Even though each social media platform is unique in a number of ways, there are a lot of similarities they all share, too: A few trends are visible across the board in the social media world, and this month we’ve seen features that are focused on improved integration and making more information available to both marketers and users alike.
Let’s take a look at each update and how they’ll affect hotels and resorts.
Instagram Releases Ability to Share IGTV Previews in Stories
Instagram has been linked to their stand-alone app IGTV since it launched in June, which features long-form video content. Now, users can share their favorite IGTV videos to their Stories, which will generate a short preview. If your Stories’ followers click on the preview, they’ll be taken to the full IGTV video.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
Hotels and resorts have a lot of great opportunities to turn their IGTV channel into their own mini Travel Channel, and now you can send your Instagram followers directly to more long-form content. Stories are a popular feature and using them to leverage your followers to send them to the content you most want them to see can get you more views on your video content.
Stories Ads Have Come to Facebook
Facebook now has access to the same Story Ads that have been available on Instagram for awhile now. When you’re creating your ad campaigns, you can enable Facebook Story Ads just as you would with Instagram Ads, and utilize the same features like CTAs, links to your site, and detailed reporting. This is all available through the Facebook Ad Manager.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
Airbnb was one of the first brands that tested Instagram Story Ads when they were first created, and they saw incredible results from the campaigns. This included a 13-point lift in ad recall and a 5-point lift in association of Airbnb enabling travelers to book experiences in the 25-34 year old demographic.
Story Ads can be an effective way to target potential guests in that demographic, so use them to showcase everything your resort has to offer and get clicks to your site.
Google Campaign Manager Has LinkedIn Attribution Reporting
Google’s Campaign Manager now has an integration with LinkedIn Adsthat allows you to better see how your LinkedIn Ads are performing, both individually in detail and compared to other PPC platforms. This will make it easier for your LinkedIn Ads to get the attribution for conversions that they deserve and have a better understanding of how your campaigns are performing.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
If you’re running LinkedIn Ads in order to attract guests to stay or hold events at your hotel, this is something to look into. Attribution can be tricky with PPC platforms, especially when people aren’t likely to convert right away for something that requires planning like a conference or a trip. Gaining more insight into how your ads on each platform are actually bringing you customers will help you better allocate your ad spend moving forward.
Pinterest Following Tab Feed Gets A New Look
Pinterest has updated their Following tab, which allows users to see content only from the people and boards they’ve chosen to follow. This tab has just gotten a redesign, and now will feature an “immersive” single-Pin format on mobile, showing users singular pins one at a time in order to help them focus on what they’re seeing and quickly scan from idea to idea.
Image source: Pinterest
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
The idea behind the redesign is that people are more likely to be interested in the content that they’ve chosen to follow, so helping them to focus on mobile by showing them one pin at a time like an Instagram feed will help you connect with potential guests following you on Pinterest. Getting that kind of attention will increase the likelihood of clicks and results, making the platform more valuable.
Hospitality Social Media News is brought to you by Lodging Interactive, a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement and reputation management agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, LodgingInteractive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas. For more information:
About Lodging Interactive
Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Lodging Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement and reputation management agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, Lodging Interactive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas.
CoMMingle has established itself as the largest provider of reputation management services for the hospitality industry, handling over 200,000 guest review responses. The company also offers fully managed Live Chat agents for hotel websites through its LiveChatForHotels.com division.
Lodging Interactive is an HSMAI Adrian Award winner and has won awards from the International Academy of Visual Arts, Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, Web Marketing Association, Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, and Travel Weekly’s Magellan Awards have recognized Lodging Interactive as an industry leader.
Lodging Interactive is a proud supporter of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the company’s president, DJ Vallauri, currently serves on the Board of Directors of HSMAI’s New York Chapter and is a Forbes.com Agency Council contributor. For more information, please contact sales@lodginginteractive.com, 877-291-4411 or visit the company’s website.
