Let’s talk about using Instagram Stories for Hotels or Venues. If you haven’t yet discovered Instagram Stories then you’re missing out on a marketing medium that is a perfect match for hospitality.
In this post we share how you can tap into the power of Instagram Stories to attract more paying (and happy) customers to your venue or event.
After you’ve checked out our tips below about Instagram stories for hotels and venues, check out the post at the bottom of this article as we have 12 Free Instagram Stories Templates for you to get started with.
So, let’s jump in and take a look at how you can use Instagram stories for hotels and venues and for any event you may be hosting:
8 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Hotels or Venues
1 Announce a New Menu
Changing up your menu? Instagram Stories is a great place to share your new menus or specials.
Your Instagram feed is great for showing a single image or great food shot, but you can expand on it and take it further with Instagram stories by sharing your new menu:
The Precint Hotel shared their $15 lunch break on Instagram Stories, followed by some shots of the food. But the clever move on their part is that they included a location sticker. This way, they can be found by location as well as by image.
HOT TIP: If you create an Instagram Story about your venue, add a Location Sticker for your venue or somewhere nearby. Instagram stories around a particular location are collated by Instagram and then shared to your followers as well as people that don’t follow you yet. If your story is included, it will be shown to more people. It also keeps your story part of the conversation around your venue.
2 Tease Some Live Music
Ramping up to an event? Have you got a great band playing live music? Let people know with Instagram Stories.
Here is an example from the Queen’s Wharf Hotel’s Instagram Story, encouraging us to check out their latest post on the Instagram feed for more info.
Here’s the post in the feed:
Note: if you create an Instagram Story, many of your followers are likely to see it first at the top of their feed, so it’s worth referring people back to the newsfeed for important posts. Just don’t overdo it – use this strategy sparingly.
3 Showcase Your Event
If you have an event venue, then share the heck out of your events! It’s a no-brainer to post an image on your Instagram feed, but an Instagram Story gives you more scope to post more images and video. This helps create buzz with your audience.
Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel does really effectively. For starters, they have been smart enough to start an outdoor Cider Festival held annually outside their pub. It’s now in it’s 4th year running.
What’s not to love about an outdoor cider festival? Obviously it will help new patrons to find the Hotel, but it’s also a great way for regulars to love them more. They also tease the viewer with great food and the promise of cider
Note that they also tag the location of the event. This is smart. As we mentioned above, it’s more likely that the event will show up around the location of the hotel after it’s been tagged with the location.
If someone searches for the location, they’ll see a summary of all the images posted at Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel, and the festival. Like this:
Watsons Bay Hotel shares the food providers, chefs and restaurants that are part of their Cider Festival….. note that they tag them!
HOT TIP: Don’t forget to tag your providers and suppliers if they are on Instagram. It’s not only a sign of goodwill, but it helps to share your story (and theirs). This is a great way to make your brand and venue more relatable to customers.
4. Sell Tickets
Instagram is a little unique in that it’s not as easy to add a “link” to a post, as it is on Facebook. You have to get savvy with it. The only two places you can really add a link are:
- In your bio – you can direct people there to click the only link on your profile.
- In Instagram Stories – if you have a verified account, or more than 10k followers (like the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel) you can add a call to action or “swipe up” for people to visit any website or link that you add.
In this case, the hotel has a call to action to pre-purchase tickets to the Cider Festival to avoid any queues.
If you swipe up on the Instagram Story, you’re taken to a ticket purchase page. It’s a no brainer to purchase!
If you don’t have the “Swipe Up” link feature on Instagram Stories, then you can always direct your fans to your link in your bio, or give them a Bitly shortlink that’s easy to remember.
5. Offer a Special
It wouldn’t be a pub or a club if you didn’t have a special of some sort – for food or drink or both! In this case, it’s Richmond Club Hotel that’s sharing a weekly special:
6. Take Us Behind the Scenes.
There’s something about humans. We love to be voyeuristic. We love to be a fly on the wall and go behind the scenes.
We actually want to know more about the people behind the business than the business itself (in some cases)!
Here’s a great example from the Mount Macedon Winery. They let their followers know that the herbs are straight from the garden and on to your plate for lunch or dinner. This can be very attractive to the person considering where to spend their fine-dining funds!
7. Showcase Your Product
No. 7 is a slight crossover with No. 6 as you can show your finished product or meal …or specials. But showing the behind-the-scenes of that product is very effective too. It’s a great way to use Instagram Stories for hotels and venues.
For instance, the Lagunitas Craft Beer Company shared the bottling of their beers:
8. Show Your Fun Side
The Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort shared this Halloween shot which is a looping “boomerang” of the smoke coming out of the carved pumpkin.
It’s a great image to finish with, as it covers a few bases:
- It announces an event or theme to attract customers to the resort.
- It uses fun tools like Boomerang in Instagram, which allows you to show quick short looping videos.
- the video takes us behind the scenes as well… what’s not to love?
Get Started with Instagram Stories for Hotels and Venues
Here are 5 Steps to getting started with Instagram Stories for Hotels or at your venue. Use them to catch attention on the newsfeed and encourage fans to take action and engage.
- Log into Instagram and click the camera icon on the upper left hand corner of your screen. Now you can post photos or videos from your camera roll taken in the last 24 hours (take a screenshot of an old photo if you need one prior to the last 24 hours).
- HOT TIP : Use one of our handy Easil templates for Instagram Stories. Edit it in Easil, and upload into your Instagram Story. You can find examples of our Instagram Stories Templates here – and links to design with them!
- Add graphic elements such as filters, emojis, hashtags, geo-location stickers, text and color to your post.
- Click the arrow icon and add it to your “story” or save it to your camera roll to share elsewhere on social media.
Over to You
Have you started using Instagram Stories Yet?
