Creating a strategy for your hotel’s Instagram account can be quite daunting. But having an Instagram-strategy can strengthen the presence of your hotel on Instagram. A great Instagram strategy can also increase your website traffic and lead to direct bookings on your website and avoid bookings with OTA’s such as Booking.com and Hotels.com. In this article we have gathered 5 Instagram tips for hotels to increase their brand presence. Enjoy!
1. CREATE HIGH QUALITY CONTENT
As you probably know, Instagram is a platform that relies on visual content such as images or videos. The quality of the content should is especially important, as it can look unprofessional to have blurry or pixelated images on the Instagram-feed. High quality images and videos just looks more professional, which is (hopefully) the image that all hotel brands are aiming to achieve on Instagram. Therefore, investing in creating a media library is definitely worth considering. Quality over quantity is in this case essential to high quality content.
2. SHOW YOUR PERSONALITY
What makes your hotel unique? Show it! Consumers are bombarded with hotel-offers from left and right and it can be overwhelming to figure out the next hotel to stay with. And it doesn’t help that many hotel websites and Instagrams look very similar. Don’t be shy to showcase what makes your hotel unique–it’s important! Hard attributes such as hotel rooms, facilities and amenities are great ways of displaying the uniqueness of your hotel. But softer attributes such as values, mission and services can also resonate with the consumers. Guests don’t necessarily want to stay at posh hotels anymore, but with hotels that support their current lifestyles.
3. POST RELEVANT CONTENT
Posting actively on Instagram can hack the algorithm, but if the content holds no purpose, the quantity of posts are a waste of resources. Therefore, always make sure to create content that is relevant to your Instagram objectives and your target audience. Instagram objectives depend on how the platform is used to support your hotel’s current marketing objectives, but they should as a rule of thumb always be to encourage the target audience to learn more about your hotel or even book their next stay.
4. USER GENERATED CONTENT IS GOLD
Instagram-users and influencers are often great sources to high quality content, that can be reposted on your hotel’s Instagram account (remember to credit the rightful owner of the content you repost). Make sure to always keep track of the activities surrounding your hotel, whether that be on Instagram, Pinterest or other social media platforms. Some guests visit hotels to create content in order to get reposted or recognition by the hotel and at often times, guests consider it flattering to be reposted.
5. CALL-TO-ACTION
Instagram has added a lot of CTA-functions for businesses to add to their profiles, but the most important and versatile function is the link in bio. You can link the user directly to the front page or the booking page of your website. If you want to extend the Instagram user experience, you can create a landing page mirroring your Instagram-feed with links to specific pages related to your content. There are options to create such links Linktree, Sked.Link or Later. On our Instagram-page, we have created our own and we’d be happy to create one for your hotel as well.
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We hope these 5 Instagram tips are useful for you and your hotel. We truly believe, that high quality and relevant content are the key ingredients for a strong Instagram presence for hotels. It is also important to stand out by showcasing your hotel’s unique attributes, increasing the likelihood of direct bookings. Lastly, remember to show appreciation for the content created by your guests. Like, comment and re-share their content to show that their content matters to your brand.
Does your hotel need help creating a streamlined Instagram strategy? Or are you looking for someone to manage your Instagram? Feel free to get in touch with us here.
Photo credit: Spencer Davis