaching new consumers is always crucial. However, the adage “Repeat consumers are one-fifth the cost of converting new ones” should be in everyone’s mind.

Focusing on past guests, who don’t already have future reservations booked, will be a surefire way to capture the lowest-hanging fruit. These people already know your brand/property, have experienced the level of hospitality you provide and should have a higher propensity to convert. So let them then be the megaphone for this offer across their social networks and open up new audiences for your property, expanding your reach without increasing your budget.

Strategy #3: Create A Compelling Video Series

Standing out in the midst of all the holiday hype requires a little something special. Get creative using any sort of motion format. Video is worth the extra effort as it helps grab attention. It also ensures wider distribution as social platform algorithms prioritize video.

There are a variety of interesting ways to get moving on the motion picture video ahead of your promotion.

  • 1. Instant Experience Ads take over a user’s entire screen and features an immersive mix of dynamic content to keep them engaged.

  • 2. On your IG Business Page, Pinned Posts allows you to create a series of 3 featured videos–your own little mini-series–where each episode reveals more details on your promotion.

  • 3. In all cases, remember to activate event features so your community can opt into being reminded about your sale when it goes live.

Strategy #4: Create A Creator Partnership Promotion

In a busy shopping season, you need to pull in the heavy hitters, and that could include Creator partnerships. Also remember that influencers and creators wield just as much, if not more, trust than friends and family. They harness incredible power over our behavior and actions because of their authenticity and personal connection to their communities.

Creators get the job done, providing authentic content quickly and with the power to influence purchasing decisions. They also increase the chances of your content being picked up by new audiences and building the buzz of a promotion. Amazon Prime Day was a great example of activation. With plenty of partners sharing their finds and recommendations for the best things to purchase, people were exposed well ahead of the promotion and started to wish list what to add to their cart.

With new features like Collab Posts, partnerships can be even more valuable in tapping into established audiences for both parties to create a win-win juggernaut.

Strategy #5: Don’t Launch An Offer At All

What if you zigged when everyone else zagged? One smart stealth move might be to save your offer for after the hype. You’ll avoid all the noise. And besides, for some ultra-luxury properties, and their clientele, Black Friday just isn’t on brand. This could be a great opportunity to let your values shine by skipping Black Friday. Brand decisions like this can go a long way in building stronger sentiment and loyalty, especially with more and more generations building and showing an affinity for brands that align with their values. As a bonus, marching to your own beat lets you offer a promotion during a different window. Less noise to cut through and more opportunity to drive up consideration.

We hope you agree that adding a Black Friday/Cyber Monday program to your rotation increases revenue now, and builds momentum through the end of the year. Of course, if you’d like an opinion on which strategy best suits your objectives, we’re here to discuss.

Setting a New Standard

The Holy Grail of social media advertising has always been to test, track, refine and target your ads with total precision. When the Facebook pixel was introduced in 2013, it started the data-gathering revolution and a profound shift in ad targeting. Designed to make the most of your ads across Facebook, and, later, Instagram, Meta pixel data makes sure your ads are seen by the people most likely to engage with your ad and buy your product. It’s powerful tech that allows you to improve your Facebook ad conversion rate and get a better ROI.

What is the Meta Pixel?

The Meta pixel is a lightweight snippet of javascript code that allows us to track website activity. It works by loading a small library of functions that you can use whenever a site visitor takes an action on a specific page (Event) that you want to track (Conversion).

Here are a few ways we’re deploying the newly named (but basically the same) Meta Pixel:

1. Cross-Device Conversion Tracking

The Meta pixel shows you how people interact with your website after seeing your Facebook ad. But, as you’ve no doubt experienced, it also tracks customers across devices. Here’s an example: I saw an ad for a resort in Cancun on my laptop, even though I searched for Cancun resorts on my phone and saved one to view later.

Here, the use case is robust and helps predict buyer behavior along the customer journey. If, for example, people tend first to see your ads on mobile and then switch to a desktop before buying, you have insights into how to build the conversion funnel. Or, if it’s the other way around, this insight can make a case for a refined ad strategy.

