Social media rarely has the same conversion rate as paid or organic search results. After all, people don’t scroll through their newsfeed with the intent of purchasing a hotel stay. They’re there to engage with their friends and family and view aspirational content. As such, it’s harder to get them to commit to a conversion. However, though brand awareness should remain your primary objective, driving revenue is a possibility if you optimise your campaigns correctly.
To help, Avvio has detailed seven essential best practices for social media.
1. Choose your platform wisely
The first step towards increasing social media conversions is choosing the correct platform. Each one has a different purpose; Instagram is great for brand awareness, Twitter is best for engaging with your customers, and Facebook is king of conversions. Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild has the highest conversion rate for hotels and so is best for campaigns with a revenue goal.
2. Promote dedicated offers
Offers open only to social media followers create a feeling of exclusivity. They incentivise people to follow your brand on these platforms, and create a sense of urgency surrounding the offer. In order to do this, we recommend creating a specific social media rate, which can only be accessed through a dedicated landing page.
3. Target your chosen demographic
To raise the conversion rate of paid adverts it’s important to target a demographic with a higher likelihood of converting. As best practice, take a look at your Google Analytics demographic report, to understand what age group, gender, etc. are converting best. Also, make use of the interests section. For example, if you have an offer for golf breaks, target people who have golf listed as an interest, or who’ve liked pages such as the Irish Open or Ryder Cup.
4. Don’t oversell
The easiest way to lower your conversion rate is to over saturate your social media with sales-centric posts. Avvio recommends one to two sales offers a month at most. However, depending on how often you post, these can be promoted more than once. For example, if you post daily, you could post a sales-centric post once a week. Since this is only one post in seven, it’s unlikely to dissuade your followers from engaging with your brand.
5. Opt into remarketing
Facebook now offers remarketing options. If you have a list of past guests’ emails or phone numbers, you can upload these to Facebook Business Manager and target them specifically. Avvio recommends using a list of newsletter sign-ups at a minimum, as if they’ve taken this action to engage with your brand, they’re highly likely to convert.
6. Create dedicated landing pages
Your social media campaign is going to get clicks, especially if you’re paying for them. The hard part is turning those clicks into conversions, which is why your landing page is key. Since social media traffic tends to be more curious than committed to a purchase, land them on a page with information about your brand. Spell out your unique selling points, mention your location, and explain the special offer. Use high-quality imagery to showcase your brand and highlight the call to action.
7. Analyse and Optimise
Install the Facebook Pixel on your site to keep track of conversions from Facebook and Instagram. The results of this can be viewed on Facebook Business Manager, allowing you to see which platforms, demographics and devices are resulting in the most conversions. You can then refine your targeting based on this information.
Refine your social media strategy
For more information on how you can drive revenue through social media, get in touch with Avvio today. Our dedicated digital marketing team would be delighted to advise on your hotel’s strategy.
