So much of social media marketing for hotels these days is about producing high quality content that gets published and shared. You can control the publishing part. Can you control the sharing part? Sharing begins with promotion, which includes the timing, targeting, and strategy behind solid distribution.

To achieve your goals on social media, you need to understand what type of content will resonate with your audience, and when.

Buzzstream and Fractl recently analyzed 220,000 articles from 11 industries over six months (June to November 2014) to determine how and when to publish content to score big on social media. Travel was one of the industries the analysis covered.

Content Types

First and foremost, know which content type performs best with your audience.

A successful campaign begins with great content, and the best content offers something new and valuable to your target audience while making an emotional connection. There are multiple ways to produce informative and engaging content. We divided potential content of social media marketing for hotels into five article types: how-tos, lists, what-posts, why-posts, and videos:

1. 1. How-to posts introduce a problem, offer a solution, and then discuss each step to reach an end result.

1. 1. Lists focus on a particular topic, offer a number of points about the topic, and provide a brief conclusion.

1. 1. What-posts provide further information on a specific topic, with many articles making comparisons of one thing to another.

1. 1. Why-posts typically provide readers with a reason or purpose and provide details that support a focused conclusion.

1. Videos provide the audience with a dynamic visual of the topic discussed within the article.

What Were the Best Content Types for Travel?

Content types perform differently based on the month and industry. For the travel industry specifically, Lists and Why-posts outperformed other types of posts over the six month period as a whole.

But, month by month, different content types proved their value. In June, July, and September, Lists performed the best in the travel industry. But, in August and November, the best performer was the What-post. In October, the Video post was the top performer for travel. And, it’s important to note that Video performed well across the board, and that How-to Articles definitely had their valuable moments – they were just never the best.

How does this data affect my hotel’s social media strategy?

As with all marketing efforts, social media marketing for hotels relies heavily on two things: knowing your audience, and producing quality content. Figuring these things out requires lots of analysis and experimentation. Take a hard look at your guests and past guests and figure out who are the types of people that are engaging with your brand. How old are they? Where do they live? What are their interests? Why do they choose to stay with you?

Then, create lots of different types of content and see what does best with your specific audience. This data from the BuzzStream and Fractl study can be a guide to help you decide what to test, but it’s up to you to take that information and apply it to your brand and your audience.

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