2. Meta Retargeting

Meta’s retargeting pixel data and dynamic ads are built to show targeted ads to potential customers who have already visited your site. This can get granular. For example, let’s say someone clicked on an ad, added it to a shopping cart and then abandoned the shopping cart. Or maybe they just added it to a wishlist on your website. Retargeting will show them the exact product they were looking at. As they say in Media 101, it’s all about the impressions. But in Meta Media 101, the impressions, the timing, and the content make the difference.

3. Create Lookalike Audiences

Meta amassed all of its data and came to an AI conclusion. It can use all the pixel targeting data ever assembled to help you create a lookalike audience based on people with similar likes, interests, and demographics as those already interacting with your website. Your potential customer base just blew up!

According to a recent Hootsuite article, “iOS 14.5 will affect the input data for lookalike audiences because the tracked audience the lookalike is based on will shrink. However, because iOS users are in the minority, the lookalike functions will still have plenty of information to work with. You won’t likely notice a major change to functionality here.”

How Other Social Networks Are Shaping Up

It is also important to note that while this article has focused on the Meta Pixel, each of the social networks has a pixel that can provide valuable information. Below are just some of the benefits of installing pixels (on Meta and other networks):

Show your Ads to the Right People: Find new customers or people who have visited a specific page or taken a desired action on your website via remarketing audiences.

Optimize Delivery: Ensure that your ads are shown to the people most likely to book a hotel room or experience.

Measure the Results of Your Ads: By measuring what happens when people see your ads, the Facebook pixel is the only way to measure true return on investment (ROI) and the effect social media advertising has on your business.

Create Custom Audiences: Dynamic ads help you automatically show site visitors the specific products (properties or rooms) they’ve viewed — or related ones— on your website.

Drive More Sales: Set up automatic bidding to reach those most likely to make a purchase or room booking.

Measure Cross-Device Conversions: Understand how your ads help influence conversions across mobile, tablet, and desktop.

Meta Pixel Standard Events

There are 17 most-used Meta pixel events — all set up so that you can copy and paste the event code:

  • Direct Sales

  • Generate Leads

  • Email Registration

  • Add payment info

  • Add to cart

  • Add to wishlist

  • Initiate checkout

  • Search

  • View content

  • Contact

  • Customize product

  • Donate

  • Find a location

  • Schedule an appointment

  • Start a trial

  • Submit an application

  • Subscribe to a paid product or service

Finally, Let’s Talk Pixel ROI

Conversion rates on all of the events listed above are fairly easy to measure. However, you can also add more details to the standard events by adding extra bits of code called parameters. These parameters let you customize events based on ROI factors like:

  • How much a conversion event is worth

  • Predicted long-term value

A future article will discuss that level of pixel tracking on Meta and how to leverage pixels across all of your social networks for ROI. For now, enjoy all of the ways the pixel can optimize your ad campaigns–and even better, prove that the ads are working!

Let the Journey Begin

On the road to hotel social media ROI, there are many stops along the way. In this article, we’re going to visit those stops and determine what the success factors look like for each of them. Do you think the only stop is the final destination of a booking? Let’s take a little trip and let me show you how each stop is an opportunity for social to intersect the buyer’s journey to inspire, inform and motivate a booking.

Stop 1: Dreaming Stage: Generate Brand Trust

Clients and prospects in the region consistently highlight the importance of high-quality content, In fact, for a high-end property, customers and prospects expect this as part of the journey.

However, appropriate content based on cultural factors of the country, and even the city, is critical for building trust. In the Middle East, what is OK for some, may not be acceptable for others. For example, whether or not a bikini is appropriate in a country or even a region.

Here are the points to consider in reaching travelers in the Dreaming Stage:

  1. Inspire with high-quality content–think like an influencer.

  2. Be intentional with placement–leverage the data and paid media.

  3. Lean in on new consumer behaviors–understand what’s driving interest and use it.

Stop 2: Planning Stage: Nurture Relationships

At this stage, it’s browse-and-burn as people surf between browser tabs to confirm destinations, pricing, and dates. They have a short list. Now they are looking for the signs to build trust and forge a deeper level of interactivity with a property.

