In the current day digital arena, influencers are seen to be a cost-effective and powerful medium for disseminating word about businesses, hotel groups, and brands. We would like to reveal some of these benefits of influencers and mention key points on who they really are, how to locate them and ways to mobilize them to help promote your business or hotel brand.
Particularly, influencers are individuals that post content online and their actions have the power to influence the decisions, impressions, & behavior of a large number of people. Influencers have power, and posting a negative or positive remark or a mix of both – can make or damage a personality or brand.
In clear view, influencers are generally not linked to the products or brands they endorse, neither are they specifically loyal to such brand or service. The relationship with influencers is more like that of transactional or short termed. They are usually paid for endorsing a particular item or brand and as a result of this – can help boost your business due to their huge audience size and direct influence on them.
It is quite a challenge, on the other hand, to find influencers – particularly if you do not yet have a close relationship with them. Influencers come from diverse walks of life and this comprises bloggers, journalists, vloggers, photographers, celebs, social media influencers, and other high profile folks that have huge followings.
Influencers can be found on popular social media platforms, travel websites & blogs, fashion and luxury websites, and several other media channels.
As a hotel owner or manager, you can select from a wide range of campaigns to reach out to influencers. Some of these comprise:
Trip organizing: You can host and provide complimentary stay at your hotel for a group of media influencers. This is to help make them get acquainted with your hotel. You can do this really big by partnering with local restaurants, airline, and other providers to offer complimentary flights, meals, etc.
Influencer outreach: You can reach out to bloggers, photographers, among other related influencers and offer them an invitation to come stay at your hotel. You can also ask them to come join you for drinks or hosted dinner in return for writing and posting about their experience at your place.
Organizing Contests: Considering contest can be a fantastic approach for encouraging individuals to post and share content about your business or hotel. This can help transform influencers and social media enthusiasts into advocates. You can spice up such contest with an enticing package offer. Ensure you make sharing mandatory and a condition for entering the contest. Do this creatively and see how the news for your brand will spread wide!
Event Hosting: You can host an event for special interest groups in your community. This can include local media experts, social media influencers from professional niches, and other high profile individuals. At such event, you can encourage the participants to post social media live updates.
Influencer Engagement: You can also visit your preferred influencers via their various hot social media channels and follow them. You can as well share and comment on their vital posts so as to earn their attention and appreciation.
Twitter chats: Connect with travel related Twitter influencers and engage with chats in your niche. This can help attract the attention of influencers and also to know & learn about the subjects they like. You can use the following popular travel chats such as #GirlsChat, #TWChats, #TravelSkills, and #TTOT. Also – you can consider using the following popular travel hashtags in your communication at Twitter & Instagram: #luxurytravel, #travel, #tourism, #hotels, #solotravel, #travelwriter, #getaway, and #travelphotography.
Offering Incentive: If you have a good budget – you can pay influencers – cash or other forms of incentives so as to help spread the word about your hotel and business!
As a manager or hotel owner, you have to strive to manage your influencer campaigns and also make certain that they deliver on agreed promises. You can use Google Analytics & other social media analytics tools to measure the outcomes of influencer campaigns so as to assess the success of your effort. Consider the following metrics when checking this out: traffic, views, shares, likes, comments, leads, and bookings, etc.
With the high cost of advertisement and digital marketing for businesses, you can make the most out of using influencers to help promote your hotel business as recommended above.