Social media contests: A way to advertise your hotel

I bet that all of us have seen on our social media pages (Eg. Facebook,Twitter or Instagram) contests coming from hotels for a “free stay” or “a discounted stay”. Social media contests allow hotels to engage with their existing customers, increase their followers number or even find new customers leads. By holing such contests hotels can see increased traffic both on their websites and on their social media.

In 2011 Facebook and Twitter were found to be the two most useful social media channels for marketing purposes in the hospitality industry. However, the photo-based Instagram has gained also a great power when it comes to contests hold for marketing reasons on social media. Pinterest, which is a platform for sharing inspirational photos, is also a player in hotels’ social media promotion.

The contests that can be carried out through social media can vary from type to type. The most usual ones are the photo contests or the hashtag contests. On the first type of contests participants have to upload a photo relating to a specific them. On this way customers are engaging with your brand since you can use the winning photo on your hotel’s website or social media. Hashtags contest are most widely used on Instagram, where customers can upload photos from their stay in your hotel using a hashtag with your hotel’s brand name, making your hotel more visible among the users. Contests with a winning prize are also very spread within the hotel industry since they are a way to encourage future bookings in the property. It is sure that even if they will not win every participant would like to stay at your lodging, so he/she will may proceed to a future booking. Some ideas of winning prize contests can be “free stays” or “free holiday package”.

A successful example of such a hotel contest can be The Shore Hotel in Santa Monica, California. The specific hotel choose to opened in October of 2011 after conducting a particular Twitter contest. Even before the opening of the lodging secret photos of the hotel and its facilities were appearing in Twitter. Users that were retweeting the content were automatically entering in a competition, with the winner gaining a free stay on the first day of the hotel’s opening.

After all, social media is now the strongest player when it comes to marketing so why not to try it?

For more information or contest ideas please contact me!

Evi Stavropoulou