Users in Morocco (60%), Egypt (60%), Saudi Arabia (59%), Turkey (56%), Israel (52%), and the United Arab Emirates (49%) are more likely to use social networks as part of their brand research than the global average.

Here are ways that social media can help foster those relationships:

  1. Spotlight your amenities and location–pile on examples of what makes your property and the region unique.

  2. Drive visibility of online reviews–when you have a good review, flaunt it a bit.

  3. Make policies upfront and clear–being credible goes a long way towards driving decisions.

Stop 3: Buying Stage: Drive Conversion

At this stage, things come to the moment of truth. The traveler has chosen their destination and time of travel. Often, this involves a final price comparison to book the right place. This moment is beyond the research stage. Travelers are focused on price and final ‘proof’ that they’re making the right decision. They look meticulously at the details, including influencers.

The TikTok platform’s top influencers in the Gulf region increased their followers by an average of 65% with user engagement highest in Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

Here’s how to make sure they don’t ‘x’ out!

  1. Create FOMO through influencers–find their favorite places and tag them with your #property.

  2. Think strategically about giveaways–adding a little urgency at this point never hurts, so make it time-sensitive.

  3. Leverage paid placements to inspire purchase–providing a few more touch points at this time is often effective.

Stop 4: Experiential Stage: Dominate Share of Voice

They searched. They found. They booked. Give them something to share and keep the momentum going.

In our region, Snapchat might be a good outlet to expand Share of Voice. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt are among Snapchat’s 15 largest national markets globally.

  1. Consider secret menu items–people love to be insiders and brag about their access.

  2. Activate a social media opp–if you build a way for people to share and be rewarded, they will share.

  3. Deliver excellent customer service offline and online–the power of people and personal response builds relationships.

In conclusion, the stops along the social media customer journey are an excellent way to engage and interact with prospective guests. Every stop creates the potential to allow a hotelier to wow them with helpful information, compelling images, and reasons to book. Do it right, and the level of engagement and communication elevates at each stop. It allows hotels to win trust and drive not just bookings and incremental revenue, but loyalty and repeat business.

It’s definitely different up here in the mountains. The air is clear. The snow is deep and the stars are bright. Who wouldn’t want to plan a retreat to a higher elevation? However, when it comes to marketing mountain resort travel, there are challenges that can be as steep as the terrain.

Marketing for a mountain resort can be much different than for any other vacation destination. The obstacles can be broken into two unique situations: Off-Season and In-Season.  In the off-season, it can be extremely difficult to attract patrons, especially if skiing is the resort’s primary attraction. Local shopping and restaurant venues may shut down for the season, which complicates the attractiveness of a resort that stays open. Travelers ask, “What are we going to do?”.  In-Season, when winter is in full swing, you’d think booking rooms would be a no-brainer. But the amount of snowfall, the frequency of it, road conditions, temperatures, and off-mountain factors like public health and air travel complicate bookings. In both situations, you’re going to need to deploy an entirely different approach to marketing, and a big part of winning involves how you deploy social.

Social Media Strategy for Mountain Resorts

One of the big reasons that social media is different for mountain resorts as opposed to say, beach resorts, is in the kind of content used to attract customers. Beach resorts repurpose evergreen content that relies on bikinis, sunbathing, and holding hands at sunset. Sure, we have hot tubs and sunsets, but mountain resorts are obliged to use a lot less evergreen content in favor of more in-the-moment content. For example, when that weather radar shows storm clouds approaching, conditions are developing for fresh powder. This information needs to be disseminated on social media immediately to get potential customers to react promptly and make plans for a stay. And because this really is a news flash, it needs to be an all-points social media blitz to get the word out. Luxury mountain resorts need to, well, shout it from the mountain top, but always with consideration for the appropriate high-end target audience.

Best Practices for Mountain Resorts

There is literally no better medium than social media for communicating fast-breaking developments to a large number of people. Here are some great content strategies that are proven winners.

