Tag: instagram

Your property’s e-reputation on Instagram

e-reputation-instagram
Posted on by Nicolas Audiffren

Hotels have now understood the importance of integrating Instagram to their marketing strategy, whether it be to build their brand or to consolidate their online reputation. Managing one’s online reputation on social media has now become a necessity, as it allows companies to better communicate and exchange with Instagram users, while improving their products and services.

What is the online reputation?

The notion of online reputation emerged in the 2000s and designates a company, brand, person’s image perceived online through search engines, review platforms, social media and other online platforms. Similar to an online word-of-mouth, internet users’ comments have a significant impact on your property. Your online reputation can thus be both positive or negative, or even neutral. It is therefore crucial to understand that this online reputation contributes to your property’s real reputation as well as its overall image.

The online-reputation can have an important effect on your hotel and its attractivity. For example, a good online reputation can generate more bookings and thus a higher occupancy, with no further action required on your part. Thus, the more positive comments you have online, the more people will want to stay with you and in return leave online reviews.

How to boost your online reputation using Instagram?

First of all, you need to clearly define your objectives and your strategy. You can then focus your reflections around a few questions:

  • WHY: What are your true objectives?
  • WHO: Which product or service do you wish to promote, what are their main characteristics, what are they used for, who is your target audience?
  • WHAT: What is the message you wish to broadcast, which information and content do you wish to share?
  • WHERE: Which supports, platforms and communication channels do you want to use?
  • HOW: Which levers are to be used?
  • HOW MUCH: What is your budget allocation for this strategy?

Social media allow companies to have greater visibility. It has been shown that 8 out of 10 users follow a brand on Instagram. Moreover, approximately 80% of Instagram users use this platform to find out more about a product or service, which shows this social medium’s significant influence. Instagram actually has one of the highest visitor rates, behind Facebook and Twitter. So why not take advantage of this to strengthen your online reputation?

There exist many ways in which you can boost your online reputation as a hotel. Firstly, make sure to regularly post relevant content. For example, you can upload publications promoting your company’s values, your staff, your new products and services, or even share picture or reviews from your clients. This will help to grow the community following your brand and create close links with your followers.

It is also important to interact with your followers on a regular basis, whether it be by using comments, likes or sharing their content. This exchange allows you to collect positive comments from online users while making your brand friendly. This shows you truly care about your community. There is no need to embellish your interactions, be authentic and loyal to your company’s image and values.

Later on, you can also partner up with influencers. An influencer is a person with a large number of followers who regularly posts content on their social media. There are many types of influencers: nano-influencers (less than 10 K followers) micro-influencers (over 10 K followers), macro-influencers (over 100 K followers) and celebrities (over 500 K followers). The influencer your partner up with will be responsible to create content on your behalf and boost your online visibility, by talking about your products and services to their community.

It is essential to partner up with influencers who correspond to your values as a brand so that their community can identify to your brand as well. Choose influencers who have an interesting engagement for you, and have an audience that corresponds to your target market. The chosen influencers will be your brand ambassadors, which will allow you to strengthen your notoriety within their community and create a trusting relationship with your followers, potential or current clients. You can also use hashtags in order to strengthen the feeling of belonging for your community.

By publishing many pictures, live videos through Instagram Story, or lengthier videos using IGTV, you can also promote your products and services in a more original fashion. The goal behind these publications is to share emotions through different visuals, to create desire for your products and services, and to knit stronger links with your followers. It would be wise to communicate in a friendly and exclusive manner, while staying true to your brand’s identity. In fact, your followers should be able to identify with the content you post, and most importantly, they should be able to understand what you expect of them such as sharing their own experience after staying with you.

How to measure your online reputation on Instagram?

While one’s online reputation may be a variable which is difficult to quantify and measure accurately, it is important to do so. The choice your performance indicators mainly depends on your goals and the communication channels you wish to use. Prior to paying for any applications, you should start by analyzing your social media’s data. There are two types of data: quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative data is usually described by the number of likes, shares or followers, your publications’ audience, conversion rate and click-rate. Be careful however as these indicators’ usefulness is limited. Indeed, your social media visibility is not necessarily a sign of influence, and the search engines’ referencing tends to be highly personalized nowadays.

