Why hotels & resorts need to concentrate on UGC for better sales
Have you ever come across a beautiful picture of your Hotel or Resort being posted by a user online and the picture getting circulated around, further leading to enquiries; without any effort from the hotel’s Marketing team or advertising team?
Such volunteer contribution by visitors/customers of the Hotel or a Resort via photos, blogs or just a simple location tag/check-in is called User Generated Content or UGC in short form.
Hospitality Industry is probably the closest in generating tremendous content by users, since everyone likes a good meal or wants to brag about a nice event they attended, by posting pictures, tagging friends and tagging the Hotels Name on their respective social media.
Harnessing the power of user-generated content will increase engagement and consumer trust and ultimately drive sales.
A hotel is a symbol of leisure, luxury, entertainment and making memories, for having good experiences. A visitor becomes a genuine Brand Ambassador for the Hotel Brand when they share their personal experiences on their respective social media profiles, about the place, the gourmet food from the restaurant, décor of the banquets or an evening well spent with family in the picturesque gardens of hotel.
They harness brand recognition for the Hotel through a simple post, there-by connecting their contacts to the Hotel, for conversions.
One Simple post by a genuine customer has a power of generating hundreds of leads than a Paid advertisement campaigns.
What Is CGC/UGC & Why is it a better idea:
UGC/CGC as it elaborates, User Generated Content or Customer Generated Content is Content created by customers which is available for other consumers, that can be used as endorsements for your Hotel and Resort Brand. The Content is created at user’s discretion and is authentic, creative & unique in its own way. UGC is an ideal content marketing strategy and acts as a Powerful free advertising campaign for the Hotel brand. When a Hotel visitor/guest chooses to share a picture of the venue, food or the décor of the premises, they are attributing it to your hotel brand via tagging the brand name of the hotel online, on social media for all their friends to see and know about the venue, its offerings and services. “UGC generated at Pragati Resorts,Hyderabad using Hashtag Printer by GoKapture”What are you missing out if you are not utilising the Content Generated by your guests?
The piece of content/UGC generated by guests/visitors can be used virtually across all channel and at any given point of time. Your guests are creating content for your hotel and as a brand, all you have to do is to curate and show-case it to your customers. In todays digital age and ever shifting era of marketing, invasive advertising don’t work anymore. Genuine content is given utmost importance and UGC brings genuinity back to the advertising world. UGC increases the Brand Equity and Generate more Leads.Benefits of UGC:
- Social Engagement
- Higher Conversion rates
- Better Ad performances
- Most of the content is created by brand contributors which is unpaid for and these contributors are one of the many digital ambassadors of your hotel brand.
- Content Publicly available creating larger customer base.
- Rich Visual Content for your Hotel brand, like photos & videos without brand’s intervention.
- Engaging content like blogs, and discussions on the social (Digital) platforms.
Some Exhilarating Facts:
- 25% of search results for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
- 52% of travellers change their original travel plans due to Social Media.
- 56% of Millennials have decided to eat at a restaurant because of a friend’s post on social media.
