Social media is everywhere and its growing influence is redefining the way people conduct their business.
In this digital era, social media has become the cornerstone of most businesses – be it online or offline. It only becomes logical and important to utilize the limitless potential of social media to grow a business.
The hospitality industry, too, has a broad scope that goes beyond just the bookings and post-visit communication. After all, the guest experience is the single most important factor that could make or break a hotel’s popularity among the masses.
With a number of feedback mechanisms rating the services of hotels 24×7, putting the best foot forward at all times is essential.
Engaging guests through social media displays throughout their stay should be a key element of all the marketing strategies.
Through smart and creative use of media, hotels have a great chance of building up guest engagement and ultimately leads and sales.
Simply posting on your social handles won’t keep you in the race for acquiring new customers. To fill this void, social media walls can be a great medium that can drive engagement instantly. With social walls, hotels can improve the guest experience and engage more visitors. Social walls can be a powerful tool for hospitality industries to connect with guests more easily during their stay.
A live social wall aggregates content from multiple social networks which can be displayed on live social walls with the help of projectors/digital screens/TVs or even displayed on websites.
The trend of social media walls for websites is also on the rise and has grown exponentially in recent years.
Hotels can leverage the benefits of social media walls by showcasing mix social media content (User-Generated Content and Brand-Generated Content) on digital screens at –
- Entrances and exits
- Guest rooms
- Hallways
- Conference halls
- Lobbies
- Elevators
- Waiting rooms
The social wall gives an impressive impact to guests and makes their stay more enjoyable and happening.
Bonus read - Best 10 Social Media Walls for Events
Here are some of the great ways through which you can use social media walls to engage your guests:
1. Showcase User-Generated Content to Your Guests
Social media walls must be placed at strategic locations like the lobby area or near rooms and suites that can be a perfect way of reaching out to your guests.
User-generated content in the form of check-ins and positive reviews about your services can be used to generate excitement among your guests.
For a few minutes of fame, new guests will also be motivated to share the reviews and experiences of their stay. A lot of this user-generated content can also be used later for your other marketing needs.
The efforts required here are minimal and the returns are priceless that will help your brand for the longest time.
Bonus read - 6 Key Benefits Of User-Generated Content
2. Increase Conversions and Sales Through the User-Generated Content
Reviews and recommendations are great tools to influence the buying decision of a customer as it is the human tendency to try products and services that others have already enjoyed.
When it comes to websites, social media walls can be used at a strategic location like the bookings and reservations page.
Use the social media wall to your advantage by displaying all your latest services, special offers, and discounts, positive guest experiences, etc.
There can’t be any form of marketing communication collateral that can be as authentic as user-generated content.
3. Generate Additional Revenue by Monetizing Your Social Walls
Besides generating engagement with the guests and boosting conversions, social walls can also be used smartly to generate easy revenue with the help of live social media feeds.
When the hotel is used to host events, conferences, wedding ceremonies, corporate meetings, or any other significant event, the social media wall for events can be given as an add-on service.
It will give the hosts of the event the perfect chance to engage their audience and social analysis of their event which can be studied later.
Also, the premium space of the social media wall can be sold to local businesses to display information regarding the most happening destinations like amusement parks, restaurants, etc. that can be of a lot of value for the intended audience.
Bonus read - 9 Best Social Media Event Promotion Tips In 2021
4. Integrating Social Media Walls with the Booking System
This is quite the direct way of boosting conversions and sales. Social walls with a positive guest experience can be integrated with the hotel’s booking applications and pages, which can have the functionality to allow the display of user reviews.
Call to action elements like “Book Now” buttons can also be added to the social media posts to boost conversions and subsequent sales.
The lesser number of clicks and time to reach the booking page will also be less tedious for the customers to make the booking and spend more time viewing the reviews and user experiences.
5. Other Miscellaneous Use for Digital Walls apart from Social Media
Besides conversions and sales, the digital walls at hotels can also be used to display all the essential information promoting a positive guest experience.
Display walls can be used to display waiting time at the desks, room status, personalized welcome messages, nearby entertainment options, virtual concierge services.
Also, in crises, the digital walls can be used to display critical information that will be of vital help to the guests.
