An Echo smart speaker alongside a vintage, burnt-orange lava lamp.
It’s a jarring contrast. “Dated” alongside “modern” tends to clash.
A hotel team’s handling of social media and content marketing, like décor, should work in harmony, not compete.
NB: This is an article from ScreenPilot
We partner with many hotel teams that are driven to be at the forefront of social marketing. The possible reach and potential of near-instant gratification of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other social tools can’t be ignored. But occasionally we find teams have a laser focus on social, at the risk of losing sight of how it fits into a greater content management picture.
Is your team’s overall content marketing strategy as modern as your social media efforts? Here are some of trends we see in hospitality marketing now.
1. Storytelling moves the needle.
While it’s easy to just pepper content with property perks and features, it’s uninspired, and no longer very effective. From a marketing perspective, content is most compelling when it sells the audience on the hotel experience through a compelling story.
Though far from a new trend, storytelling is more important than ever. Whether it’s showcasing user-generated content, or crafting frequent and informative blog posts, smart hotel teams will increasingly leverage storytelling across all their channels, not only for better SEO, but to distinguish themselves from competitors, including the Airbnbs that continue to come online.
2. Mobile plays an important role, but must be used wisely.
There are lots of evolving statistics related to mobile usage and marketing. As it pertains to content marketing, here are two to remember.
- Adult mobile users in the U.S. are now averaging almost 3.5 hours per day on mobile apps
- 70% of users dislike mobile ads
For hospitality teams, this means there’s a lot of fertile ground in the mobile countryside, but it shouldn’t be propagated with traditional mobile ads (outbound marketing) alone.
Smart marketers are creating useful, relevant content that travelers seek (inbound marketing), and sharing across all platforms, including mobile-friendly formats. Need inspiration? Here are five topics travelers want to read about.
3. Content isn’t just on screen.
Amazon recently unveiled Alexa for Hospitality. Marriott International, the largest hotel company in the world, will begin putting Amazon Echo smart speakers in their rooms later this year.
The Echo, along with similar devices such as Apple Home Pod and Google Home, are changing the way people access content, both on-site and from the comfort of their home.
Exactly how this will affect hospitality is still being explored, but important to understand is that smart speakers are a new gateway for interaction, and hospitality teams have an opportunity craft content specifically for the smart speaker audience.
4. Live video viewership continues to grow.
While a relatively small percentage of marketers have waded into the live video stream, users are digesting more and more live content each year. In fact, 13% of all internet traffic will consist of live video by 2021.
Many of the largest social media platforms now offer the opportunity to go live anytime. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube all make it incredibly simple.
A live video presentation, almost regardless of the topic, comes across to the viewer as far more trustworthy and authentic than one that’s been highly produced. Smart marketers will resist the temptation to exclusively use produced video content in introduce live video when it makes sense for their brand and locale. For further reading, here are several Facebook Live tips and tricks for hospitality teams.
5. More conversations between hotels and guests via more channels.
While being accessible to guests during their stay is a hallmark of any good hotel, the days of caring for guests only while they’re in house are pretty much over.
With the multitude of channels that allow travelers to communicate directly (email, social media, messaging apps, text, voice), guest relations teams will be expected to communicate with guests in more ways, via more channels, and more often than in the past.
6. Content teams are expanding their skills capacity.
In the not-too-distant past, online content marketing was limited to the written word. Then images and video arrived and steadily grew in popularity among digital marketers. This was followed by, and merged with, social media.
Be aware that the evolution goes on. The availability of new technology, by sheer necessity, requires that content teams continue to expand their skill sets, either through additional hiring or additional training.
7. Trust is everything.
Though last on this list, none of the other items truly matter if your brand doesn’t instill trust.
In a great piece for entrepreneur.com, Alex Jasin asks the reader if they would buy a Rolex watch from a guy on the street. The obvious answer is “no” as there’s no reason to trust that the watches being hawked are authentic.
In hospitality, as in every industry, trust is the cornerstone of enduring success. Smart hospitality marketers continually build trust by being authentic in all their dealings with travelers, online and on site, before, during and after their stay.
