What Innovative Hotels Are Doing to Advance Their Brands Online
Top hotels are increasingly leveraging the latest technologies, proven strategies, and remarkable innovations to stand out in today’s ultra-competitive hospitality industry.
From boutique hotels and charming B&Bs to luxury resorts, casino hotels, and more, contemporary hotel brands can squeeze more juice out of their digital marketing assets and efforts when they know how to coordinate and align everything for optimal cohesion.
Uncovering how these elements can work together to create something much greater than their separate parts, the following highlights how hotel photography, videography, social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and more can coalesce for maximum impact and extraordinary results.
With that, what follows reveals some key insights about what’s putting exceptional hotel brands centerstage in more reservation-ready spaces online.
Hotel Photography
The best hotel photography can immerse any viewer in a scene in the blink of an eye, inviting them to explore more and instantly exciting them. With that, hotel brands that want to lead the pack tend to schedule multiple photography shoots a year, so they can routinely capture:
Ongoing events
Property upgrades
Seasonal changes and happenings
While every hotel photography shoot is a unique adventure, a photo shot list that covers key bases can include a combination of:
1. Exterior Hotel Shots: Upscale hotels tend to have spectacular entrances, architecture, landscaping, and outdoor features. Snapping exterior hotel photos during the day and at night can capture a range of alluring images.
2. Lobby and Reception Pictures: Showcase the welcoming area where guests first enter and experience the hotel. Focus on shots of the front desk, lobby seating areas, unique and design elements in the reception area, like gorgeous ceilings and wall decor.
3. Guest Room and Suite Shots: Take viewers inside different rooms of the hotel, showing the layout, design, in-room amenities, and overall comfort and luxury. Be sure to take photos of different room types and layouts, including VIP suites and penthouses.
4. Restaurant and Bar Pictures: Put dining areas and bars centerstage, featuring the distinct scene in each of these venues, as well as their signature offerings, including popular dishes, craft beer, fancy cocktails, specialty desserts, and more.
5. Hotel Amenity Photos: Swimming pools, spas, fitness centers, meeting rooms, and other amenities can spotlight the next-level extras that guests can enjoy during their stay. Capturing hotel amenity photos that show clean, open spaces without anyone — and showing the space being used by guests — can both be essential, with different potential for leveraging these digital assets for maximum exposure.
6. Lifestyle Shots: Show hotel staff in action, and capture pictures of guests living their best life at the hotel. From checking in and entering rooms to pool visits, happy hour, special events, and beyond, showcasing the “lifestyle” can add action and complete the rich story you’re telling via hotel photography.
7. More: Skyline views of sunrises and sunsets and guest room balconies can offer breathtaking pictures to include in hotel photo sets. So can close-up shots of one-of-a-kind decor elements, luxurious linens, toiletries, and any special touches that differentiate the hotel.
From planning through post-production, the average hotel photo shoot can take a month or longer, with expedited services available from the best teams, like the hotel photographers at Alias.
Hotel Videography
Hotel videos can enhance photos and truly enrich what’s portrayed, providing unique perspective and an extra touch of elegance and sophistication. With that, boundary-pushing hotels are doing more these days with video than ever before. That includes leveraging:
Drone Videography
Highlighting the hotel's footprint, architecture, and surrounding landscapes, drone videos for hotels can be an ideal way to show off the amazing features of resorts, beachfront properties, and hotels with extensive grounds. Additionally, some hotel drone videos are event-specific, featuring luxurious parties and even ticketed events, like New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Virtual Tours
Virtual tours are becoming a must-have for more and more guests who are savvy online.
Putting people right in the action, virtual tours let potential guests explore a hotel's spaces in ways pictures don’t allow, fostering a stronger sense of connection and trust, which can go a long way toward influencing booking decisions (and meeting expectations to acquire more 5-star reviews).
Hotel videography is often paired with photo shoots, with more complex sessions spanning a couple of weeks (at least) and incorporating plans for reshoots to ensure exceptional results.
Hotel Social Media Marketing
These days, many hotels make the mistake of setting up social media profiles and then letting them wither on the vine, posting minimal or canned updates that don’t really “land” with users.
Those paving the way to real success on social are the hotels that have:
1. Regular posting schedules
2. A growing, engaged audience
3. An established presence on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (at least)
Social media platforms are where more and more people make purchasing decisions these days (and where they’re getting news, entertainment, and exposure to new consumer opportunities).
Hotels that haven’t gotten their social media marketing off the ground — or that have given up on cultivating a social presence — are intentionally putting themselves in a corner where they could look behind the times and be inadvertently pointing out better competitors who are active on social media.
