At the beginning of the year, the social team, brand team, and General Manager of The Post Oak Hotel met and aligned on the following Instagram marketing goals for @postoakuptown on Instagram:
- Increase and Expand Awareness: Make The Post Oak Hotel the most recognized hotel in Houston on Instagram.
- Authenticity Above All: Focus on the experience more.
- Lavish Luxury: Put the magnificent opulence of the only double 5-Star hotel in Texas on display.
Based on the objectives agreed upon at the beginning of the year by all cross-functional stakeholders, the social team went to work:
- Increasing and Expanding Awareness with the Target Demos
- Increased output of video content, generally, knowing that users and algorithms preferred video over stills in 2023.
- Increased output of experiential video content, specifically, knowing that authentic, relatable content was key in 2023. Partnered with Influencers, featured more User Generated Content.
- Instituted a boosting strategy, knowing that to a large extent, social media is “pay-to-play” in 2023 and beyond.
- Authenticity Above All
- Got organizational buy-in to implement and execute on an Influencer Strategy by presenting data proving its worth.
- Encouraged UGC by featuring guests prominently in carefully curated stories and highlights.
- Lavish Luxury
- Focus on high quality, polished content in addition to User and Influencer Generated content.
- Schedule monthly shoots without interrupting the flow of business or the guests.
- Align on Brand Voice: Simple, Confident, Sophisticated, Upscale, Contemporary, Guest-Focused Refinement
Other specific tactics that were initially aligned on and subsequently employed successfully included (but were not limited to):
- Text on Video:
- The social team observed that many influencers use text on video to capture the viewer's attention immediately. By paying attention to trends and data, we gained actionable insights and were able to act on them, incorporating more text in our videos to encourage viewers to stay until the end.
- Utilizing multiple short clips:
- To maintain audience interest and engagement, the team incorporated several different short clips into each video instead of one clip, no matter how interesting that one clip might be. This approach aimed to tease and stimulate the viewer more and enhance the overall appeal of the brand by making more appealing, modern, and flashy videos.
- Shorter video duration:
- To align with algorithmic trends and optimize viewer attention, the team ensured that most videos were kept under 10 seconds, again attempting to give users access and the opportunity to get a glimpse inside the lap of luxury.
- Boosting budget allocation:
- The team continually adjusted their boosting strategy to prioritize more video, and eventually to only boost posts that were already organically engaging, aligning with algorithmic best practices, after reviewing Q1 performance.
- Increasing influencer collaborations:
- Recognizing that Influencer Activations are one of the most effective forms of Instagram Marketing, we purposefully carved out budget and time to work with these professional, luxury travel content creators. Tao into their community and their content creation to make our Instagram as authentic as possible. An endorsement from an actual person will always be infinitely better than us as a brand trying to tout ourselves. People are authentic. Brands are not.
We saw huge gains in KPIs including but not limited to growth in followers, impressions, interactions, average interactions, influencer activations and more. (See link for in-depth presentation)