  • Broaden the topics. Sharing updates on snow levels (both high and low levels)  are a huge opportunity to connect to your target. Resorts have felt this more acutely in recent years. But it’s not just ads that are ready to capitalize on large snowfalls. Skiers are information addicts and welcome reports on the terrain that is open, and snow-making technology advancements.

  • Expand the target. Although skiing can skew older, content should not just focus on older, more affluent individuals. It should also take into account families and non-skiers who are tired of being cooped up at home. These people are willing to spend major cash on a luxury booking.

Local shopping and restaurant venues may shut down for the season, which complicates the attractiveness of a resort that stays open. Travelers ask, “What are we going to do?”.  In-Season, when winter is in full swing, you’d think booking rooms would be a no-brainer. But the amount of snowfall, the frequency of it, road conditions, temperatures, and off-mountain factors like public health and air travel complicate bookings. In both situations, you’re going to need to deploy an entirely different approach to marketing, and a big part of winning involves how you deploy social.

Social Media Strategy for Mountain Resorts

One of the big reasons that social media is different for mountain resorts as opposed to say, beach resorts, is in the kind of content used to attract customers. Beach resorts repurpose evergreen content that relies on bikinis, sunbathing, and holding hands at sunset. Sure, we have hot tubs and sunsets, but mountain resorts are obliged to use a lot less evergreen content in favor of more in-the-moment content. For example, when that weather radar shows storm clouds approaching, conditions are developing for fresh powder. This information needs to be disseminated on social media immediately to get potential customers to react promptly and make plans for a stay. And because this really is a news flash, it needs to be an all-points social media blitz to get the word out. Luxury mountain resorts need to, well, shout it from the mountain top, but always with consideration for the appropriate high-end target audience.

Best Practices for Mountain Resorts

There is literally no better medium than social media for communicating fast-breaking developments to a large number of people. Here are some great content strategies that are proven winners.

  • Broaden the topics. Sharing updates on snow levels (both high and low levels)  are a huge opportunity to connect to your target. Resorts have felt this more acutely in recent years. But it’s not just ads that are ready to capitalize on large snowfalls. Skiers are information addicts and welcome reports on the terrain that is open, and snow-making technology advancements.

  • Expand the target. Although skiing can skew older, content should not just focus on older, more affluent individuals. It should also take into account families and non-skiers who are tired of being cooped up at home. These people are willing to spend major cash on a luxury booking.

  • Re-think the concept of snow as if it was a retail product. It’s urgent. It’s only available now. It’s snowing! Retailers already take advantage of text message marketing (SMS marketing) to drive sales. A recent study of 1,100 national retail campaigns found that SMS has 8x the response rate of email. Encouraging past and prospective customers to sign up for text alerts will keep them engaged. Include updates, on snow conditions, events on the ski grounds, promo codes, and special offers.

  • Get in with travel bloggers. It’s a good idea to share insider information about a resort with travel bloggers. They can become walking, talking, blogging evangelists for the resort. Some bloggers have wide audiences and others with smaller followings are known locally and trusted. Both have a place in your outreach.

  • Make more out of all-mountain magic–all year. Promoting all the other activities available at and around a venue is critical. Remember, many skiers also enjoy fishing, camping, hiking, shopping, and sightseeing. Telling them about all of these activities answers the question, “What will I do?”. Also, good to know is that this is largely evergreen content that is not as weather-centric, and can be efficiently used. Make off-season irresistible. Even mud-season could be shown as fun for off-road enthusiasts!

  • Be in the moment. Last-minute stays and staycation offers can be blitzed out when the weather looks ideal. This is true for in-season snow as well as off-season sunshine and is a tactic to deploy across the board. It builds on the importance of having content geared to be in the moment.

  • Set up special seasonal events–especially during the off-season. Events and especially promoting them are an excellent way to attract more visitors at a time when occupancy is typically low. It’s also a great way to increase awareness and showcase all the amazing things there are to do at the resort even off-peak.  Many more people will become aware of the advantages offered by the resort and by the area in general, and it could have a strong positive effect on future occupancy.

