How to use Instagram Stories as a marketing medium for hotels?
Hoteliers can use Instagram Stories as a marketing medium to communicate with their guests.
Stories are a great way to recreate a social experience. Instagram popularity has grown over the years.
Its engagement rate is comparatively higher than many other social media platforms.
Hence, why not use Instagram Stories in your marketing strategy to market your brand.
The beautifully captured pictures that you post in your stories create a vision that guides and inspire visitors to book a room at your hotel.
Using it will increase engagement, which ultimately leads to more bookings and revenue.
Hotels may use stories to showcase their brand values, create buzz and generate discussion about their brand.
Let’s look at the ways you can use Instagram Stories as a marketing medium for your hotels.
Give them a peek into behind the scenes
The opportunity to give your followers a behind-the-scenes look at your hotel is one of the most appealing elements of stories.
It allows you to show your followers the most intriguing inner workings of your business.
Thus, it will create a sense of togetherness, familiarity and highlight a more personal aspect of your hotel.
You can show off your hotel interior decoration. Make the picture look aesthetic.
Moreover, you can show how your staff are sanitizing the property.
Additionally, give them a peek into your kitchen, where chefs are preparing delicious food.
Use it to market your hotel
Add location geotags in all of the stories you share. This helps potential guests to search your hotel location easily.
Moreover, hoteliers can use hashtags.
This is great for encouraging people to schedule a stay during certain holiday events, as well as other booking drives.
Sharing links on stories is also a good option.
It may include a review link or a nearby location picture where a festival is going on along with your website booking page link.
So, guests can book your hotel to enjoy the festival. Sharing links makes it simple for followers to act on them.
Asking engaging questions
Include a questions sticker that allows you to post questions to your followers to start a discussion and learn more about them.
Select your sticker from Instagram’s sticker tray and post a question after taking a video or photograph.
The question appears in your story and anybody who views it respond to it.
This starts a conversation with followers, which is crucial for long-term brand exposure. Moreover, it shows the hotel’s values customer’s happiness.
Types of questions you can ask from followers:
- Ask ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ questions. For instance, do they like the new decoration?
- Give them multiple-choice questions. For instance, asking about their favourite cuisine in the hotel.
- Asking informative answers questions like what they wish to see in the future.
Time-based offers
Offers that are available for a limited time can draw people to your hotel.
Because the stories are only available for 24 hours (unless you archive them), any unique offers you advertise will be enticing and time-sensitive.
Thus, it creates a sense of urgency and they are high chances of conversion.
Because the stories only last 24 hours (unless you archive them), any special deals you promote will have a compelling, time-sensitive appeal.
The fleeting nature of a too-good-to-miss deal is a powerful tool, adding a sense of urgency that plays on the fear of missing out.
Posting positive reviews
We all know customers reviews about the quality services they receive in a hotel are beneficial for the hotel’s business.
Hence, why not use it to improve your brand reputation and gives it recognition.
Sharing numerous positive reviews in your stories improves your chances of persuading people to spend money on your services.
Ultimately, it increases sales, enhances website ranking on search engines, and boost profitability.
Looking at its benefits, do you want to know how to get positive reviews from your guests? If yes, then click here to read a blog on it.
Post Regularly
Of course, blogging every day, especially about your hotel, might be tough.
But, staying in contact with your audiences is the need to keep your customers updated.
Here, comes Instagram stories for your rescue. When it comes to using Instagram, one of the golden principles is to post frequently.
While many people advocate publishing at least once a day, posting every other day or a couple of times a week is a great idea.
But posting every day produces the best results. Just keep in mind to be creative, think outside the box, and keep things simple.
Host gaming contest
You can also use Instagram stories to host a gaming contest. Your hotel can team up like Cricket, hockey, or similar teams.
And give rewards to members who win the contest. Like, discount on their hotel rooms in the city where the match is will take place.
As the Instagram Stories last for 24 hours. So, host a 24-hour contest.
Another idea is to ask users to take a test to learn which room type best suits their personality. In few days, you will see a hike in bookings.
Additionally, polls and surveys may be simply gamified to engage your audience and bring out their competitive side.
Conclusion
We can conclude from above that Instagram stories easy way to market your hotel. You do not have to invest a huge amount and time.
Instead, keeping an authentic and minimalist approach will work for you.
It, in turn, make your brand more approachable, create awareness among all the potential customers.
Instagram marketing removes restrictions of the traditional way of advertising.
When you post stories of your room type or service, it can give direct insights into your hotel to the target market.
This is hugely advantageous to your brand.
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