Social Media Essentials for the Hotel Industry
- Amanda Brown
- Jul 18
- 7 min read
Written by Pamela Carvell, based on content provided by Chloe Parry, Content Marketing Executive, Carden Park for the Hotel Marketing Association.
July 2025
Introduction
We were very fortunate at both the National Hotel Marketing Conference in May 2025 and subsequently as an HMA Webinar, to have Chloe Parry of Carden Park share with us both her knowledge and experiences of the multitude of Social Media channels, as well as future developments that may be of interest.
The full webinar is available to view on the HMA website but for those who prefer an overview and quick read, I have summarised my key take-aways in bullet points. For some topics I have indicated where in the webinar you can find the information.
Chloe has also kindly responded to any questions that were asked during the webinar and these can be found in Appendix A.
Note: Chloe created this presentation exclusively for the HMA and is based on her experiences working in Social Media for Carden Park, plus her understanding as to some things that may be happening in the future. Obviously, every hotel is different and several times her advice was to try things and see what works best for your hotel. Similarly, everyone’s target market and thus followers, will vary, so what they respond best to and when, will also vary. Some actions will be best received by current followers, while others will help you reach a much wider audience, and what is key is your ability to turn those into followers and potential guests / diners.
Hashtags # will still help you reach followers, but not the wide reach that they used to, and they are certainly no longer the primary way to increase reach.
However, hashtags are still a great way of appearing in IG search results and in ‘suggested’ posts.
Carousel posts are producing amazing reach versus Reels as they are sent more to your followers feed making them good for engagement. Carousel posts being those where you select multiple images for a post and they can include video. Single-photo posts now have little impact. Reels are being appearing on more on non-followers feeds so are great growth.
Instagram has launched Edits, an app to edit Reels in, but you still need to then export them. And you can only use Instagram music.
In future there may be the ability to re-post direct to your feed, which will enable you to promote what guests / diners have posted about you.
Meta AI has already been incorporated into Instagram and Facebook. Go into Direct messages and the search bar at the top reads ‘Ask Meta AI or search’. I tried asking for ‘best spa hotels in the Midlands’ and the results were fascinating. Try it. And then ask where it’s pulling this information from? People will increasingly use this kind of search.
From 10th July posts have automatically been allowed to appear in search engine results. This is potentially very powerful. Think SEO when you are choosing hashtags and writing captions and descriptions.
Instagram does not favour videos created in another app such as Cap Cut.
Heard of Trial Reels? Visit the webinar for a full explanation and demonstration of these, just after 13 mins.
They may be bringing back the ‘Original Feed’ with a friends tab. How refreshing would that be?
Facebook turns every video post into a reel
Messenger will have the capability to share larger files, which is great for guest messages, for example.
Video is going nowhere! For the discussion between Harry about the importance of video and its creation, visit the webinar around 21 mins.
Threads
This is growing in popularity every day.
Soon you will be able to include several links in your profile.
Including topic tags improves the performance of a post.
Threads is mainly about text-based posts & they incredibly perform better than videos!
Spoiler Threads are a brand new thing. To learn about these visit the webinar at 26 mins.
Multiple image posts perform better than single-image ones.
LinkedIn is encouraging users to post vertical videos and has been testing out a Reels/TikTok style tab.
Friday mornings are now the best time to post. But Carden Park’s experience doesn’t reflect this. Measure the performance of posts at different times and see what works best for your hotel.
LinkedIn have launched a Mini Site, designed as a customisable landing page, useful for branding, promotions and recruitment. It’s also very helpful for insights. Visit the webinar at 29mins to learn more.
X
Becoming less and less important.
Launching a dedicated video tab
Bluesky
Many former Twitter users are now jumping onto Bluesky as it is very similar to what X was. It gives users more control over their data, algorithms and identity.
It already includes Trending Topics.
Hashtags do not work on the app, they’re not clickable.
YouTube
‘Shorts’ up to 3 minutes long are very good for growth and engagement.
There is still value in the long-term video content that YouTube was built on.
TikTok
They have abandoned Notes.
Videos of over 60secs produce more reach. BUT in Chloe’s experience 15 secs or less seem to work best for hotels i.e. they achieve more reach and a greater watch time.
Always include a Call To Action and a caption. Descriptive captions are very important.
Tip: you can always make a ‘quick video’ by just adding background sound to a photo or a photo carousel.
Experiment with TikTok and have fun. Remember it’s about story-telling. What will make people stop scrolling?
TikTok is the channel most used by Gen Z for Search.
What’s the score re copyrighted music? Visit the webinar at 37mins.
Surely being able to book hotels via TikTok (just as you can now buy many products) has to be the future? If you already have an online shop for say Spa products, you may consider selling via a live shop too, but you will need to commit to this and do it regularly.
Extra Points
If you DM Expedia an Instagram Reel that’s travel/hotel based, they will create an itinerary for you based off that video! But obviously that drives bookings through them.
AI as part of ChatGPT could be a big threat to Meta, as a Social Media channel.
Bottom-line advice
You probably don’t have the resources to be on all channels. Focus on a couple and then show up consistently on those. Test lots of different approaches and see which works for your hotel, restaurant, spa etc. Followers are only of value if they have the potential to become customers!
People are now searching for hotels on Instagram, so you can’t afford to not be on there.
TikTok is very time-consuming and can be slow growth. And how many of the people you are reaching are actually potential customers?
Friday mornings are now meant to be the best time to post on any channel. However, Chloe strongly advises to review your own analytics, as Carden Park doesn’t find that to be the case!
This blog article may be reproduced in part or in full, so long as full credit is given to both authors and the link to this article is included.
July 2025.
Appendix A - Questions answered by Chloe after the webinar due to lack of time live
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