Encompassing hotels, event planning, theme parks, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars, the global hospitality market is expected to reach $5.8 trillion by 2027. This article explores how hospitality businesses can grab engagement, fend off the big players, attract guests, and ultimately increase bookings using social proof.
Key Marketing Challenges for the Hospitality Industry
Reputation management
Maintaining a positive online reputation is a huge challenge faced by the hospitality sector. With customers now quick to review on TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Google Reviews, Booking.Com and Facebook, hospitality brand may struggle to control the narrative.
85% of users trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 56% of people choose businesses that respond to reviews.
Time/budget constraints
Big hospitality brands like Booking.Com or The Hilton have teams of marketers dedicated to collating data and planning and implementing marketing campaigns. Smaller hospitality businesses can become overwhelmed with juggling digital marketing alongside their day-to-day responsibilities. For many family-run small businesses, marketing efforts take a back seat.
Everchanging
The hospitality sector is fiercely competitive and continually changing. That makes it essential for hospitality brands to stay ahead on marketing techniques and social media trends to remain ahead of the competition. Popular channels for hospitality include Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, with marketers vying for follows and engagement.
SEO
For hospitality businesses, SEO challenges include maintaining high local map rankings, fending off SEO optimized competitors, maintaining an optimized Google Business profile and consistently creating SEO savvy content and social media posts. In terms of budget, small businesses are often swallowed by hospitality giants. Bookings’ marketing expenses increased by 7.5% in 2024 amounting to almost 7.3 billion U.S. dollars!
What Is Social Proof?
One surefire way to improve your online reputation, fend off stiff competition, and raise your SEO ranking (all within budget), is with social proof. But what exactly is that and how can it help businesses in the hospitality sector?
Social proof is the psychological experience where people look to the actions and opinions of others to guide their own behavior.
How it works
In the hospitality sector, social proof plays a crucial role in influencing customer decisions through positive reviews, testimonials, and ratings. Social proof also includes user-generated content on social media like influencer endorsements, positive posts, and tagged photos.
All this is great news for restaurants, hotels and other hospitality brands who need to increase bookings, customer loyalty, and overall business growth. Book a free Agorapulse demo and start harnessing your brand’s social proof.
How to Leverage Your Social Media to Create Social Proof
So now we understand the marketing challenges faced in the hospitality sector, how can we create social proof to solve them? Let’s dive into some action points and examples to inspire you.
1. Encourage user-generated content (UGC) on social media
Guests trust content from real customers more than branded ads. This is something we consistently say at Contentworks Agency. So how do you get your happy guests to generate more business on social media?
UGC ideas
- One effective way to harness the power of user-generated content in your social media marketing is to create a branded hashtag. You can then offer promotions to patrons using your hashtag when sharing images and videos about your business. Examples might be #MyHotelStayRadisson #TropicanaRoomWithAView or #StarbucksVibes.
- You can run a contest where the best guest photo/video wins a prize. In my experience it’s better if you choose the winner to avoid bot manipulated votes! When you award the prize, be sure to confirm that you will use the photo in future marketing campaigns.
- Always share guest posts with proper credits. If a guest has tagged you in a post that isn’t on your channel, reach out to them to ask permission before using the image.
- Turn positive reviews into designed quote graphics or videos for social media. Check out how the Mercure Larnaka Beach Resort does this successfully in their social media posts:
Check out how bar and restaurant Lithos Grill embraces user generated content in their Facebook posts:
This post ticks all the boxes for social proof, user engagement and incentivizing and rewarding top fans.
Remember to monitor mentions on social media using Agorapulse. You can monitor mentions, keywords and hashtags and get notified in your dashboard without having to trawl all your platforms! You can also analyze sentiment, volume, and engagement for your hospitality business.
2. Leverage influencers and brand ambassadors
Leveraging influencers and brand ambassadors is an important element of social proof in hospitality as their endorsements act as trusted recommendations for their followers. Their content helps brands reach a broader audience than they could otherwise reach and showcases real guest experiences. Collaborating with brand ambassadors also fosters long-term relationships, ensuring consistent promotion and brand loyalty.
Ultimately, influencer marketing drives bookings, enhances reputation, and keeps hospitality brands competitive in the digital landscape.
Ideas for reaching out to social media influencers
- Take your time to research and find influencers that align with your target audience. Choosing a well-followed Australian Instagram model probably won’t align with your burger bar in London, for example.
- Prioritize authenticity. Micro influencers have a following of 5,000 to 50,000 and often have higher engagement rates than celebrities. They also tend to specialise in a niche and will be more willing to engage with you and their fans. As an added win they will be cheaper to work with and you could offer a free hotel stay or dining experience in exchange for social media exposure.
- Ask for photos from well-known guests or diners! You might just land yourself a great social media photo opportunity like Radisson Blu Hotel did here:
- If you are paying an influencer to work with you, be sure to draw up a powerful contract that protects your interests. I’ve written about that over here.
- Consider an influencer affiliate program where ambassadors can receive compensation for leads generated through their marketing efforts.
- Don’t micromanage your influencers too much. Let them document their experience in a style that works for them and their followers. For example, some prefer Instagram Stories while others have well-followed YouTube channels.
