The Secret Power of Instagram Stories in the Hospitality Industry
January, 7th, 2020
By Mandy Lutman
The hospitality industry can benefit from Instagram stories the most as it is the perfect opportunity to connect visuals with the art of storytelling. In return, when combined with the right influencer marketing strategy, this can increase brand awareness, produce emotional content, and allow the users to interact with your account on a personal level. And ultimately, of course, it leads to direct conversions and bookings of your special offers, suites, rooms, and anything else your hotel might advertise to its guests.
Don’t take our word for it – Check out these IG story statistics!
Active users: more than 500 million [source: embedsocial.com]
Traffic: 46% of all IG content comes from stories [source: Social Bakers]
Business account posting frequency: as many as the business wants [source: Later]
Influential power: 1 in 3 viewers have been interested in a product after seeing it on an IG story [source: mediakix.com]
So it’s pretty clear that Instagram stories are extremely important in every marketing strategy, right? It’s time to step up your strategy!
The three I’s of Instagram stories in the hospitality & travel industry
- Inform
Providing useful information to influence your followers to book their next holiday should be essential to your Instagram story strategy. Instagram stories allow you to easily present engaging information to your users quickly and efficiently as each story is only 15 seconds long before it moves to the next.
Don’t forget to incorporate the elements of storytelling into your informative content. Combine fun and historical facts about the area of your hotel with conversational and relatable language – it’ll help the user imagine themselves visiting the destination, which is exactly what will then influence their travel choices.
- Inspire
Wanderlust. For many, traveling is an escape. It’s a chance to get out of their 9-5 lifestyle and enrich life with new cultures, adventures, and food. Let your Instagram stories become their resource of travel inspiration when it comes to planning that next escape.
Posting stunning landscape images or videos showing the most impressive parts of your hotel can easily inspire your followers to think about their next trip. If you can’t produce your own photos or have the budget to do so, you can collaborate with influencers and reward their travels by reposting their content. This can also turn into a long-term collaboration where the influencer continuously works on producing Instagram story content with your brand.
- Interact
In a world of Instagram automation, it’s important to stand out with genuine reactions and comments that build lasting relationships. By interacting with your followers through polls and the question feature, you are establishing connections and making your brand more accessible and genuine.
These interactive relationships are not only extremely important to consumers – but they will also bring even more customers to your brand as it will make it stand out from the crowd.
Maximise the power of Instagram stories with Influencers
The 2019 Rakuten Marketing report states that 65% of consumers follow their preferred influencers on Instagram. This, combined with the media kit’s statistic which states that one in three users express interest in a product after seeing it on an IG story, presents a wonderful opportunity for hotel brands to join in on the hype.
But working with travel influencers isn’t as easy as marketers tend to think – it’s, in fact, a full-time job! Along with constant communication, brands should be careful when it comes to choosing the right type of influencers to represent their hotel. On top of that, it is extremely important to check that the influencer can bring real results and can, in fact, influence their following when it comes to purchasing decisions.
The objective behind every IG story influencer marketing campaign should always be to deliver an authentic message the influencer’s target audience should relate to. The brand should work together with the influencer to make sure these key points are communicated at all times. With the right experience and influencer management, this can definitely increase direct bookings and bring even more exposure to your hotel.
InfluencerMarketingHub reports that 36% of surveyed businesses claim their biggest challenge is finding the right influencers.
77agency works closely with the hospitality industry on social media marketing campaigns, including influencer marketing on Instagram stories. If you’re looking to learn more about how influencer marketing can skyrocket your sales and boost your IG stories metrics, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
