Leverage Facebook for Hotels

Using a personal Facebook account is very different from curating a professional business page. Here are some ways of optimizing your hotel’s Facebook page to use its features to your advantage as part of your hotel social media strategy.

The first step is setting up the business page and filling out as much correct information as possible, like the address, the right website, and adding a few photos of the hotel. Once you have optimized your Facebook page, you can go one step further and add custom tabs. These tabs will show up on the left side of the profile under the profile picture. These tabs can be divided into sections that show something specific to your hotel. You can pull reviews and display them on one tab or have a booking widget that shows vacancy at your hotel on another. After you are happy with your page, you’ll have to create content.

With social media, one must consistently create content to show up on search results since these usually only pull the latest, best-performing posts. If you don’t create content, you might as well count yourself out of the running for gaining bookings through Facebook. The posts you share with your audience should follow the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your content is social, and 20% of your content is self-promotion. Although this might seem counter-intuitive, it’s helpful to recognize that Facebook is a social platform, and users seek interesting content that they enjoy reading and can share with their friends. Users do not want to be bombarded with ads, and a “sales-ey” post is just that. So when you make a call-to-action like, “book now,” or “call today,” make sure that you have set up your customers to see the value of your hotel through these social posts.

Other aspects of great Facebook posts are eye-catching hotel photos with short captions, emoji use, mentions, and hashtags. All of these elements have been proven to increase the visibility or engagement of posts. But it’s not just about the content. You also have to look at Facebook Insights to make sure you are reaching your audience by posting at the right time. Make sure to post at the times when most of your followers are online, as this will lead to a broader reach.

One reasonably new Facebook feature that is widely underused is Facebook Live. The ability to stream live video not only allows you to show what is happening at your hotel, but it also notifies your followers when you have gone live. This is the perfect opportunity to showcase events or conferences taking place in your meeting spaces. Just a quick video of the guest or setup is enough to get Facebook users curious about your event space.

Last but not least, you have to optimize. It cannot be stressed enough that analyzing your strategy and tailoring it can work wonders for your Facebook engagement. Set goals for yourself and follow through. If your plan isn’t producing the results you want, why is that? Is there anything you can test to see if it outperforms your current strategy? How about testing something like a photo with a different caption? Instead of making a statement, try asking a question to invite users to engage with the posts. Optimize, repeat.

Overall, it can be overwhelming to think that what lives on the internet will always stay up online, but you can make it count. Showcase the best of your hotel by staying true to your brand and maintaining your audience in mind when creating content. Use all of these tips to optimize your hotel’s Facebook and remember to analyze and optimize.