  • Don’t overlook Facebook. There are all kinds of special interest groups on Facebook, with some having to do with mountain resorts and mountain activities all year round. A good marketer should take advantage of this opportunity by monitoring and/or maintaining a presence in these groups. This is one more way that in-the-moment conditions can be disseminated, and it can also be a way to generate interest in a particular venue. When group users begin sharing photos and videos of the great time they had at a mountain resort, it can kick the advertising machine into high gear.

I hope you’ll find these ideas and insights useful. Reach out to share your experiences with social and mountains. And until then, please check out these case studies on successful programs for luxury mountain resort marketing:

GENERATING ROI THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

PAID ADVERTISING FOR HOTEL SOCIAL MEDIA

Looking Ahead Means Booking Ahead

A Note from our General Manager

First of all, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year filled with a sense of persistent optimism. I also want to share some thoughts on the trends currently driving successful hotel social media programs–which gives us at BCV many reasons to be very positive about the coming year.

1. The Extended Surge in Revenge Travel. After lockdowns and variants kept us all close to home, people want their vacation time and experiences back! Everyone is traveling–and customers and hotel staff alike need to rally around safety and community to ensure that awesome experiences and travel opportunities can get back to pre-Covid levels. Hotel social media programs will play a pivotal role in connecting properties, people, and possibilities.

2. Media Choices Must Drive ROI. At the moment, every property is concerned with putting heads in beds. Choosing which social channels to leverage means a tough look at the ROI potential of each social network. Instagram and Facebook have proven, sophisticated targeting to reach people who are shopping and booking. A less mature channel like TikTok that is focused on influencers and a younger audience might not be able to drive the immediate booking and revenue needed.

3. The Continued Boom in Short-Form Video. Video today is more than just YouTube. Video Stories are an integral part of social engagement. They are a must-have. But don’t forget the importance of quality video production featuring signature experiences. With more video being shot, quality definitely counts. It’s not enough to be better–you have to look better too. And video is the best way to do that.

4. The Mainstreaming of  Influencers. TikTok and influencer marketing have quickly evolved. Professional influencers and social networks are developing new products to help show value. The tools to evaluate the performance of these programs are rapidly improving. Brands that understand how to execute an influencer strategy that fits their business and their audience will enjoy increased reach and perceived value.

5. Proper Execution of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. VR and AR represent very different opportunities. The strength of VR lies in how it takes you to a hotel property that might not even be built yet. That makes VR a powerful option for showcasing pre-openings or unique locations where a property will be built. AR, on the other hand, enhances the context you are already in. AR uses overlays to point out different features, different rooms, interactive maps, and more. Both can add a blend of utility and ‘cool factor’ to your marketing mix. And as you’ll see in the next section, cool factor might just pay off.

6. The Creation of New Revenue Streams. Beyond increased bookings, savvy properties will explore and expand the ways in which they create incremental profit. Social eCommerce is a fast-emerging source, and has increased over the last year. FB and IG have made it easier by integrating social eComm directly within their apps. Social eComm can be used for booking, seasonal offers or flash sales. But the real opportunity is to leverage the luxury and prestige of a property and its location by offering branded gear, experiences, or packages.

7. The Secret Weapon of a Superior Staff. Luxury is tied to service. But right now, and for the rest of 2022, there will be an ongoing challenge to deliver luxury experiences with up to 1/3 less staff. The staffing shortage is real, and that means the team you have and the systems in place must focus on providing a stellar experience–even when short-handed.  Making sure you get it right now will go a long way to building repeat business.

I sincerely hope these thoughts help you start thinking about how to take advantage of the many opportunities in hotel social media marketing. At BCV we help luxury hotels with their social media and would love to talk to you about your social marketing plans for 2022. Have a safe, happy, and adventurous New Year!

The opportunity to boost hotel bookings through social media channels like Instagram have never been more attractive. Here are a few things to consider from our hotel social media experts.

