In July 2022, Hilton launched a new global brand platform, "Hilton. For The Stay" which inspired the "It Matters Where You Stay" campaign. To support the campaign, we set out to increase brand affinity by reminding people that a Hilton Stay means making each guest feel truly cared for. To do this, we recognized the opportunity to leverage community management on the @Hilton social channels to deliver a marketing and customer service experience like no other. We knew breaking the status quo would help differentiate us from our competitors and position Hilton as the go-to hotel brand.
We knew we could position Hilton as the "hero" by utilizing our social listening tools and capitalizing on trends to insert “The Stay” into everyday social media conversations. We achieved these goals by monitoring Twitter, Instagram and TikTok for opportunities where we could:
Be quick, nimble, and act fast on trends that made sense for Hilton
Amplify “The Stay” in creative and unique ways
Step outside of the box and create breakthrough content people remembered
Our Hilton For The Stay engagement strategy was comprised of three different engagement levels:
Level One: Engage and Respond
Hopping in on trending content and interacting with social users through likes and witty, yet thoughtful, responses that emphasize what sets Hilton apart.
Level Two: Surprise and Delight
Find customers having a challenging travel experience and offer solutions such as comped stays, swag bags or Hilton Honors Points to enhance brand loyalty as well as make their next “Stay” more enjoyable.
Level Three: Storytelling and Content
Turning these Stay moments into meaningful, storytelling opportunities by coordinating bigger activations that are unique and represent Hilton’s brand.
Because we had an engagement goals we wanted to meet, we knew that it was important to feel empowered to own this process and operate in a way that allowed us to move quickly. But with new processes come challenges, and we did run into a few – finding the right opportunities to insert Hilton given platform limitations, aligning internally, and getting an expedited review and approval process in place.
But we grew together and have overcome those challenges to produce viral (and most of the time heartfelt) moments that have been featured on outlets such as Pop Crush, The Independent, LAD Bible, and Your Mileage May Vary.
We met our social customers where they were, and in turn, we saw an uptick in social engagements, surprise and delight moments and compelling content being created by others.
Since the start of our Hilton For The Stay engagements, our efforts have helped bring massive online brand equity to our social media presence. In less than a year, this strategy helped propel Hilton to become the #1 hospitality brand on TikTok with over 1.16M engagements in total.
Some of our favorite moments include:
Tiny House- A family booked a vacation rental for their trip to the Adirondacks, but came to find out that upon arrival the property was a actually a tiny home. Hilton engaged the family and were able to secure a Stay at a local hotel with full VIP treatment. This was our top engagement generating over 256M impressions and 51K new followers
Making Memories for a Special Family- The Pelletier Family is traveling around the world to create lasting memories for their children who have a rare, genetic condition that causes a decline in vision over time. Hilton jumped in to provide the family with Stays at various stops in APAC and worked with our hotel teams to add a note trail and little meaningful mementos – including keyrings, magnets, and postcards – that would be significant to their locality.
Stranded TikTok Star- TikTok star Cassie Aran was stranded in an airport for 16 hours before Hilton came to the rescue to provide her with a Stay on us.
Oldest Dog Birthday Party- We surprised Joe Brown and his dog Buster (2.4M followers) with an in-room celebration for to honor Buster's 23rd birthday. Their room was decorated with balloons, photos, a doggy cake, a hand written note and of course a party hat for Buster.
The Ultimate BlackPink Fan Experience- Retrofitted a hotel room in BlackPink design for a fan attending BlackPink's World Tour.
@imarollwithit + Service Dog- Created a seamless Stay experience for Mya, a TikTok creator in a wheelchair, and her new service dog.
These and other moments have resulted in:
TikTok grew from from 0 followers to 221K followers
Instagram grew from 83K followers to 142K (71.1% increase)
Twitter from 16.6K followers to 21.2K (27.5% increase)
Facebook from 566K followers to 610K (7.8% increase)
