As consumers continue the shift towards making buying decisions based on trust, social media has become both a necessity and an opportunity for hotels to position themselves ahead of their competition. Those who have risen to the challenge have been rewarded fruitfully while those who are inactive are increasingly finding their bookings being driven by the OTAs.
In 2021, I imagine you don’t need to be sold on the need for social media. The question you want to answer is what on Earth do I post? The thought of posting 365 bits of content per social media platform per year can seem daunting, where do you even start?
Well, today we want to make this task far easier for you by sharing with you our learning from studying the best-in-class hotels’ social media accounts. From scanning thousands of social media posts we have distilled the top-performing posts down to these 11 content areas.
As we go through, we have used an example hotel for reference. At the end, you will see their full list of content ideas.
1. Services
Services is what it says on the tin; posts about the services your hotel offers. One thing that is easy to forget is that most potential guests won’t know all your services or, they’ll make assumptions about them. Maybe they assume you don’t have dog-friendly rooms or that you don’t have any spaces for hire. This is why it is important to use your social media channels to educate your followers on your service offering. Below, we have broken down the service post areas for one hotels services. As you can see, we now have 10 separate posting areas, each of which will have its own group of post ideas. While self-promotional posts can seem great for sales, overdoing it can be harmful to your overall social strategy. We advise capping service posts at roughly 10% of your total post content.
- Service>Stay>Rooms
- Service>Stay>Group Bookings
- Service>Stay>Dog Friendly
- Service>Food>Restaurant
- Service>Food>The Bar
- Service>Food>Afternoon Tea
- Service>Food>Day Menu
- Service>Rent>Conference Rooms
- Service>Rent>Function Rooms
- Service>Weddings
2. What we’re up to
People love to see what happens ‘behind the scenes’ because this is where they get to build a more intimate relationship with your brand, which then drives loyalty and retention. We have split this area into three, each of which aims to spark the thoughts which are turned into content ideas.
- what-we’re-up-to>What’s being built?
- what-we’re-up-to>What’s keeping you busy?
- what-we’re-up-to>What exciting things are coming up?
3. Local Community
Want to really step things up a gear? Talk about your suppliers or, bring your local community into your feed. You can talk about the fisherman who catches your restaurants fish or, about the 80-year-old man who is seen litter picking around town. Both of these would be sure-fire hits with your followers and act as great opportunities to show that your brand has personality. For our example hotel, we split this area out below into stories (talk about a specific example), introductions and images.
- supplier-supplement>Stories
- supplier-supplement>Introduction/Role
- supplier-supplement>Images
- local-legends>Stories
- local-legends>Introduction/Role
- local-legends>Images
4. Why us
Every now and then, it’s good to flex on your social media feed, sharing why your hotel is the destination people need to go to. You don’t need to be the #1 hotel is Britain to share your accolades, even if it’s as simple as a 4.5 star rating on TripAdvisor, anything which builds trust is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t have strong engagement like some other themes will. To make it even easier to work things out, see below this broken out by service area for our example hotel.
- why-us>Stay
- why-us>Food
- why-us>Rent
- why-us>Weddings
5. Our people
At the heart of your business is your employee’s (and your customers, we’ll get to them). Your social media feed can be a win-win, on one half you are showing guests the faces behind your hotel, which builds the relationship and on the other hand, you can use social media to acknowledge the hard work of your staff. See below the split for our example hotel.
- our-people>Stories
- our-people>Introduction/Role
- our-people>Opinions
- our-people>Images
6. Our Customers
Nothing builds trust like word of mouth and according to Inc, 84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust what their friend recommends. This is a great reason to make sure you involve customers in your content. This could be as simple as posting a customer review or, you may want to acknowledge your loyal guests with some champagne and post that. Another cheeky way to get content is to see what others have posted about you, if you like it, why not repost it to your social media channels (ask them first!).
