Some advise against them, others believe they are the best form of marketing for 4 and 5 star hotels. Influencers continue to be one of the hot topics in the Online Marketing world and the time has come to address some of the biggest challenges for hotel companies and destinations in working with them. Avoiding the obvious mistakes, such as not setting up a formal contractual agreement with the influencer or neglecting relevant KPIs to determine the effectiveness of a collaboration, is a must.
Whilst influencers and the so-called influencer-marketing are most certainly not a good idea for all hotels across the board, there clearly is some sense in the idea that they can help a given range of hotels and/or tourism-destinations in exponentially increasing there online reach. Influencers have proven helpful in the hospitality industry wenn wanting to explore new target segments in a short period of time.
Unconventional collaborations between brands and influencers often are much more effective.
Whether or not a hotel or destination should work with an influencer or not, depends on a variety of factors, including the desired target segments, the availability of relevant influencers for said target segment, the available budget and the media goal of the given campaign. The best collaborations are more often than not those that the user would not expect. Identifying the right collaborations for your brand is a process that requires time, expertise and a given budget. Different principles apply to collaborations on different platforms, whereby the most common platform continues to be Instagram.
People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising.
