If you want to increase Likes and shares and get noticed in your guests’ social newsfeeds, you need to create plenty of fresh and engaging content on a regular basis. But running powerfully effective social content campaigns needn’t take a huge toll on your hotel’s time and resources. You have access to a huge network of travellers that are already sharing holiday snaps and content related to their breaks with friends and family online. Collaborating with these people to create user-generated, on-brand content creates exactly the kind of objective and authentic word-of-mouth marketing that an online audience finds compelling.
Here are 4ways to get started.
1. Create a Compelling Hashtag
If you want to monitor and collect the content your guests post online, the first step is to create an evergreen hashtag that represents what your hotel offers as a whole. It might be as simple as your property name or something closely related such as #GoldCoastdreamholiday.
When you’ve created the hashtag, make sure it gets seen. Display it in your Facebook and other social posts, as a signature in your hotel emails and across your website. You want to make it as easy as possible for your guests to discover your hashtag and interact with your content.
2. Offer an Incentive
Acknowledging your hotel’s most loyal guests and rewarding them with special offers and discounts is always a great way to boost your relationships with your guests. It’s also a valuable incentive when it comes to encouraging participation in your user-generated content campaigns. For example, you might create a photo contest asking guests to share photos which demonstrate how they #liveitupGoldCoast, with a special VIP weekend away package offered for the best entries.
If you’re not in the position to offer monetary rewards, think about showing your loyal fans how much you appreciate them as social influencers by publishing the best photos to your resort website, as well as across your social channels.
3. Engage With Participants
As the buzz around your user-generated content campaign starts to build, it’s important to take time to engage with the participants. Acknowledge your guests’ efforts by liking and commenting on the content they post. Engaging with your online fans like this shows the human side of your brand and demonstrates that you are prepared to use social media as the conversational platform it was designed for. It helps frame your campaign as a collaborative process, rather than simply a promotional tool and will encourage further participation.
4: Measure Your Results
As you bring your campaign to a close, it’s time to assess your progress.
By analysing your guests’ photo submissions themselves, you may even uncover surprising new information about the places and activities your guests are enjoying on their breaks, or even new insights into your audience demographic. Drawing on these insights may prove valuable as your prepare for your next social campaign.
Teaming up with your guests to create user-generated content campaigns on social media is a great way to boost your social reach, drive traffic to your hotel website and increase bookings. Once you’ve collected the content, there are countless ways to use it across your online marketing efforts – from Instagram display ads to eye-catching photos on landing pages (just remember to seek photo permission rights with your guests first.)
What do you think? Does your hotel harness the power of user-generated content campaigns? Let us know in the comments below!
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