Frequent technological leaps, an extensive repository of buyer data, and billions of active users make social media an essential tool to establish your brand voice. Not only does it expand your reach, but in our current digital landscape, social media influences purchase decisions throughout the buyer journey.
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Having a social media presence can’t be ignored as a statement factor for businesses anymore. Hospitality and travel, the fastest growing industries of the new millennia, can undoubtedly benefit from its unlimited potential.
Social Media Marketing in 2021 – Key Benchmark Statistics for Travel & Hospitality
With over 4.5 billion active users in 2021, social media remains the top engagement platform across industries. A channel where half of the world population is spending an average of 15% of their day, social media has far-reaching commercial opportunities.
The experiential factor of travel makes it a common topic of conversation on highly personalized social media feeds across platforms. The rise of travel-related communities, higher shares of social traffic on organic searches, and a phenomenal jump in social subscriptions post-2020 indicate that social media marketing has laid a firm grip on global hospitality markets. And the trend is not going away anytime soon.
What Worked for Travel on Social Media in 2021?
- 97% of millennials share photos on social media during travels
- 90% of Facebook’s ad revenues ($55 bn, annually) comes from mobile ads
- 85% of travelers book their trips on mobile devices
- 74% of travelers use social media while on vacation
- 79% more engagement is generated for posts with location tags
- 71% of travel agencies report better interactions with consumers when committed to a social media strategy
- Women do 66% of travel bookings
- 52% of Facebook users are inspired by families’ or friends’ photos before booking a trip
- 51% of people on Booking.com wanted to visit destinations untouched by their friend circle
From awareness to consideration to decision, social media influences all levels of the hotel booker’s journey. Social media will significantly align users’ expectations with your business objectives as the world migrates further to digital.
Social Media’s Importance for Hotels in 2022
Personal profiles, groups, forums, and chat rooms are flooded with customer and traveler reviews, ratings, inputs, and updates on destinations and local tourism. Consumers use social media vehemently while planning as well as traveling.
As the world continues to adapt to a new level of digital inclusiveness, hotels and resorts are seeing the benefits of social media in marketing. It is the best reach and engagement tool in the hospitality industry.
ADVANTAGE | Why Add Social Media to Your Hotel Marketing Strategies?
With their high number of active monthly users, social media platforms are the one-stop shop to expand your brand’s reach, visibility, and engagement. Interacting with users regularly on a more familiar platform boosts your brand image and builds authority. Popularity on social media indirectly translates to higher bookings and revenue.
Greater Visibility: The targeted social media algorithms automatically make you visible to the most relevant users. You can configure your post boosts to enhance this targeting further. Images, location, and hashtags are helpful tools in making your content more search friendly.
Increased Reach: Social platforms are where most audiences already are compared to your website, where you need to drive traffic to. With the right targeting strategy, you can penetrate your current audience cluster or expand your reach to new user groups.
Higher Engagement: Social media inspires free communications and is the best medium to engage with your audience. travel is one of the most talked-about topics amongst social users, and your brand has the potential to become the ice-breaker.
More Conversions: Many travelers receive recommendations from friends and families through their social profiles. A well-maintained hospitality brand has higher chances of converting here than from a saturated Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Better Authority: Social media platforms have adapted to the ratings-and-reviews system for local brands. Your follower strength and positive reviews on social media speak volumes about your property and attract relevant users. Facebook’s recent “Recommend” feature can be a direct indicator to measure guest satisfaction.
While your hotel’s Facebook page can be an easy tool to boost brand authority, you also have to be ready for backlashes from disgruntled users or consumers. On the positive side, your onsite team gets real-time inputs on issues and can be prepared to provide resolutions on the spot.
AWARENESS | What Does Poor Social Media Presence Mean for Your Hotel?
Tourism and hospitality are service-oriented industries that thrive in personalized experiences, and social channels are a highly customized medium driven by user behavior. They complement each other, and your hotel marketing mix’s failure to adopt social media loses your brand a natural ally.
Apart from missing out on a targeted engagement tool and relevant traffic source, you also miss out on opportunities unique to social media platforms.
