Christmas Time, Influencers Online
In a social media consumed world where ‘Influencers’ dominate our news-feed – brands and businesses find themselves turning to ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ influencer marketing to create brand awareness while reaching a wider audience. The travel and hospitality industries can certainly reap the benefits of collaborating with the right influencers – by turning engagement into direct bookings.
The Right Match
If you choose to work with Influencers ensure that you review their followers and that they are the right match for your property, brand and desired guest. It’s no good working with an Insta-super-star with a gabbillion followers if those followers are 10,000miles away and all under 15! (Thus making them very unlikely to visit your €400 ADR, 60 room boutique hotel in North Carolina).
Ensure you know the worth of the media they are generating, don’t pay more out than you are generating, get a detailed influencer agreement signed that lists out how many mentions, tags, story / gallery post’s they are going to be creating (and that they are permanent), the theme and what is and isn’t acceptable for you.
Strategy
Create a community of followers, target similar influencers, brands and properties that all share the same audience. Ensure the content you are creating is appealing to them, yes you have to love what you are creating, but remember so do the people you want to follow and engage with you.
Flow
Ensure a continuity of content that follows a pattern, theme and structure. Create a content plan and follow it, perhaps your entire wall is abstract photos in black and white, maybe you always post movement shots, whatever your theme, ensure you stick to it. Post regularly and often and on the same days, routine is something that will assist you in the management of your social channels and campaigns. Most importantly, if you always post on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday your followers and audience know when to expect something new from you. Don’t forget to bring in seasonality and hook into events, news and current affairs to get the biggest engagement.
Engagement creates engagement
It’s one of the keys to success in social – create content that opens a conversation and creates dialogue with your existing follows and those you want to follow you. Don’t be divisive (unless that’s your strategy) and remember every follower post and comment within or surrounding your social is a review, so reply to it! Think of your social engagement and comments as if it were someone in your lobby:you wouldn’t ignore a guest who walked up and told you how stunning your atrium is, so why would you not respond just because its on Instagram or Twitter?
Promotion
Lastly, create an offer or some form of incentive to run inside your posts, mentions, hashtags and to tie in with any influencer collaborations you have agreed. It can be a bit deflating when you’ve / they’ve posted endless pics, videos and live feeds which may create great engagement but doesn’t convert into many real bookings. Content is great, collaboration is great, targeting is great, but if you didn’t give those you were reaching a reason to come visit then it was all a waste of effort. Sometimes all it takes is a free Mince Pie or glass of Eggnog on arrival!