Eye-catching visuals are a key to capturing leads

Creating eye-catching assets for hospitality social media accounts increases appeal and  awareness for your brand. Compelling imagery helps you stand out from your competition. Even better, it increases the chances that your posts and stories will be shared and in turn, bring in new followers to start the path to conversion and bookings!

Leverage the unique and interactive Instagram Story designs 

Interactive Instagram Stories are more than just tapping through each frame. Your followers will appreciate an engaging interactive story especially if it’s a contest that has a giveaway aspect tied to it. That’s how you really lure in your audience, grab their attention, and get them to participate.

How creating and testing multiple versions of creative helps you learn what works

Branded and Non-Branded Versions of our work for Virgin Hotels

The best way to see what appeals to your fans is by running an A/B test on the same kind of asset. For example, you could have two Instagram Story Ads running at the same time. They both feature the same content (same image and text) but one is created using your brand guidelines and one is created using the features within Instagram Stories creation. You can then view the insights and see what one performed better and use that information to enhance future graphics. Our work for Virgin Hotels demonstrates this strategy, and resulted in stronger results by using in-feed features. In fact, this campaign drove 8x more website traffic and stronger ROI at half the cost per acquisition.

Let’s talk about the role paid advertising plays 

One powerful paid advertising strategy involves Instant Experience Ads. They highlight your products or services in a story-telling manner composed of a mix of photos and videos with many customizations and interactive elements.  You can include actions for watching videos, swiping through a carousel of images, tilting to view a full photo and linking out to any webpage all in the same unit. This is a great way to encourage users to take action and physically engage with your ad. Instant Experience Ads can be broken down into three different categories. We have Classic, Catalog, and Quiz.

  1. Classic Instant Experience Ad. These are fully customizable but are a straight to the point ad with more of a single path for users to engage with.

  2. Catalog Style Instant Experience. These resemble a shopping app interface with buttons that lead to separate sup pages for more information on a topic.

  3. Quiz Style Instant Experience Ad. These include a mix of photos and videos but have more of a choose your own adventure aspect by linking multiple Instant Experience Ads together.

You can prompt users with multiple paths to choose from that will eventually lead them to a landing page with their “answer” to all of the questions. Try them all and learn which drives quality leads.

Use Instagram to acquire new customers, amplify your business, inspire mobile shopping or drive brand awareness

There are so many opportunities on Instagram to showcase your brand, including Instagram Stories, Instant Experience Ads, Instagram Story AR Filters, In-Feed Ads and Reels to name a few. Each of these has a different purpose to promote your brand. If you’d like to discuss further, please reach out–we’re happy to guide you through the IG world and find which opportunities will work best for your brand.

One more thing! Want to keep on top of Instagram trends?

Bookmark these pages to stay on top of the trends:

Brand spending on influencer marketing is up 34% this year, rising to $3.7 billion. That figure is only increasing: By 2023, brands will spend $4.6 billion – nearly double what they spent in 2019.

The expansion of sponsored content means that brands will be competing for attention on an entirely new level: organic brand placement within feeds of the most influential stars.

The reason behind this growth is especially relevant for hotel marketers focused on the upscale and luxury segments: it’s all about storytelling through high-quality, unique content that creates an emotional connection.

Influencers are master storytellers, using each platform’s tools to build a community of fans. With emojis, GIFs, stickers, dances, memes, and videos (short, long, and live), social media is TV for the next generation.

The creativity, authenticity, and trust from a dedicated fan base are exactly what makes influencers so effective. By aligning with each influencer’s community, hotels enjoy a halo effect that embeds their brands in the minds of a targeted demographic.

For guests that can, quite literally, stay anywhere they want, these emotional triggers are extremely effective. The value of influencer collaborations lies in this emotional imperative: creators can share your hotel’s story with an engaged community that’s especially dialed into that creator’s perspective.

To secure the most impactful collaborations with story-driven influencers, here’s how to make influencer marketing work for your hotel in 2021.

Choosing the Right Influencers

As you plan your next influencer campaign, there are a few steps you can take to ensure the ideal hotel/influencer fit.

