Social Media for Hotels – Top 6 Platforms for Your Hospitality Business

Over time, all over the world, people continue to embrace social media platforms for different purposes. By extension, the use of different social media for hotels keeps growing every year. 

One report from Statista shows that as many as 4.59 billion people worldwide are users of social media platforms in 2022.

However, the reality for hotel marketers employing these social media platforms is different. If you get close to any of them, you will discover how tough a task it is for them to remain efficient. Connecting to previous, existing, and likely hotel visitors on social media can be a daunting task.

Therefore, the question is: what are the potential benefits your business can derive from social media marketing for hotels? Are the gains worth the pain?

How to use social media for hotels?

The function social media play in tourism and hospitality is precisely to engage and connect. Thanks to their vast range of users, these platforms provide firms with a massive shot at marketing growth. Now, hotel marketers can engage their audience seamlessly thanks to social media. Hotels can now push out their services and build a productive online presence on social media for themselves.

A fun fact is that 97% of hotel visitors share moments with their tips on social media platforms. Everyone does that! With this, hoteliers can easily promote their property and draw in more visitors.

Other Advantages of Social Media for Hotels

Guests Understand Visual Content Better

About 72% of consumers like to know about a commodity or service via video compared to text whenever they can. Guests spend more time on a website that features a video than one that features other kinds of content. In fact, they do so 88% of the time. Therefore, a good visual marketing output will improve their general opinion of your hotel. As a matter of fact, it is especially recommended in luxury hotel social media marketing.

Social Media Means More Brand Awareness

A consistent and effective social media presence can do a lot for your hotel. Certain casual activities from your guests can do your brand a lot of good. Activities like visits, clicks, likes, post re-shares, and tagging you in a picture can be all your hotel needs. 

So, be sure to make the most of it.

Better Chance At Reaching Your Ideal Client

Daily, an average social media user spends two-and-a-half hours online. Additionally, about 49% of the global population searches the internet often. 

Hence, you have a better chance to reach just who you must reach. Plus, with custom ads directed at particular demographics and regions, you can harness this potential.

In all, social media is an important aspect of your hotel marketing plan. Moreover, it is not enough to make irregular, one-off posts for your packages or services. 

You must ensure you develop a massive social media presence. That way, your brand stays in the hearts of tourists. Likewise, you can yield more income for your property.

Now, let’s look at the 6 best social media platforms for hotels – and how you can use them to your advantage.

1. Facebook

As the most visited social media platform, Facebook provides you with tons of openings to publicize your hotel services. This is in addition to the fact that Facebook is clearly an unavoidable social media marketing tool for your hotel.

Over time, Facebook enjoyed its fair dose of complaints and disputes. Some of these disputes include pressing privacy issues. This might explain the reason behind Facebook’s inability to win over the teenagers today. You will find a ton of adults aged 65 and more on Facebook today before you find one teenager. 

Regardless, Facebook remains a crucial social media platform to feature in your hotel marketing agenda.

Do not forget! The aim is for you to be where your clients are. Therefore, it suffices to say that with about 2.45 billion active users monthly,  your customers are still there.

For instance, in the United States, among those functional Facebook users, 74% of them are daily visitors on the site.

Realistically, present-day Facebook users avoid scrolling their newsfeeds. They simply prefer to chat with family and friends on Messenger. Also, they look out for nearby Events, involve in Groups, and stream live videos. There is a 400% chance that a Facebook user decides to watch live streams rather than pre-recorded videos.

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From Facebook

• Recognize and take charge of customer questions via Facebook Messenger. Again, you can use a hotel chatbot for this.
• Develop and share Facebook Events for your hotel. With the Events tool, you can publicize fitness sessions, intriguing seminars or talks, brunch specials, spa promotions, etc. 
• Ensure you make use of a video header.
• Your team should personally take part in relevant groups. They can give helpful local guidance to tourists. Then, share content about your hotel’s destination. However, be sure they do not do too much as regards sales.
• Team up with your HR to develop a Facebook Group. That way, you can effectively engage your employees and communicate internally.
• Make the most of live videos! You can stream a walking tour of the property, a free cocktail session, a supervised meditation, etc.
• When you develop a marketing budget, pay attention to Facebook ads. 
• In your Facebook ads, include the “Book Now” button. 

2. Instagram

Instagram comes next after Facebook when considering the most visited social media platforms for everyday use. 

According to reports from Pew Research, 60% of Instagram users visit the platform at least once every day. Also, 21% visit at least once every week.

Also, Instagram users spend an average of 53 minutes every day surfing through the app. Without a doubt, users spend a lot of time on Instagram.

Over the years, Instagram continues to show why it is an influential discovery platform. This platform is instrumental, especially in the initial phases of a buyer’s purchasing journey.

• 81% of Instagram users confirm they employ this platform to research new products or services.
• 80% of Instagram users declare the app comes in handy for them when making buying conclusions.
• 83% of Instagram users find unique products and services on the platform daily.
• Also, influencers play a major role. 89% of marketers confirm how prolific Instagram is as a social media tool for influencer marketing.

