Instagram & Hotels 2014

Examples of great and poor marketing, using pictures and video

A chinese proverb says the following:

A picture is worth a thousand words

Searching some #words on Instagram that are very popular destinations in Greece, with thousands of tourists visiting them every year, shows these results:

#santorini: 647.348 photos
#mykonos: 534.317 photos
#kefalonia: 68.642 photos

Combining these facts, there is no excuse for hoteliers in Greece (this applies in every country too) for not “playing the game” of Instagram.

When I say “playing the game” I don’t mean just the creation of a profile with a bunch of pics, #some #hashtags and then hoping people will double tap them and with a magic spell, reservations will hit a record high.

That’s not gonna happen.

I mean a social approach that has as main objective the hotel’s communication with people, giving them valuable content, within the context of this medium. Photos and mobile is deep in the DNA of Instagram, making it an ideal tool for those who travel or are on vacation and want to share moments with their friends and the world.

Numbers don’t lie. That’s exactly what 200+ million users do. They share photos.

A Mykonos hotel will be out of business in 2 years if they think that searching on Instagram every day about #their_name and words like #mykonos, #mykonos2014, #mykonosisland and #mykonostown is something unnecessary.

8.000 likes and 1.000 comments every second is a lot of data for a top tourist destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of people every summer.

Right content for your hotel’s instaprofile is:

• Photos of the rooms and other spaces that highlight their character
• Videos and photos of the finest dishes from the restaurant and the stages of preparing them #foodporn
• 15" video of making a nice cocktail in the bar and info about it
• Photos of POI (points of interest) and related activities (beaches, swimming, windsurfing, other sights)
• Behind the scenes content with the staff (reception, restaurant, bar, pool) showing the human aspect of the hotel
• Photos from the past #tbt, #throwbackthursday

Using more than 6-7 hashtags and autopost in Facebook and Twitter should be avoided, but geotagging is critical for the user to see the exact position of the content shown.

Igers love exclusive content and businesses should understand and pay attention to the context and the psychology of Instagram. The quality of the photos is more than obvious that should be high and posting should be consistent.

The most important factor of getting the most out of Instagram is the way you communicate with people. Instagram profile should not be used as another distribution channel. Being social is 100% the best way to succeed.

• If someone asks something, you answer
• If someone says good things about your services, you say “thank you”
• If someone says bad things about your services, you say “sorry” and you try to fix things

Iconic Santorini Hotel posted a beautiful picture with a great view, but there are two mistakes.

First of all, there are no #hashtags. If someone searches about Santorini, there is no way that this pic will show up. #santorini, #santoriniisland, #summer2013, #view, #besthotel etc are some tags that can be used.

There is a link to the hotel’s website, BUT it’s not clickable. The only place that a link is clickable is in the description of the profile.

San Giorgio Mykonos Hotel “forgot” to add more pics after the end of summer. Also, following 0 or only a couple of people is bad. It shows that you don’t care about your followers. I am not saying 1/1 ratio is necessary, but following back and caring isn’t bad at all.

Gary Vaynerchuck says that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. What matters is how many of them do actually care about you.

Engaging with them, liking and commenting on their pics is a good thing!

White Rocks Hotel in Kefalonia Island uses social media in a non-social way.

In the first pic, nobody answered to the girl saying that she will visit the hotel in 2 months. In the second pic, someone wrote a comment saying that this pic is awesome and the answer was a bunch of hashtags…

Nobody said “THANKS” as someone would do in real life!

Belvedere Hotel in Mykonos shows that understands the context of Instagram and respect the psychology of the users.

They posted an old photo of their hotel using the right hashtags (#tbt, #throwbackthursday). They respect this Thursday habit, as million of Igers do.

Humanizing your business in the tourist industry is one of the factors that matters the most. Hotel staff interact with people everyday and this is reflected in the second photo.

Even a wink is an acceptable answer in a comment. These 4-5 seconds that you will spend for writing lol or ;) have great value.

After all, Istagram is a social media. SOCIAL media!

Long story short, I believe you should focus on these 3 key points:

• Cool, original and exclusive content with consistency
• Be imaginative, social and don’t be afraid to say “thank you” and “sorry”
• Treat social media as something necessary for your marketing strategy

After all, dear hotelier, I don’t think you love giving your commission to Booking.com.

Think Big, Think Social