Have you ever found yourself in a social media rut?
NB: This is an article from Screenpilot
If so, you’ll know that it can be frustrating to manage your hotel’s profiles with a fresh, innovative mindset day after day.
So what’s a social media manager to do? Conducting a self-audit is a well-known tactic, but there are a few things you should consider when auditing a hotel’s social presence specifically.
This checklist will tell you what you need to do to make sure you conduct an audit that will successfully reinvigorate your social strategy – and your creativity.
Review User-Generated Content
Process: Check your hotel’s Instagram geo-tags, brand hashtags, and Facebook check-ins for photos and videos shared by your guests.
Analyze: What are people taking photos of? What imagery gets the most engagement? How are people reacting to your guest’s photos? Do certain posts get more saves or shares?
Action Item: Use that information to inform your social strategy and showcase what guests love about your hotel. Repurpose user-generated content (UGC) in various formats (carousels, stories, slideshows, etc.) to see what resonates the most with your audience. Consider a social proof campaign that features UGC and guest testimonials that will show prospects how much past guests enjoyed their stay — and hopefully convince them to book.
Develop an FAQ
Process: Review the questions that past and potential guests have left about your property on social media and review sites.
Analyze: What questions are people asking about your property? What information are they missing on your website when booking, and then complaining about afterward? What types of content can you publish to answer those questions?
Action Item: Create an FAQ page that lives on your hotel’s website and answers the most common questions about your property. This information is crucial to set the expectations of guests. For an example of an FAQ prompted by social media questions, see this page.
Look for Patterns Among Top-Performing Posts
Process: Pull up the most liked or engaged with posts for each platform over the last 90 days and look for commonalities in the type and quality of the posts.
Analyze: What type of theme performs the best? Do videos or photos get more engagement? How long is the copy on each post? Are the colors similar? Do people respond to the same kinds of posts on your Facebook page as they do on your Instagram account?
Action Item: Consider how you can apply these insights to your other digital marketing efforts, especially your DRM and Google Display Network ads.
Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Process: Choose 3-5 of your main competitors and pull up all of their social media profiles and write down what you see, with the goal of analyzing how your social efforts compare and identify areas of opportunity.
Analyze: Are they active on platforms that you’re not on? What kind of imagery/videos do they post? What kind of captions do they write? How often do they post? Are they partnering with influencers?
Action Item: Make a plan to fill any gaps in your content types or posting schedule to make sure your efforts are on par with — or surpassing that of — your comp set.
Update All Social Profile Details
Process: Track down all our social media accounts and make sure all the profile information is up to date.
Analyze: Are all profile pictures updated with your latest logo? Do all links in bio work? Are the pinned Facebook posts or Tweets still relevant? Have Instagram story highlights been updated recently? Are there any unanswered Facebook reviews?
Action Item: Update and correct any outdated information and accounts. For example, if your hotel has a Pinterest account that hasn’t been updated for years, you’ll want to make a plan to maintain it or consider deleting it until you can dedicate time to manage that channel.
Ensure Organic Strategy Supports Paid Efforts
Process: Choose one of your recent promotions and check to see whether there were posts about in on your social platforms.
Analyze: Can you attribute any bookings to the organic posts? What kind of engagement did the posts receive – were people sharing or saving the special offer? Were any profile links changed to go directly to the offer? How often was the special posted about? Have you targeted people who engage with your social profiles for paid promotions?
Action Item: It’s crucial to align your organic and paid social efforts to maximize exposure for special offers. People who follow your brand’s profiles are doing so electively and are more likely to be past guests or people already interested in visiting your hotel than generic cold audiences — so make the most of the people that choose to follow your hotel!
