We never know exactly what we’re going to get when it comes to social media updates, and even with our best and most educated guesses, some new developments are always keeping us on our toes. The last two weeks have been no different, giving us some surprising new features that we’re excited about. Let’s take a look at how each one will impact hotels and resorts moving forward.
New Selling & Collaborative Facebook Stories Tools
Facebook is currently testing several new Stories features that will add functionality to the platform.
Image source: Marketing Land
The new features include the following:
● Collaborative Stories, which allows multiple pre-approved accounts contribute to a single Story on your account
● Fan Reply Stickers, which let your followers reply to your Story content, which you can then share to your Story.
● Swipe-Up Links, which allow public figures to add direct links to Stories like on Instagram.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
Stories are a popular feature, with more than 500 million daily users engaging with this content on Facebook alone. And since Stories will automatically be shown to your followers as long as they’re watching, that gives them a distinct advantage over organic posts with the consistently declining reach.
Hotels and resorts can use these new features once they roll out to better engage their audience. Collaborative Stories can be used with influencers, nearby attractions you want to partner with to show the appeal of the area, or even other brands hosting events at your location. The Swipe Up link can give users a direct link to your site where they can make a reservation, and fan replies can give you new UGC to build better relationships with your guests.
Facebook Starts Hiding Total Like Counts in Australia
We’ve known that Instagram is currently testing the removal of public like counts, showing the metrics only to the user who posted the content. Facebook is now following suit, starting with a test in Australia. If it goes well, we can expect to see more wide-scale tests before they’ll have a full roll-out.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
Social proof is a powerful part of Facebook marketing, so this could throw hotels and resorts for a bit of a loop if you’re using large numbers of likes to attract attention on Facebook. To counteract this, try to post more conversation-generating content, like asking users opinions, so that you can increase comments and sharing. These forms of engagement will still be visible.
Facebook Releases New Video Tools
Facebook video is a big focus for a lot of hotels and resorts right now, and the platform has just released three new video-centric features to take note of.
These new features include:
● Live rehearsals, which allow you to go Live only for the Admins or Editors of a Page as a trial run before the real deal.
● “Loyalty Insights,” which lives in the Creator’s Studio and can help you assess which videos you’ve created are helping to drive return viewers.
● Scheduled watch parties, allowing companies Pages or groups that host watch parties to officially plan them in advance through the app.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
The two big features here for most hotels and resorts will be the Live rehearsals and the data giving you insights into viewer loyalty.
With Live being such a big feature, take advantage of the rehearsal beforehand, even if it’s just to make sure that there aren’t currently technical issues and that you’ve got your talking points ironed out.
Monitor your Loyalty Insights regularly; the ability to see what content can keep your audience engaged and coming back to you see you is enormously valuable, and we haven’t had access to anything like this with native advertising on Facebook until now.
Updated Group Boards On Pinterest
Finally a non-Facebook update, right? Pinterest recently released new group board features, increasing the potential for more effective collaboration.
One of these features will allow members added as board contributors to react to pins on the board, showing each other which pins they love most.
You’ll also be able to see which pins on the board received the most reactions, and soon we’ll be able to sort the content based on who added it to the board and when it was added.
What This Means for Hotels & Resorts
The group board feature is a valuable one for hotels and resorts. You can create boards with local businesses in the area to show off the best things guests can do in town, or work with influencers to do something similar. Use these new features as they roll out to provide feedback and keep the board on track, making your campaigns more impactful.