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From Instagram

• Make the most of new features like reels, stories, boomerangs, live videos, and advertisements. 
• Ensure you are known differently with your collection of sharp images and a detailed visual aesthetic.
• Do well to create uniform themes or a series. That way, you keep your followers expectant of new content.
• Consider a hashtag before using it. Ensure it tallies with your marketing strategy.
• Optimize your hotel’s Instagram content for the Explore section to reach a wider audience and attract potential guests. This involves strategic tagging, engaging captions, and captivating visuals that encourage users to explore your profile further and ultimately take action.
• Create captions that can get your followers to halt, go through your content, then take action.

3. YouTube

To be the world’s most prominent video-sharing platform is a different kind of brag. What you might not know is that YouTube is precisely the second-largest search engine after Google. Amazing!

All over the world, people watch 1 billion hours of video on YouTube daily. It is rather white interesting to find a different range of content on just one platform. 

If you need a video on how to solve a Rubik’s cube, YouTube will provide it. If you need one on how to troubleshoot a tech problem, you will find it on YouTube. Even a makeup tutorial of one hour or a witty political commentary is all on the YouTube platform. Most importantly, YouTube features travel inspirations as well.

Also, It’s not unusual to find YouTube videos featured at the very top of a random Google search results page.

Furthermore, it is crucial to add one more fact. Running an immensely thriving YouTube channel is a significant investment in money, audience-building, and time.

Rather than employing YouTube like a striving beauty specialist, there is a better way of doing it. For hotels, the approach should be different. Take on the platform as a strategic location to house and keep video content that can boost your business.

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From YouTube

• Make recordings of virtual tours around your meeting and function areas. These recordings will be good exhibits for planners.
• Develop straightforward slideshows of prominent restaurants and other local attractions.
• Publicize your property with a private walking tour. This can be hosted by the GM or the concierge.

4. Twitter

On this platform, there is certainly a lot of noise. The platform averages about 6,000 tweets every second from users. Marketers confirm that Twitter now hosts 80% of total social customer service requests.

Therefore, when you consider Twitter for your hotel’s social media marketing, keep one thing in mind. View your online pedigree and strategy in the eye of Twitter as a customer care site first.

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From Twitter 

• Consider Twitter to be a customer service and guest experience platform as against engagement
• Employ a social media supervision method to follow mentions of your services, username, brand hashtag. Then, ensure you respond to feedback instantly and expertly.
• In your crisis management strategy, take Twitter to be a vital communication channel. This is because 71% of users receive news and updates from this site.
• Attempt to convert extended lists or blogs into Twitter Threads.
• Join in on related Twitter chats.

5. LinkedIn

Note that LinkedIn caters to about 80% of B2B social media leads. Consequently, this is a perfect place for your hotel to affirm its professional influence. With that, you can grow your networks. At the same time, you continue to generate new leads for your hotel.

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From Twitter 

• Motivate your senior managers and sales managers to engage on LinkedIn for professional networking
• Team up with HR to develop and circulate content touching on your business
• Engage with other hotel marketers on the platform

6. Pinterest

Out of every 2 millennials, 1 of them uses Pinterest monthly in the United States. That’s about 50%. Additionally, in 2022 Pinterest reached a peak of 433 million monthly active users globally.

Pinterest is more of a discovery place than a place for engagement. All you have to do is share and save important and related content. Easy!

Tips For Your Hotel To Get The Best From Pinterest 

• Increase traffic to the landing pages on your hotel site that feature destination content.
• Boost particular business areas that are prominent on Pinterest. Some of them are weddings, catering, events, etc.

Who Is Your Audience?

Before carrying out a marketing campaign for your brand through social media, you must know who your audience is.

40% of millennials get inspiration for their hotel and travel booking decisions from pictures on social media. This is a pointer that millennials won’t patronize your hotel without sufficient “social proof.”

Your pedigree as a brand on social media will be vital to your visitor’s decision. To achieve that, you must know who your audience is.

To understand your audience better, go through some previous data. From there, you can discover which type of guests your hotel mostly has. 

The two major divisions are:

• Millennials
• Everyone else may include families, couples, corporations, or groups.

When you find out who visits more often, then you proceed to who your next target will be. In that light, you may have to generate new hotel marketing plans to reach your new audience.

Paid Ads

From the long list of social media platforms, most of them provide paid ads. When you embark on social media marketing, especially for hotels, this can be all the help you need.

When you have a substantial budget, give advertising a shot. Advertise your hotel on various social media platforms.

This is not a recommendation to run ads for years at a go. Rather, give paid ads a try for a few months. Check the have and growth. Then, you can decide whether or not you should continue based on the outcomes.

Conclusion

Finally, social media marketing for hotels is now an integral part of the entire hospitality industry. All the tips provided are proven and well-tested to be legit. With them, you can easily plan your social media marketing strategy for your hotel. You can even do yours in a better fashion.

When executed perfectly and with the right planning, the result is endless.