On the other hand, you have qualitative data such as positive, negative or neutral comments, hashtags and recommendations shared by the users. These qualitative indicators are difficult to analyze, as any qualitative statement is subjective, and each person has their own vision of things.

To conclude, a property’s online reputation is an element that should be closely monitored. While it may have positive impacts such as a boost in sales and the growth of the company, it is the company’s responsibility to manage their online reputation on social media, as a negative online reputation can also lead to a bad buzz or a crisis situation.

The role of Instagram in the hospitality industry

instagram-hotellerie
Posted on by Laura Yee Kui Choi
instagram-hotellerie

In fact, this social media platform provides a good opportunity for hotel managers to boost their popularity and engage with more people. First, they can use Instagram to instantaneously build and consolidate their online reputation, by using a “story-telling” approach centered around their brand. Then, they can use this social media platform to sell their services and build their own community using interactions (likes, comments, shares), stories, buzz-words and contests. According to Forrester Research (2014), using Instagram allows you to boost your engagement per follower 58 more times than by using Facebook and 120 more times than by using Twitter.

Building your online reputation (e-reputation)

The e-reputation is represented by the information provided by the internet about a person or a brand through social media, blogs, collaborative websites, online chat forums or knowledge sharing platforms. Nowadays, we live in a highly connected world where the e-reputation has a significant online word-of-mouth effect which is able to positively or negatively impact one’s opinion. We use social media to get information on a company, and immediately believe what we read online. Therefore, a good or bad reputation online will have a direct impact on a company’s sales and their clients’ trust.

Today, building one’s online identity is quick, whether it be by using search engines allowing the company to be featured on the very first page, by using social media to attract potential clients, by fostering a close-knit relationship with the clients and building loyalty or by starting open-ended discussions on social media through blogs and forums. You can also consolidate your e-reputation using online opinion websites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google reviews or by reaching out to influencers.

You may be wondering what is an influencer. It is simply someone who has a large number of followers and who shares content on social media, such as photos, videos, articles or podcasts. Upon agreeing on a partnership with you, the influencer will create content on your behalf and boost your visibility, by talking about your products and services. This allows you to improve your image, your credibility and even your SEO if the influencer is present on multiple social media platforms. Influencers are therefore beneficial for companies, but it is important to only partner up with influencers who mirror the company’s brand and values.

A hotel’s e-reputation can be boosted if multiple influencers post about the hotel. This way, potential clients will notice that many influencers have stayed at the hotel and this will generate a notion of popularity and will trigger their wish to live this trendy experience.

Improving sales

Instagram also allows a company to improve their sales. A study showed that 8 in 10 users follow the account of at least one of their favorite brands and that 14% of users would buy directly from Instagram.

As a starting point, one can insert a link in the “biography” section which will redirect the users to the company’s own website. Additionally, users have the opportunity to reach the company using the direct message feature or by communicating using e-mail and/or telephone by clicking the call-to-action button located on the company’s profile. The company can also have an online shop allowing the users to browse through current offers and get information on rates and availabilities. For a hotel, improving sales can be done by using the booking engine. Instagram posts can feature a link redirecting to the hotel’s online booking engine. An active presence on social media combined with the opportunity to book online will incite customers to book directly with the hotel without having to go through OTAs, therefore maximizing your income.

Building a community

Instagram is undoubtedly a key tool when it comes to creating one’s community. Instagram encourages users to publish content, to share their personal experience and mostly to generate emotional interactions. Companies do not hesitate to repost the users’ content and create buzz-words in order to attract potential clients or engage and build loyalty with their existing community. Generally speaking, a buzz-word is short and easy to memorize to facilitate interactions between users. A community’s engagement is usually a key element when it comes to one’s perception of your popularity. This perception of your popularity is more often than not generated by the users than by you. Building a large and loyal community is crucial in order broadcast the diversity of the stays offered at your hotel and the overall experience you provide.

In a highly connected and fast-evolving world, every brand uses content to convince individuals to buy their products or services. It is therefore important for companies to publish high-quality, targeted, authentic and attractive content for their followers. It is also key to have a constant and active presence on social media such as Instagram by publishing content and interacting with your community on a regular basis.

Marketing digital EN