Taking meaningful steps is the key to enhancing your hotel brand visibility and engagement. Through building your social media following, you can engage with potential guests directly, showcase your property, and stay relevant in a competitive market! This webinar will cover the following topics, including:

• How to build a solid social following on different platforms
• How to gain followers at every touch point of the traveler’s journey
• Best practices on social follower engagement and conversion
• The evolution of social media in the hotel industry

What is the definition of a good following? At first glance, most hoteliers would choose the page with 1,400 followers instead of 440. But a large following doesn’t necessarily translate to good engagement. Although the profile on the left has a higher follower count, the profile on the right receives more engagement. 

Some may still want to choose the page with a higher follower count for optics. If they aren’t very active on the page, it can’t hurt them. However, travelers value an active social media presence from properties they are researching. An active profile gives real-time insight into all the current happenings at the hotel.

It is important to build a following, not just a follower count. 

There are several reasons for users to unfollow and hide pages. According to Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Media Consumer Report, clickbait, boring content, inauthentic content, repetitive content, and angling for metrics can all drive users to unfollow a brand on social media. AI-generated images are becoming more prevalent across all industries. And while there may be room for it here and there, travelers crave authenticity and real property images. 

The easiest way to gain followers is to tag and be tagged. To maintain tags, social listening is key. Keeping track of who tags or mentions your page and ensuring you repost and tag the user allows for optimal engagement. You can still see if people are at your property without being tagged. In the Instagram search bar, type in your property’s address. Any account that has posted with their location services will appear. Don’t skip out on any posts mentioning your property; one post can hold a lot of power. It can grow your reach and brand awareness beyond your organic audience. 

Beyond your organic following, users can see your content on their Explore page. The Explore or “for you” page algorithm finds content you may be interested in and new content you may not already follow. People like to travel, so your content can find itself on the feed with the correct hashtag and caption usage, leading to new followers. Make sure your video content is intriguing enough to bring new users to your page.

While there are ways to grow your following organically, putting ad spend behind your posts to gain followers can get you to your goal sooner. Ad analytics lets you see how your followers have grown (organic or sponsored) and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Imagine a digital billboard. There is a significant difference between a hotel billboard on the side of the highway and one in a forest on a dirt road. Ad spending works the same way. Doing the right campaigns and spending your money in the right place is imperative. For optimal results, working with a partner or having an expert specifically target the ideal audiences is helpful. 

Hashtags are essential to users finding your content. Users can follow specific hashtags for things they’re interested in, their algorithm can pull pages they don’t follow based on hashtags, and users can use their search bar for hashtags. For Facebook and Instagram, hashtags are generally placed at the end of the copy. Users can click them and see every post that has included that hashtag. For X, hashtags are used for popular keywords throughout the copy.

Social competitions are a great way to grow your reach and follower count. The overall count may inevitably drop once the competition is completed, but on the bright side, if your page is visually appealing and you regularly do contests, they might be more willing to stay and follow for upcoming contests.

One of the best things about social media is its shareability. On LinkedIn, you can invite your personal connections to follow your property’s business page. They are more likely to follow the property’s page if they are connected with you. Encourage your entire team to do this with their connections, and your followers will grow.

Facebook has a similar process to LinkedIn. Through boosted ads, you can click the engagement piece in the post below. If any engaged users don’t follow your page, you can send them a personal invite. If you have both your Facebook and Instagram connected through Meta Business Page, you can share your Instagram profile on Facebook.

For our hotel partners, we create a unique social media landing page that includes their profiles, websites, and links to their OTA platforms. Through this link, users most likely won’t just follow one page but multiple, which puts them in an excellent place to convert.

The goal to gain followers remains throughout the entire traveler’s journey. The reason they follow your page at each step is different, but it is a reminder to never stop trying to get your guests engaged online, no matter what stage of their journey they are in. 

• Inspiration: Create FOMO and a desire to see more.
• Pre-booking: Sell them on why your property is the right choice.
• Post-booking: Build hype around your amenities and upcoming events to get your guests excited for their trip. 
• In-stay: your guests know they can DM you with any questions or issues they may have. Important information including pool + breakfast hours can also be posted on social.
• Post-stay: Guests will post about their vacation and can tag your property. The more engaged you are with your guest.

Social media in the hotel industry has come so far even from 2018. Within these years, hoteliers often chose the youngest person working at their hotel to run their social media. As social media became more valuable to securing bookings, the tasks shifted to the director of sales. In 2024, many properties are hiring specifically for a social media manager.

That is why recently we have seen more hotels and hotel management companies reach out to TMG. Throughout the staff shortage, social media can fall by the wayside and be forgotten about. Overall, only 28% of hotels are posting on social media multiple times a week. At TMG, we make sure to post 4-5 times a week because traveling doesn’t take a break. Travelers are on social media every day.

We recently passed the 1 million follower threshold across all social accounts for our hotel partners. This number is more than just a count, it is a combination of everything that we do on social media to build a strong engagement and brand reputation. Stay tuned to learn more about our 1 million social followers!