INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR HOTELS: 3 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR HOTEL’S BRAND
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “influencer?” What about being a “travel influencer?”
This new job and the value of influencer marketing for hotels and the tourist sector has generated a lot of buzz. The dilemma is whether your hotel should cooperate with influencers or if this is merely a transitory advertising fad with no actual value.
The growing popularity of social media has enabled us to communicate with clients in ways never before possible. Consumers used to base their purchasing decisions on TV commercials, magazine advertisements, and their own research and instincts.
What Is Influencer Marketing for Hotels? And How Does It Work?
Working with influencers is one of the fastest-growing marketing campaign tactics for drawing more online customers, according to a new study – even above email and organic search marketing.
Influencer marketing, in its most basic form, is when content producers with a speciality following collaborate with companies to display and support their product or service to their online community. Social media networks such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are popular places to find influencers. Influencers include bloggers with a large following and a strong online presence.
For hospitality businesses, social media influencers may be a valuable source of content marketing. In this piece, we’ll go over the importance of influencer marketing, why it works so well, and look at prior successful influencer campaigns for the hotel industry.
Many hotel and lifestyle marketing initiatives have found influencer marketing to be a good investment. Most businesses and marketers who use influencer marketing see a significant return on investment.
Want in? Below you’ll find three ways you can utilise influencer marketing for hotels.
1. Invite influencers to seasonal events
Instead of designing a campaign around a small number of influencers, try holding an event that brings together hundreds of influencers and encourages them to interact with your brand.
During the event, the sponsor can hold a giveaway with a reward, such as a hotel stay. The sponsors frequently provide a branded background and have participants stand in front of it. They then upload the shot to Instagram and use a branded hashtag to enter.
Collaboration with influencers is an excellent method to reach new markets and promote your hotel in interesting ways. Consider what you want to highlight, and then select the influencers whose personal brands correspond to your message.
2. Incorporate influencers into your content marketing
As a hotel, you should be leveraging video in your marketing plan already. Instead of utilising unrecognisable extras or celebrities that spend a fortune to recruit and may not be perceived as real, add influencers to the film.
Marriott is a perfect example – You may discover films on their YouTube channel where influencers are the show’s stars.
As part of a campaign to market Marriott’s International Rewards Program to a younger audience, the company collaborated with four social media personalities (Millennials and Gen Z). For a week, these influencers took over Marriott’s official Snapchat to highlight their travel adventures in Berlin, Seoul, Dubai, and New York.
Top tip: It’s critical to remember that the video screenplay should be produced with the influencer’s speciality and style in mind.
3. Leverage Instagram Stories posts
As these influencers grow their social media following, it provides a few unique approaches to earn bookings rapidly and in a quantitative way. To begin, you might invite people to contribute anecdotes about their experiences at your hotel, and include a link to your reservations page in their narrative.
Make use of a UTM tag to track this. This is wonderful since clients don’t have to leave their gadgets to book your hotel, allowing you to secure bookings faster while the information is still fresh in their minds.
You can measure the value of their content and how many bookings come straight from their stories from there.
Benefits of influencer marketing for hotels:
Reach a more engaged audience – Influencers have worked hard to establish a fan base of individuals who care about what they have to say. This implies that when you collaborate with an influencer, you have access to an engaged audience more likely to convert into paying customers.
Flexible marketing strategy – Influencer marketing, unlike some other marketing tactics, is very adaptable and can be tailored to your specific objectives and budget. You may, for example, work with numerous influencers at the same time or focus your efforts on just a few.
If you’re searching for a low-cost strategy to reach a larger audience and advertise your hotel, try influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing for hotels tips
When scouting and researching possible influencers, keep the following in mind:
Similar audience: The following influencers must be similar to your target demographic. Keep your age and locality in mind.
Followers who are engaged: The more engaged an influencer’s followers are, the better. Look for accounts with a high amount of engagement (likes, comments, and shares) compared to their total number of followers.
Ensure that the influencers you deal with are relevant to your hotel or company. The travel niche is an excellent one for hotels to pursue.
Final thoughts on influencer marketing for hotels
Social media has altered the way hospitality and travel brands, as well as the hotel industry, may reach out to their target consumers. Influencer marketing gives customers a sneak peek at your hotel’s activities, sights, and attractions.
Influencer marketing is not going away anytime soon, and research indicates that it is one of the most effective marketing techniques for producing income. Businesses across all sectors are increasing their budgets for influencer marketing because it works.
When reaching out to influencers, ensure they have a high level of interaction and are a good fit for your company. Trust that the influencer with whom you collaborate is an expert in their industry. Allow them to generate original content to express your brand to their target audience better.
Interested in learning more about marketing for hotels? Check out our SEO for Hotels Guide.