Whether or not your hotel is facing a re-opening soon, now is a good time to evaluate your Instagram account. After all, this is where many of your potential guests are hanging out, so make it worth their while!
Taking a look at your hotel’s performance on social media – in this case, Instagram – will save you a lot of time and energy in the long run. That’s why I have created this resource: “A quick Instagram Audit for Hoteliers”, which will help you detect flaws and errors so you can get ahead of the curve. Want to know more?
Let’s dive in.
Before making an Instagram audit for your hotel, ask yourself why you’re actually using this platform. What’s your overall goal here? Is it to create engagement around your brand and location – and to create brand awareness? Is it to increase occupancy rates and get more direct bookings?
Take a look at your KPI’s (and if you don’t have any, make sure to create some!) KPI’s (key performance indicators) demonstrate how effectively you’re achieving your business objectives. These can e.g. be:
- Follower growth
- Level of engagement
- Amount of DM’s
- Amount of direct bookings
- Re-direction from Instagram to your hotel’s website
Once you know what matters most to you, you’ll be able to nail down your KPI’s – and then you can start your audit. Without having any clear objectives, how would you know what to audit..? You know what they say; “A goal without a plan is just a wish”.
1. Check your media library and content quality
Some hotels have all their content (images, videos etc.) sorted into organized folders. Others, not so much. But one thing’s for sure; the more structure and overview you have of all your content, for example for Instagram, the easier it’ll be to navigate and create something of quality. And quality is the goal here.
Use Dropbox or Google Drive to organize everything – like this, it’s also easier for you to share it with someone else in your team if need be. Once you have a clear overview of your media library, it’s time to be real about the quality. Are you only using high resolution images? Are your videos equally clear and shot from a good angle? Anything mis-coloured, blurry or low resolution must go. Simple as that. Your account aesthetics and overall credibility is at stake here. If you’re not satisfied with what you see, invest in a photographer and/or an agency to help you create that stunning content that will make people hit ‘book’ instead of ‘like’.
2. Evaluate your content relevance
In order to evaluate your content relevance, you must know who you’re targeting. Who are they people you’re trying to communicate with on Instagram? Or in other words; who’s your ideal customer?
Once you know that, you know whether or not your content resonates with your followers. Are you missing out on likes and comments? Perhaps that’s because your content doesn’t truly speak to them.
Let me give you an example: If your ideal customer is a female in her 30s who loves the outdoors, yoga and healthy food, you should create more content around this. Every second of your Instagram posts could for example tap into your hotel’s location close to nature and what guests can do there in their free time (sailing, paragliding, whatever). And every third post could for example be about food – both the deliciously healthy food made at your your hotel, but also highlighting local producers and their offers etc. You get the point, right?
If you have an Instagram Business Profile (which you should if you’re a hotel), you can easily identify your best and most-liked Instagram photos. They should give you a hint of what works for you. To access them, do the following:
- Click the three lines in the upper-righthand corner and check out your “Insights”
- The “Content” tab allows you to filter your top-ranking posts by metrics including impressions, reach, engagement etc.
3. Examine your posting frequency
Timing is everything on social media, but I’m sure you know that. Whether you’re posting too much or too little (or on the right time), it’ll affect your overall results.
You want to hit the sweet spot.
Some say that Wednesdays at 11AM and Fridays at 10AM are the best times to post, but only you know your exact audience. This also depends on location.
I’d suggest you spend a little time diving into your Instagram analytics to get a better understanding of what works for you. You may not get instant results after changing your posting schedule, but within a week or so, you should see better results.
4. Use the right hashtags
Without going too much into the famous algorithm talk, using the right hashtags in your posts is crucial. They simply make your content more discoverable. I suggest you do the following:
- Analyse your competitors (what are other hotels in your niche doing? What posts are they succeeding best with – and what hashtags are connected to these specific posts?)
- Avoid using over-exposed hashtags. A hashtag like #luxuryhotels has already been used 1,4 million times before, so you might want to opt for something a little more original. If you’re located by the sea, try using a tag like #beachhotel, which only has about 17k shares. The key is to use hashtags that aren’t too popular, as people should be able to find you in there. If you’re operating in a specific language (like Dutch or Danish), getting the right hashtags obviously becomes easier as these are much smaller markets.
- Add up to 30 hashtags in posts and up to 10 in stories.
5. Clean out fake followers.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the term ‘fake follower’ – and if you haven’t, pay attention here. Cause such bots can harm your profile and potentially decrease your visibility. Whether you like it or not, your profile could be infected with fake followers, and it often means that the number of followers you have doesn’t match your engagement rate. Use a free audit tool like this one to check your account for fake followers and remove each account manually.
6. Create a mood.
For a branding girl like me, this is like a trip to the candy store, but not everyone feels that way – and I get that. The purpose of a hotel’s Instagram account – or one of them, at least – should always be to feed your followers with dreams and inspiration. Take them on a journey through your property and make them want to travel and visit. In other words; create a mood. Now, this mood depends on your specific property and what you’re communication. Download my e-book Storytelling for Hotels if you’d like to know more about how to find your hotel’s unique brand voice – and how to use it on social media.
Let me know if you have any questions on how to create an audit of your hotel’s Instagram account. As always, you can reach me via email for inquiries, collaboration requests etc.
