You don't get a thousand words on social media.
A dilemma.
It’s a fact that any business that can manage to continue to do some marketing and advertising at the depth of a recession (which, in many ways, is what this is) will come out of it faster and better than those who don’t.
But the hard truth is that it’s tough to come up with money for advertising and marketing when your occupancy is down. Especially if you’re an independent hotel or resort without a brand Mother Ship somewhere.
As a result, many of you are defaulting to social media. Free and sponsored posts, mostly.
No mistake about it, social media can be a useful tool. And an affordable one. But everything has a price. And the price of social media is to cede a lot of creative control to the media channel. And, with all due respect, those folks are usually skilled tech people, but not creative people. And creativity is what will distinguish your message from others. Frankly, creativity is never going to be their main concern and it’s not their problem. It’s yours.
Unfortunately, social media tells you how big your ad can be, how big your photo can be, whether or not you can run type across it, how long your headline is, how long your copy is and it ensures that you’re working with a template just like everybody else’s. Again, their focus is not on making your ad or post stand out so much as making sure it fits in.
Having spent quite a bit of time in recent weeks reviewing social media campaigns in the hospitality arena, we’re here to tell you, the boxes set up by social media companies beget a lot of lookalike stuff. And lookalike stuff won’t get the job done as far as making you stand out from your competitors. Which is what you need in times like these.
But there’s a workaround. Three of them, actually. Your photography, your headlines and your idea.
Let’s start with photography. Your photo is going to be the same size as everybody else running on Facebook or Instagram (and, with only three or so options, any sort of digital display ad, actually). So invest a bit in NON-lookalike photography. You don’t have to spend more – or, these days, even a lot – to get better photography. You just have to hire a photographer who sees things differently and turn ‘em loose. Your creative firm is just dying to get someone like that for you. Or they should be. And any photographer worth his or her salt will relish the opportunity to do something different.
A client once challenged us to define what we mean by “different, better” photography. Easy. Look at what everybody does and don’t do that. What you want is photography that simply will . . . not . . . blend . . . in.
Your headline. Sure, there’s a character count limit, but a copywriter can make it fit. A good copywriter can come up with something far better than most of what’s out there. And actually ensure that your words and pictures work together.
And your idea? Well, let’s just say “buy two nights and get a third free” isn’t an idea. Booking long-term at a resort so working from home isn’t anything like working from home is. Don’t just think out of the box. You need to go way past that. Your goal is to do what the Other Guys didn’t think of.
A few years ago, a guy named Ernie Schenck wrote a great book called ”The Houdini Solution.” The premise is that the tighter your limitations, the more creative you can be. He wrote it before digital and social media took over so much of the ad world, but he must have seen the future coming.
Photography. Headlines. Ideas. Those are the keys to making low-cost social media work harder for you.
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