Social Wall for Hospitality Industry
A social wall is the most significant way to engage guests. If you haven’t added a social experience at your hotel then do it now.
Create an amazing experience for guests by placing an interactive social media wall at your hotel’s lobby, reception, guest room, restaurant, conference halls, or website.
Go with Onstipe. The best social wall tool that helps you display your social media posts in an amazing way on TV screens or on your websites.
Onstipe is a social media aggregator tool that collects social media content from multiple social channels using hashtags and handles and aggregates these social feeds in one place (known as a social wall).
Bonus read - What is A Social Media Aggregator?
Onstipe helps you to collect social media posts from various social channels such as –
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Tumblr
- RSS
- Flickr
Onstipe is a powerful tool that empowers you to generate more social proofs and promote hotel marketing with a real-time social media wall.
Bonus read - Benefits Of Using A Social Media Aggregator Tool
Do More with Onstipe Social Wall
1. Customize Your Social Wall
The best thing about the Onstipe social wall, you can customize the complete design according to your need. It has the best customization options that meet your hotel’s requirements.
Here are some unique customization features of Onstipe –
- Theme Layout – Variety of beautiful themes that makes your social media feeds interactive and appealing.
- Tile Colors – Modify the colors of Tiles to make posts more stylish. Try our exclusive feature Multi Color Tile option to make posts colorful.
- Text Colors – Update text color, author color and get the best combination.
- Network Icon Colors – Edit social media icon colors according to your need.
- Layout Background – Choose color or set social wall background that perfectly matches your website layout or theme.
- Manual CSS – Edit the design of social media posts according to you by adding your own custom CSS.
2. Moderate UGC
Content moderation is the most useful and required feature that every social wall provider must-have.
Of Course, no one wants to show the type of content on the social wall that can harm their business reputation. So, Onstipe’s powerful moderation panel helps you to filter or remove unwanted content from your social wall in real-time.
You can set a list of predefined words or block the specific users to stop unnecessary UGC.
3. Add Your Branding
Add your brand logo on your social wall. Place a header on the top of the social wall and stick your brand logo there. Also, showcase your supported social media platforms and hashtag so guests can easily notice them.
For more options, you may try Ticker to showcase any notification and news that run at the bottom of the social wall.
4. Boost Promotions & Offers
Add your custom content or offers between your social media feeds using Custom post features. You can add posts with all combinations – Text & Image, Only Text, Only Image, Videos, and more.
If you have any offers and promotional content then nothing is the best possible way to showcase your guest then through a social wall.
5. Add Sponsor Content & Announcements
It is always hard to keep your sponsors happy. So give proper space to them on your social wall.
Add a sponsored post on your social wall that will appear after a specific time on the screen in full size. You can display the brand logos of your sponsors there or can add any announcement related to upcoming events through this sponsored post feature.
6. Add Call To Action Buttons
When it comes to driving more bookings and sales then Call To Action buttons can help you out.
Simply embed your social media feeds on your website and make your UGC actionable by adding CTA buttons such as Book Now, Learn More, Visit Now.
The CTA button on a post makes it easier for users to reach your conversion pages with minimum clicks.
7. Display Options
Embed social media feeds on websites or display on digital screens, Onstipe works best with everything.
Generate a widget code and embed that code on your website. One-time process, no need to update the embed code again, manage all things from Onstipe dashboard. It supports all website building platforms such as WordPress, HTML, Shopify, Weebly, and more.
Bonus read - How to Embed Social Media Feed on Website
Display social media feed on digital screens, TVs, projectors, or jumbotrons. The Onstipe social wall is so responsive that it can easily run on any size of screen. Simply run the social wall URL on the browser and connect/cast your laptop with a digital screen.
Final words
As the social media wall is a vital marketing and communications tool, it is imperative that hotels make good use of this exciting opportunity at hand. In the long run, the success of the hotel and its business will depend a lot on how best the hotels can harness the potential of social media walls in the hotel industry.
Now you have read all about the best ways to use social walls for hotels to make your guests stay happy and leverage the power of UGC. It’s high time to invest some effort in social media walls for hotels. Create a stunning social wall for your hotel and start engaging your guests.