Check out some of the hotel social media projects Alias has headed up with spectacular success below.
SEO for Hotels
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a little-understood area that can uncover massive goldmines for hotels that want to grow, amplify brand exposure, and really beat out the competition. That’s because hotel SEO services can get brands:
Ranking for non-branded keywords
Searches for “hotels,” “hotels near me,” and “luxury hotels” could drive more traffic to hotel websites than the brand name when hotel SEO is done right. That could mean exponentially more people online end up on the hotel’s website for non-branded searches, putting the brand in far more users — including people who may have been unaware or not considering the brand in the first place.
Leveling up their authority online
Rank in featured spots on search engine results pages (SERPs) for key questions and queries. If your hotel has information that’s answering the most important questions online users have, you could show up in AI-generated results, featured snippets, and in #1 position on SERPs. Effectively, that could mean 3 or more spots on Page 1 of major search engines, putting a hotel website in the spotlight as the leading authority on the topic.
Beyond the places their competition already occupies
Hotel SEO is not as mainstream as paid advertising, nor is it as cookie-cutter. That means that many hotels opt to skip or go super light on SEO because they simply don’t understand how it can boost them over the long-term. Consequently, hotels engaging in thoughtful, ongoing SEO can come out miles ahead of the competition that isn’t doing search engine optimization, providing another “channel” for growing a strong, loyal, and expanding customer base.
How to Align Digital Assets & Next-Level Strategies for Hotels
Crucially, hotel photography, videography, social media, and SEO can all go hand in hand, working together to achieve bigger-picture results and multi-faceted success. Specifically, cutting-edge hotel brands that have been trailblazers in the digital realm have found exciting new ways to take advantage of and turn up the volume on their:
Brand Consistency
A hotel's brand identity, values, and unique selling points need to be cohesive and consistent across different assets, strategies, campaigns, and platforms.
This creates a sense of continuity that’s easier to connect with, recognize, and remember across all channels and customer interactions.
For high-end hotels, brand consistency and cohesion means highlighting the right elements, call-outs, and subject matter that aligns with the hotel’s luxury positioning, showcases its elegance, and distinguishes its exclusivity, as well as the premium nature of the brand.
This requires upscale, well-produced, high-definition hotel videos and photos, as well as expertly crafted language and thoughtful positioning on social media.
Storytelling
Integrating hotel photos, videos, social media, and more should be flawless, telling a compelling story about the hotel's offerings, atmosphere, and guest experiences.
In fact, the best luxury hotels have spun unparalleled stories that are undeniably attractive, fascinating, and inspiring to potential guests and loyal clients.
To do this, many hotels rely on detailed digital marketing calendars, multiple consultants, and the latest tech to keep all cylinders firing optimally while maintaining consistency in storytelling — even when it’s time to “turn a page,” expand the story, or shift gears to feature the most current offerings.
SEO & Content
Luxury hotels with a stronghold in organic search have mastered the art of content while fine-tuning their SEO to adjust to the current search landscape.
That means actively researching new opportunities, continually updating hotel websites, and routinely crafting thoughtful content that addresses underserved queries and adds value to the conversations already happening online.
On top of that, next-level hotel SEO can incorporate photos, videos, and social media to create a comprehensive digital marketing approach that offers a satisfying 360° experience for an online audience.
Social Proof & Engagement
Habitualizing social media marketing for hotels can be step one in highlighting relevance, personality, and unique offerings a given venue has to offer. Beyond that, however, top luxury hotels can do so much more here by:
Partnering with influencers who can provide authentic endorsements while resonating with the luxury brand image to reach a broader and more targeted audience
Inviting user-generated content in the form of comments, photos, and/or reviews
Considering surveys, contests, or giveaways to encourage engagement, shares, and user feedback
Welcoming industry partners to cross-market on your social pages for deeper engagement
Alias Brings More Hotels to the Forefront with Better Digital Assets & Strategies
Alias routinely partners with forward-thinking hotels nationwide, to deliver custom suites of services geared toward brands’ needs, short-term goals, and longer-term objectives.
To do that, our team of expert photographers, videographers, social media specialists, SEO professionals, and creatives consistently help luxury hotels grow, attract more high-value customers, and maximize the return on their digital marketing investments.
Gaining a sharper competitive edge is easier for luxury hotel brands that partner with Alias. We work with the highest-end hotel and hospitality brands nationwide, providing custom, turnkey solutions and optimal ROIs.
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