That’s why, social media have become one of the most important tools when promoting hotels and engaging with guests and potential customers. If you also want to increase your visibility on social media and ultimately increase your hotel occupancy, look at what great hotel chains are doing on their social media platforms to inspire travelers. Here are three examples of the best social media strategies for hotels. Shall we star?
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
This is one of the best-known hotel chains worldwide with 99 hotels in 41 countries. Four Seasons has a presence on different social media platforms. In fact, it is on Facebook (almost 424 000 likers), on Twitter (224 000 followers), on Instagram (292 000 followers) and it is also on Google+, LinkedIn (330 236 followers) and YouTube.
Through its different accounts, Four Seasons provides a compelling and engaging content. In fact, on the one hand it shares content such as promotions for dining and the spa. And on the other hand, it shares memorable and impressive pictures taken by guests. For example, on its Instagram account, Four Seasons shares photos posted by guests on their own Instagram accounts and used their special hashtag (#FourSeasons).
When this hotel chain is sharing a picture it always thanks the guest who posted it saying “Thank you (username of the guest) for sharing this peaceful moment/breakfast from (username of the Four Seasons hotel where the photo was taken) with #FourSeasons”. By sharing these pictures, the hotel involves the user, makes him feel important and connects with its guests.
Engagement and valuable content is what your clients and potential clients are really looking for. And where they spend most of their online time is on social media. That’s why you need to stay focus on these platforms and be part of their conversation, like Four Seasons is doing. If you’re not, you will be losing potential guests.
RIU Hotels and Resorts
This second hotel chain has 105 hotels in 19 countries. RIU is also on the six main social media platforms with a very big community on Facebook (969 356 likers). It is also on Twitter (50 000 followers), Instagram (50 000), Google+ (160 114), LinkedIn and YouTube.
On Facebook, they respond to each and every comment with a very personalized answer. Even when a comment is not posted to get an answer, the RIU marketing team still answer only for thanking the user for his comment. They also encourage people to come to their hotel by saying things like “we would be glad to have you”, when people are commenting saying that they love this hotel chain, they ask to these people which one of their hotels is their favorite.
Moreover, when people say that they are going to spend they honeymoon there, the marketing team ask them to share their best pictures with them. They are very committed and interact a lot with their guests and their likers in general using kind words and emoticons. They also provide a different answer to the different comments and the answer is always very polite and friendly.
As you can see personalization is a must when it comes to social media conversations. If you thought this was as easy as having the same answer for everyone, you were wrong. If it was the way around, you wouldn’t like either to have an equal reply. You would like to know they are really reading your comments if you answer back.
Barceló Hotels and Resorts
The last example is this chain with more than 100 hotels in 18 countries. Barceló has an account on Facebook (194 855 likers), on Twitter (173 000 followers), on Instagram (22 700 followers,) on LinkedIn (29 729 followers) as well as Google+ and YouTube.
The marketing team mainly uses the Facebook and Twitter pages for promoting the hotels showing pools, bars… However, they use their Instagram page differently. They repost their guests’ pictures and thank them for their stay in the hotel. They either just repost the photo using the guest’ text and adding some hashtags or they share the photo and add a little text to thank the guest for the picture. In both cases they always tag the guest, which is a way to show that they are grateful for the pictures and happy that their guests are enjoying their stay in their hotels.
This shows you that your hotel or chain can leverage each platform differently. You don’t have to share exactly the same content on every social network. You can use them for different purposes like Barceló is doing and benefit from user generated content, when sharing. Be creative and don’t limit the way you and your users are creating content.