- Request honest, organic reviews rather than scripted promotions. This will resonate better with real viewers who love refreshingly honest posts.
One of my YouTube faves is HannahRicketts, a London based vlogger who showcases real shopping and eating experiences in London. Her refreshing honesty, enthusiasm, and London knowledge makes her a perfect fit for hospitality brands. She has 304K subscribers and engages with fans making her an authentic choice.
Tip: Agorapulse will identify your social media brand ambassadors for you by picking up mentions, positive sentiment, and brand interaction. Then all you need to do is reach out to them!
3. Showcasing customer reviews and testimonials
A total of 93% of travellers say online reviews impact their booking decisions and this can be a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, it’s essential to get your guest experience on-point to get those great reviews in the first place, but let’s assume you’ve done that. How do you get those great reviews noticed by other potential customers?
Ideas for showcasing customer reviews
- Identify where your hospitality business is being reviewed. This could be Google, TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, Facebook, or Yelp. Make it part of your marketing tasks to respond at least once a week.
- Don’t discount LinkedIn just because it’s B2B. Highlight partnerships with travel brands, airlines, or tourism boards to establish credibility in your space.
- Read reviews, absorb feedback and respond politely. I’ve seen replies where the hotel manager or restaurant owner has gone rogue and abused reviewers. However tempting that might be, don’t do it. Potential customers will see your responses and want to avoid you entirely.
Cynthiana Beach Hotel prioritizes guest experiences both at the hotel and through online reviews. All reviews from hotel manager Andreas Ioannou are personalized and instil loyalty in the hotels’ many repeat guests.
- Share positive reviews styled as Instagram Stories and pinned highlights. You can also incorporate them into short TikTok videos showcasing the happiness your customers experienced with you.
- Create posts for your Facebook or Instagram page showcasing happy customer reviews along with their photos or posts. You can style these as Carousel posts in your Facebook or Instagram ads too!
I love the way @thecaketemple has done this with a review from one of their brides. All the boxes are ticked here from the great image, glowing reviews, venue tag and hashtags.
TIP: You can schedule your social media posts including Instagram Reels and Stories from your Agorapulse dashboard. While you might only create a static post once, you can repeat it on your Stories, Reels or X every few months.
4. Creating FOMO through social media
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is highly effective on social media because it plays on psychological triggers like social validation, exclusivity, and urgency. Things most people want whether they realize it or not. Limited time offers, flash sales, live events, last minute opportunities, or friends enjoying experiences further fuels the fear of being left out.
In the hospitality sector this can be powerful. If you see a photo of your friend at a restaurant enjoying a slice of pizza, you might start thinking about ordering pizza. When a friend shares a video of an incredible hotel they’re staying at, don’t you sometimes click the hotel tag to check it out? I know I do!
Ideas for creating FOMO on social media
- Exclusive limited-time offers like “Only 5 spots left for our VIP sunset dinner—book now before it’s gone!”
- Share flash sales on room upgrades or experiences for followers who book within 24 hours. Using disappearing limited time social media methods like Stories will add to the temporary nature of this promotion. Add a countdown to really ramp up the FOMO!
- Repost stunning guest photos with captions like, “Wish you were here?” This encourages engagement but also sparks that green eyed monster in all of us.
- Give your followers a sneak peek at a new suite, spa, or menu before it officially launches. This will boost their loyalty to your brand and inspire them to book ahead of the rest. You could also offer exclusive discounts or early access for followers.
- Stream live from pool parties, wine tastings, or special chef’s table dinners. Doing this will provide an immersive experience for your fans who will visualize themselves there. Maybe next time they can be…
- Highlight how quickly a special event or weekend package sold out. Perhaps your fans are on the fence or waiting to book with you. This will give them the push they need to do it now!
Share funny Reels and Memes like San Pedro burgers. This Reel encouraging followers to break their diet is fun, spontaneous and cheeky. It makes us feel like we can join in with the fun too!
5. Post, listen, measure, monitor, and report with Agorapulse
Creating social proof in the hospitality sector is a lot easier if you have the right tools to help you do it. This is especially true if you’re a small or mid sized hospitality business without billions to spend on a marketing team or outsourced agencies. Agorapulse is the swiss army knife of social media tools because it allows you to post, listen, measure, monitor and report all in the same place!
- Schedule posts: With your Agorapulse calendar you can plan your hospitality content and campaigns by scheduling posts weeks or months ahead.
- Track engagement: Track Likes, shares, comments, and saves on social proof posts.
- Reply to posts: Reply in real time via the Agorapulse mobile app or desktop platform.
- Monitor conversions: Observe comments, mentions, bookings and inquiries from social media campaigns.
- Manage UGC growth: Watch the increase in guest posts using your branded hashtag and answer in real time.
- Utilize sentiment analysis: Monitor the tone of comments and mentions surrounding your brand.
- Report on your platforms: Share your social media progress, top posts, ambassadors and ROI with colorful meaningful reports.
Social proof is crucial in hospitality as it builds trust, influences booking decisions, and creates FOMO by showcasing real guest experiences.
Ready to create social proof for your hospitality business? Schedule a free demo with Agorapulse and let the team show you some industry tips and tricks.