- our-customers>Stories
- our-customers>Reviews
- our-customers>Opinions
- our-customers>Images
- our-customers>Repost
7. Things to do
Sharing what people can do in the local area is a massive value add which your future & present guests will greatly appreciate. We’d recommend splitting this out for each type of guest you have, In this way you can fine tune your recommendations to resonate. If someone is on the edge of booking and then you share an activity that resonates with them, this could be the dominoes that makes them book. Now imagine you make 100 posts across the year on this subject, viewed tens/hundreds of thousands of times, this will be bound to tip more than a few people over the edge to booking with you – these sorts of posts can be worth their weight in gold when done right. Below is the breakdown for the example hotel. We split this out by their target persona type and then also by general ‘things to do’ interest areas, this creates ample ground for idea generation.
- things-to-do>family
- things-to-do>romantic
- things-to-do>business
- things-to-do>spa breakers
- things-to-do>Over 60’s
- things-to-do>Under 30’s
- things-to-do>History
- things-to-do>Landmarks
- things-to-do>Areas around
- things-to-do>Location
- things-to-do>History
- things-to-do>Landmarks
8. Ask the audience
Want to make your hotel or restaurant perfect for your guests? Why not ask what they like? It could be as simple as seeing what coloured menu they prefer. Taken from a different angle, you can have a bit of fun with things, which helps build your hotel personality. For example, you may ask your audience the age old question of ‘cream first or jam first?’ coupled with a lovely shot of your afternoon tea selection. People love to talk about themselves and these sorts of posts give an avenue for this, which is why they often see high levels of engagement.
- ask-the-audience
9. Local news
Hotels should be doing what they can to support the local community and part of that is acting as a broadcasting channel for the great stuff going on locally. Maybe you are promoting a local event happening or are drawing awareness to the great work of a group of people. People can be sold by the hotel but they also need to be sold by the area too, sharing local news can be one way you can boost potential guests confidence in booking their stay with you.
- local-news
10. History
People love to be told a story and you may have a treasure trove of stories at your hotel. If you are a very old hotel, maybe you could tell stories about the struggles the hotel has gone through over the centuries or, prominent guests over the ages. For newer hotels, maybe share some of the shots from the construction phase. People love to see how you’ve overcome adversity, by sharing this, you are showing guests that they can be part of the story.
- History>Story from the past
- History>Evidence of the past
11. Property
Last but not least, nothing sells a place like what it looks like. Professional shots of your rooms, bars and building can all help people to build a picture of their stay – the better these shots, the better people will perceive your hotel.
- Property>Location
- Property>Statistics
- Property>Facilities
- Property>Cleanliness
The final list
- Service>Stay>Rooms
- Service>Stay>Group Bookings
- Service>Stay>Dog Friendly
- Service>Food>Restaurant
- Service>Food>The Bar
- Service>Food>Afternoon Tea
- Service>Food>Day Menu
- Service>Rent>Conference Rooms
- Service>Rent>Function Rooms
- Service>Weddings
- what-we’re-up-to>What’s being built?
- what-we’re-up-to>What’s keeping you busy?
- what-we’re-up-to>What exciting things are coming up?
- supplier-supplement>Stories
- supplier-supplement>Introduction/Role
- supplier-supplement>Images
- local-legends>Stories
- local-legends>Introduction/Role
- local-legends>Images
- why-us>Stay
- why-us>Food
- why-us>Rent
- why-us>Weddings
- our-people>Stories
- our-people>Introduction/Role
- our-people>Opinions
- our-people>Images
- our-customers>Stories
- our-customers>Reviews
- our-customers>Opinions
- our-customers>Images
- our-customers>Repost
- things-to-do>family
- things-to-do>romantic
- things-to-do>business
- things-to-do>spa breakers
- things-to-do>Over 60’s
- things-to-do>Under 30’s
- things-to-do>History
- things-to-do>Landmarks
- things-to-do>Areas around
- things-to-do>Location
- things-to-do>History
- things-to-do>Landmarks
- ask-the-audience
- local-news
- History>Story from the past
- History>Evidence of the past
- Property>Location
- Property>Statistics
- Property>Facilities
- Property>Cleanliness
Now, when you sit down to plan out the next months content, you will be armed with prompts to help you generate an endless list of content ideas! If you need a hand with things, you can reach out to me at jack@guestiq.agency. Good luck!