The most important thing to understand before you begin formulating content for social is something you should know fairly well already: your audience. Fortunately, social channels allow you to get to know your audience better through monitoring organic and paid insights. Social channels also allow you to monitor your competitors, which is a great way to get inspired for social content or to see how their fans are reacting to their content. We at Blue Magnet are happy to analyze the competition for you, but first, let us discover what content works best across social channels and why.
There are three basic types of content: text, image, and video. A text post works for link sharing or making a short announcement. An image post is best for highlighting your property and its surrounding area. A video post is best for sharing wonderful views or special events. Your social strategy should include a mix of the three, ensuring you are best showcasing your property.
Still with us? With so many ways to share content, it is of course best to keep it varied across channels. However, the same post on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can still be successful if you do not have the time to dedicate to each channel. Of course, if you need help, the social media wizards at Blue Magnet are here for you!
Let’s take a look at how the below post performed across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The Best Facebook Content
As mentioned earlier, you must know your audience for your social content to perform well. Fortunately, Facebook has fairly robust insights! You can view almost any insight you could imagine – from which cities your fans are from to what time of day your posts are most successful.
When creating your exciting new Facebook content, 20% of your posts should focus on your property (special offers, images of guest rooms, your on-site restaurant, etc). The remaining 80% of content should be useful and interesting area attractions, events, or seasonal content, so your social channels serve as a mobile concierge of sorts. What questions are your guests always asking? What is the main reason people are staying at your hotel? Who has the best cup of coffee or pint of beer in town? You know the answers, and your audience is waiting to hear them.
Once you have posted your riveting social content on Facebook and are reviewing your analytics, it is important to understand that the best Facebook content does not mean the posts with the highest reach. If a post reaches 2,100 people, but nobody comments or likes, then there is an opportunity for you to improve. Engagement is valued over reach because it shows clearly how many people are interacting with your content, as opposed to how many people are seeing your content. So give your audience an incentive to engage! Sharing a post about your hotel’s involvement in the community, for example, is a wonderful way to connect with your audience and local businesses alike!
The Best Twitter Content
With Facebook under your belt, Twitter is the obvious next notch. Knowing your Twitter followers is just as important as it is with Facebook, and Twitter Analytics is a wonderful tool for getting to know your followers. With Twitter, you can view which states and countries your followers are from, along with their interests, age, and gender. Being able to view your followers’ interests is a benefit you will not see on Facebook, and knowing what your audience is interested in can guide you to the types of events and attractions to post about.
You should keep the same ratio of posts about your property versus your surrounding area, but with Twitter, you should also be retweeting relevant content to your timeline. Engaging with relevant content draws more people to your page, and monitoring your timeline for posts worthy of a retweet will put into perspective what is new and trending in the area. For example, if the convention and visitors bureau is tweeting about a brand new exhibit at the local museum, that is good content for you to be sharing as well!
Additionally, hashtags can make or break your content. Adding a few (two to three at most) hashtags to your tweet can significantly boost the engagement, especially if the hashtags are related to a special event or holiday. For example, the Boysenberry Festival at Knott’s Berry Farm is an annual event that draws a lot of attention on social media. Utilizing the hashtag #BoysenberryFestival in a tweet earned great engagement for one of our clients!
The Best Instagram Content
With Facebook and Twitter mastered, you are ready for one of the most fun, yet most difficult, platforms to perfect – Instagram. You want to showcase what is happening right now using your best quality images. With Instagram, you can get to know your audience by running an ad and seeing what users respond best to, you can look at photos guests are tagging at your property, and you can look at what popular accounts in the area are posting about. For example, it is wise to follow local bloggers who have a large following to see not only what they are posting, but also how their following is responding.
Use those gorgeous photos of your hotel your guests are geo-tagging! This not only encourages engagement from guests that have stayed with you previously, but it also encourages future guests to post about their stay. In any case, be sure to tag whoever/whatever you are posting about if they are on Instagram and be sure to keep up with Instagram’s constant updates.
Just like with Twitter, once you know your audience, using hashtags to draw engagement is the best way to help your content shine. You followed those popular local bloggers, right? See what hashtags they utilize in their posts or what hashtags the local convention and visitors bureau is using and cultivate which hashtags you believe will benefit you most. Test different hashtags out – the great thing about Instagram is you can use up to thirty hashtags at once, so there is plenty of room to experiment and discover what works best for your property!
So What Is The Best Content?
At the end of the day, the best content is not just what sees the highest reach. The best content stems from taking the time to know your audience and showing users you understand what type of posts or tweets they want to see. A strong presence on social media combined with presenting your hotel’s strengths and your existing knowledge of the local area is how you can achieve relevant, engaging content. What do you see performing best on social media? Let us know your insights, and let us help you stay ahead of the social media curve!
