Social media has come a long way in a very short space of time (and hopefully so has your hotel social media strategy). Still relatively young, the original networking and sharing ideals of platforms like Facebook are largely being replaced by brand advertisement and business pages. With so many people using Facebook and Instagram, it was a natural evolution that brands would use them as a marketplace, where they can target potential customers all in the one place.
This proved very successful for a time, but even the philosophy around this has changed now. As people start to disengage with an overload of sponsored content, and a lack of friendly faces, it’s no longer enough to simply put your brand in the spotlight if you want to drive revenue through social platforms.
So how exactly is social media changing and what does your hotel need to do to keep up with it?
What does social media usage look like today?
One fact that should be immediately pointed out is that 98% of internet users are already active on social media. This means there’s basically no new audience to expand to and the current opportunities are what you have to work with so optimisation is key.
Some other key statistics include:
- Users spend 2 hours and 15 minutes per day on social platforms or one third of their online time
- 70% of social media use is on mobile apps, 22% on desktop, and 8% on mobile web
- 40% of people get their news from socials
- Social selling is a priority for only 8% of salespeople, and yet nearly 60% of people follow brands on social media
- Among 18 to 34-year-olds, between 43 and 48% follow brands on social media because they’re interested in buying products
- People use social for five core reasons: staying in touch with friends/family, tracking news/current events, to kill time, for entertainment, and for networking
