With the festive season upon us, we’re entering the busiest time of the year for most hospitality businesses. Whether you’re a cocktail bar, fine-dining restaurant, or a luxury hotel, you’re likely wanting to capitalise on this demand while you can. Hospitality social media campaigns are the perfect way to do this!
In this blog, we discuss the importance of a social media strategy for hospitality brands – especially around this time of year – and our experts share some campaign ideas to get you started. If you’re feeling a little out of your depth, however, our team are always here to help!
Looking for social media support but don’t have time to read this blog in full? Why not drop us a message instead? Click here to get in touch.
Why Social Media is a Game Changer
The benefits of social media reach much farther than just visibility. In actual fact, there are lots of positive’s that businesses gain from dedicating time to both strategy and hospitality social media campaigns. Let’s break a few of these down…
- Social Proof. If people are commenting on your posts saying they enjoyed their stay or are complimenting your festive menu, this creates social proof and bolsters your brands credibility. This will instil confidence in anyone new who stumbles across your brand, encouraging them to visit.
- Improved Customer Service. Many brands are using platforms like Instagram and Facebook to improve their customer service. Opening up the lines of communication via DM and the comment section makes it easy for people to get in touch quickly and conveniently. This will ultimately lead to more bookings.
- Cost Effective Marketing. Unlike paid advertising, running a social media campaign involves little to no cost. You can either manage your channels yourself, or invest in social media specialists, like VerriBerri. Either way, this technique is far more cost-effective than some others.
- Visual Appeal. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are very visual. For restaurants in particular, this can help seal the deal when your audience are choosing between locations for their next meal out.
Choosing the Right Platforms
Where lots of businesses go wrong is in thinking they need to be everywhere. In fact, it’s best to put your efforts into marketing where your audience are. Don’t waste time speaking about your upcoming festive afternoon tea on LinkedIn. We know it’s exciting but, the likelihood is, people won’t be in the right head space to absorb the information during their workday. Instead, your strategy is best focussed on the likes of Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, which are recreational social media channels.
Depending on the kind of audience you are trying to attract, some of these platforms may be more beneficial than others. It’s for this reason that we always recommend working on a strategy prior to getting started. This will ensure your efforts are aligned with your goals and optimised for maximum effect.
If you’re looking to work alongside a professional to piece together a strategy for your marketing or social media, get in touch! We can be here to help you in any capacity you require, whether that’s just for strategy building or if you need ongoing support thereafter, we’ve got you covered.
3 Campaign Ideas to Get You Started
Struggling with where to start with your hospitality social media campaigns? Here are a couple of ideas from our team to yours!
Festive Promotions & Giveaways
Everyone loves a free drink or promotion, especially around the festive season. With Christmas being such an expensive time, running deals around this time can seriously make you stand out against your competitors. Even better, you could even look at running a giveaway. Whether it’s a free meal, night away, or gift hamper, these types of posts are super engaging and get lots of attention!
User Generated Content
User generated content, often shortened to UGC, is any content that is created by your customers. You may not know they are even creating it, as this can include casual snaps shared on stories. Resharing this to your story or asking their permission to put it on your grid is a great way to get free content and work on your reputation. If you see you’re being tagged in posts or stories, make sure you’re using them within your strategy.
UGC can also be a paid arrangement if you’re looking to partner with influencers or creators. More on this later!
Reviews and Testimonials
As we touched on earlier, social proof is generated via positive comments. This is also true for reviews and testimonials too. This style of posting shouldn’t be overdone, but it also shouldn’t be ignored either. Encourage people to leave reviews for your brand after they visit and turn these into eye-catching visuals!
Alternative Marketing Techniques to Consider
In addition to hospitality social media campaigns, there are also lots of other marketing techniques you can make the most of.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a great tool for boosting your ranking for relevant Google searches. It’s not often that people go much further than the top 5 suggestions, let alone venturing as far as the second page of results. We’re all far too impatient for that. As such, hospitality brands should be putting time into their SEO if they want to be more visible. Click here to read more about how we can help you climb the rankings.
Influencer marketing is another helpful technique for driving footfall to your restaurant, hotel, or entertainment venue. People trust the opinions of their favourite creators and if they see them visiting you, they’re more likely to want to try it out for themselves! We touched on UGC earlier in this blog, and this technique is a great way to ensure everyone is talking about your brand. Click here to read more about how we can help you connect with your audience through influencer marketing.
Lastly, let’s talk email marketing – the technique that often gets overlooked. When running promotions and events, email is a great way to let people know about it! You can also send monthly newsletters to your subscribers to ensure you’re always front of mind when they’re planning their next family meal or holiday!
Our Clients
Our team have been fortunate enough to work with a whole host of hospitality businesses in the local area and further afield. This means we’re well placed to provide support to other brands looking to build their exposure and capitalise on the festive season. Below, we give a brief overview of some of our recent projects and the results we were able to achieve.
Cressing Temple Barns – Wedding Venue and Historical Landmark
Location: Essex, UK
Services: Social Media and Photography
Owned and managed by Essex County Council, Cressing Temple Barns is well-known locally for its history. Approaching VerriBerri, ECC were looking for marketing support to introduce this location as a new wedding venue. Given that it was owned by the council, strict policies and guidelines had to be adhered to within their social media campaigns.
Within eight weeks of working with Cressing Temple Barns, we had been successful in:
- Growing the followers on their Facebook page by a staggering 783%.
- Building their online presence on Instagram, improving their visibility by 654%.
- As a result of our regular posting, we also increased Instagram profile visits by 132%.
- Produced over 1,000 images for Cressing Temple Barns to use within ongoing campaigns.
Meadow – Restaurant
Location: London, UK
Services: PR and Influencer Marketin
Our team were tasked with launching Meadow, a new restaurant in Ealing, London. As part of our strategy, we managed collaborations with local influencers, inviting them to attend Meadow and share their experience with their followers. As PR experts, we were also able to utilise our press connections to invite journalists to attend.
In just a short space of time, we were able to:
- Arrange for 41 influencers to attend Meadow, all producing valuable UGC for the brand.
- Using our strong connections, we were also able to secure high-quality coverage in local publications such as Propel Hospitality, London Unattached, and Ealing Today.
- Of the publications in which we secured coverage for Meadow, one outlet alone had 38,313 unique visitors/readers each month.
World of Spice – Spice Distributor
Location: UK Wide
Services: SEO
World of Spice (WOS) are a spice distributor for the wholesale market. They supply the catering, foodservice, and food manufacturing industry and specialise in high-quality, dehydrated herbs and spices. Approaching VerriBerri, they were looking to drive traffic to their newly launched website and create brand awareness. We would achieve this through a comprehensive SEO strategy.
World of Spice were a long-term client of ours and during our partnership, we were able to garner incredible results through our marketing efforts. We have…
- Increased the number of keywords WOS are ranking for from 160 in April 2021 to 3,000 in January 2023.
- Our top 3 performing blogs have 15.5k page views in the last year – a number that continues to climb.
- In our first month working together, organic SEO was bringing in 416 new users each month. As of January 2023, this technique was generating 4,632 visitors every month. That’s an increase of 167%!
- As a result of our optimised content, overall visibility of the site increased by 26% during our partnership.
Contact Us
Interested in running hospitality social media campaigns that are sure to make this festive season one to remember? Need a little help from our professionals? Get in touch by calling us on 01376 386 850 or click here for our contact form!