First off is the budget, followed by your objective and your key metrics. It may seem counterintuitive, but budget goes first as it determines which influencers are realistic to approach. That’s because each tier of influencer has a different price point:

  • Nano ($): This tier has between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, attracts a niche audience and often has high engagement.

  • Micro ($$): With 10K to 100K followers, these influencers reach a bigger audience but remain somewhat affordable.

  • Macro ($$$): These influencers have 100K to 1 million followers and command a premium.

  • Mega ($$$): With over 1 million followers, this group has the most reach – and the highest prices.

For instance, if your objective is to increase brand awareness, your key metric is follower count and your goal is to increase followers by 500, a $500 budget isn’t likely going to set you up for success. But if your objective is to reach digital nomads and your metric is “work-from-hotel” bookings, then $500 could be allocated to a few nano influencers that create content for that niche.

With your budget, objective, and goals in mind, you can then start reaching out to relevant influencers that fit within your budget, align with your objective and help you reach your goals.

When evaluating influencers, don’t get too hung up on follower count. Instead, consider their creativity, authenticity, and engagement rates. As you put your brand in the hands of influencers, you want to find the influencers that put their special touch on your property’s most cherished experiences.

Influencers’ content should be interesting, fresh, and focused on the right segment, whether that’s demographic, psychographic, or geographic. Their voice should be authentic, speaking in a trustworthy way that encourages followers to like, comment and share. It’s that authentic engagement – rather than follower count, which can be faked – that underpins successful influencer campaigns.

Those authentic voices also make a difference when it comes to diversity and inclusion. As you look for influencers in your target communities, choose influencers across a diverse spectrum so that you can curate an influencer mix as vibrant and interesting as your guests!

Tracking Impact

Measuring ROI is one of the most challenging aspects of influencer marketing. That’s why you need to be crystal clear on each campaign’s core objective and key metrics. These are the parameters that are both measurable and impactful:

1.Website traffic and bookings: These are often the top metrics, as traffic often correlates to bookings. One path to measure impact is giving an influencer an offer code (or a unique link) to share with their audience when promoting your hotel. That way you can directly attribute each influencer’s impact on website traffic and bookings.

2. Post engagements/saves/shares: Pull each post’s engagement metrics to measure success – and see which influencers make the most impact.

3. New followers: These are future potential guests

4. Social media mentions: Especially when it comes to influencer giveaway campaigns, mentions can extend your reach beyond one influencer’s community.

5. Content library: Influencer-created content is a brand asset that can be mined in the long-term. It costs money and time to create content; well-planned influencer campaigns can fill your posting schedule for weeks or months to come.

Build for the Long-Term

Audiences are increasingly drawn to engaging with influencers they feel they can trust, as they prioritize deeper connections, value-driven content, and relationships. With that in mind, expand your influencer strategy beyond one-offs and invest in longer relationships that offer more meaning through sustained messaging specially-curated elements, such as onsite experiences that give influencers opportunities to create custom content.

It takes more than just one-offs to imprint your brand on a new community – especially one that’s as discerning as the affluent traveler seeking luxury accommodations.

One idea for nurturing longer-term relationships is to diversify across a variety of influencers to find which ones perform best. Then, partner with the most effective influencers to turn them into brand advocates.

Since these chosen partners will have authentic voices that appeal directly to target demographics, tap this cohort to create more content: for example, Instagram now features Guides as a separate tab on profiles, which is a perfect place to feature branded content as travel inspiration. Contract the best influencers to build IG Guides that include branded merchandise and booking offers, alongside brand-relevant travel inspiration.

Launching Your Campaign

As you pull these tactics into your influencer campaign, keep in mind that there’s no perfect strategy to emulate. Like most things when it comes to brand marketing, there’s nuance and latitude to craft campaigns that work best for your hotel. Focus first on finding a few influencers that meet your criteria: they speak to relevant audiences, they post fresh content, they’re within budget and they match the look, tone, perspective and values of your guests. From there, you can expand into different influencer types to build a strong strategy that aligns with your goals – and delivers results for your social media marketing.

Schedule a session with our team to learn more about making this tactic work for your hotel.