Ever since the launch of Snapchat, every social media platform has been scrambling to come up with a similar tool that lets users broadcast their pictures or videos in real time. Of all those attempts, Instagram Stories has probably managed to garner the most attention. The photo-sharing platform has always remained a favourite for F&B brands looking to leverage the tool to market their business.

Why should you use it?

Because it offers an addictive and authentic way for people and brands to share with others. Instagram has an extremely active user-base, reported to be at 250 million daily active users. That gives your brand a much wider audience than any other traditional channel. It is also very easy to create content on Instagram story; nobody has to wrack their brains over a post for an hour. Get the picture right and you are good to go. It also gives a great base to experiment with different ideas. Put up an Instagram story and measure its response. Even if it isn’t good, the story will anyway disappear within 24 hours, giving you a clean slate to start off again. Additionally, much like Snapchat, Instagram also has a great armour of tools and filters to make your stories more engaging, creative and fun.

Here are some of the top ways you can leverage this new-age marketing platform for your hospitality brand –

#1. Use it to unveil new menu items – There’s nothing better than looking at great pictures of delicious food items on Instagram. Take beautiful shots of new menu items, or even the menu itself, and caption them with words from the chef or list down some of the ingredients for the dish. If you create an Instagram Story about your hotel or restaurant, makes sure to add a location sticker. This helps to share your stories to people who don’t follow you yet, as Instagram collates all stories around particular locations to show it to people in areas nearby.

Radisson in Noida has been happily experimenting with the platform for a while now.

Ramendra Pratap Singh, General Manager at Radisson Noida, says, “With the growth of mobile users, we strongly believe that Instagram is a critical guest engagement platform for the hospitality industry as we step into 2018. We have been leveraging Instagram Stories to promote the variety of F&B offerings and experience in various restaurant at Radisson Noida through visuals. This new format helps us staying current in feeds and creates a stronger recall for the brand.”

#2. Let influencers takeover your account for a day – Working with influencers on social media platforms is one of the best ways to connect with the young generation of consumers. Nowadays, a lot of brands let influencers take over their account and post content that speaks to their target audience through cross-promotion techniques. This way, brands can easily double their audience count. Additionally, takeovers are a great way to get in front of a new audience via someone who has already built up a following in that same domain and understands what users are looking for.

#3. Take the audience backstage – Giving your fans a glimpse into what goes on behind-the-scenes at your hotel or restaurant is a great way to make them feel like they’re part of the experience. Your brand could post a great picture on the feed, and then use Instagram story to showcase what went into making that shot perfect. Another great way is to post an Instagram story of the process of cooking a crowd-favourite dish, or even giving them a tour of the entire place. This lends more credibility to your brand as it depicts authenticity, and that is something that people love.

#4. Announce your event, send out its teaser – Is your hotel prepping for a big event? Do you have a band performing live in the evening? Then there is absolutely no better way to let people know about it than Instagram stories. By giving them tiny bits about how you are ramping up for the event, your brand can keep the buzz strong, and make sure more and more people turn up for the actual event later.

#5. Redirect users to longer pieces of content or even to your website – If your brand has an active blog, or if the face of your brand speaks about something relevant to the industry in general, make sure to entice your Instagram followers to check it out. Tell the audience what the content is about, give them a reason to read the entire piece, and then add the call-to-action to invite viewers to ‘click on the link in bio’ or ‘swipe up to read more’. You can also use this feature to display any particular offering or product and then redirect users to that content on your website as well. This not just gives you viewers on this platform, but also increases clicks to your main website.

Want more tips to navigate through Instagram stories? Read this.

The post 5 ways hospitality brands can start using Instagram stories (and why they should) appeared first on TravHQ.

Arguments are pouring in from almost everywhere on how the new ‘Stories’ feature on Instagram is strikingly similar to Snapchat. From praises to curses, the responses vary widely at this point. While this particular feature might not attract many new users, it will certainly get current users to use Instagram more often. On top of that, it is sort of giving users a new format without letting them escape to another platform. Many users who weren’t using Snapchat (or have given up any hopes of being able to figure out Snapchat) are experimenting with Instagram stories, partly out of curiosity and partly because it is right there in front of them in one of their favourite apps.

On the other side, many travel brands, including some major hotel chains, were starting to experiment with Snapchat and the stories could also be an interesting addition for brands. Here is why we think Instagram Stories is a feature worth experimenting with, for your brand:

1- No starting over

Yes we have highlighted the fact that Snapchat can be a great platform to add, especially if your travel brand targets younger audience. However, starting to build a fresh set of audience isn’t an easy job. Instagram Stories offer a middle ground by bringing elements of Snapchat and your existing Instagram audience together. You can start experimenting here and if this format works well, you can consider diverting some resources towards Snapchat as well.

2- Regain visibility

We hated it when Instagram decided to kill the chronological order of posts. While maintaining a decent posting frequency worked well for brands earlier, the algorithmic feed changed that. However, stories show up right on top when you open Instagram. So even if your posts are losing visibility, the brand can still be visible with the help of Stories.

3- Easier discovery

Snapchat doesn’t make it really easy for users to discover other users (or brands). That isn’t a problem with Instagram though. Hashtags and geotags help with discovery of your account and it is easier for people to find your brand and connect with it.

4- More audience

You know what is better than 150 million daily active users? 300 million daily active users. While Snapchat is growing fast and has an impressive user base, there is no way you can ignore the fact that Instagram is much bigger. On top of that, Facebook is known to be bullish on products it sees significant and that could work in your favour if you are using Stories.

5- No more overposting

Instagram posts are all about quality and brands post their best photographs at the right time to engage with the audience. However, at times, the social media platforms are also used to host campaigns or keep the audience posted on major developments and that means disrupting the posting schedule and even overposting. Stories could help you avoid that. Hosting a bloggers’ meet? Broadcast it through Stories. New office? Tell people through stories. Exhibiting at a travel fair? Stories again.

6- Different characters

The Instagram posts we see on most accounts are the exact opposite of Stories in most cases. While the posts have high quality curated content, Stories have more raw content. So the two can be used to post different content and present different characters of the brand. Things you might want to tell your audience but might not want to have on your Instagram profile. GoPro for instance posts amazing photos shared by GoPro photographers all over. On stories however, they have been sharing photos and videos of how some lucky GoPro users are going places. So you can be telling more than one story at the same time.

Have you tried using Instagram Stories for your brand yet? Do share any interesting ideas you might have on using it for travel marketing. Join the discussions on travel marketing and get inputs from the topic experts here.

The post Six reasons you should be using Instagram Stories for your travel brand appeared first on TravHQ.

Instagram has turned Snapchatty and people are losing their minds over it. They are rolling eyes on this new Instagram feature that is ‘inspired’ by Snapchat. However, it is barely about who brought what feature first. If it is there and Instagram can pull it off in a better or even equally successful manner, there is nothing wrong with it.

Instagram is widely used by travellers to share their experiences but like any other social network, it is about quality and to some extent, social validation. Most people shoot hundreds of photos, dozens of them turn out to be decent, then they fine tune few of them to post on Instagram. It is all about showing your best so that people like your photos. People like your photos so you post more. One of the many reasons Snapchat is so successful is because there is little social validation. Instagram has done the same by introducing this new format of posts. You can now post photos of the weird things you do during your trip without the expectation of likes and they will disappear in a day.

People often delete media from social platforms, usually because they weren’t getting enough likes or it wasn’t as good as their other posts. The ‘stories’ will allow people to share photos that they want to share but weren’t doing because of these reasons. More content will be shared and it could also bring new users for this new feature. And as Instagram has essentially built Snapchat as an additional feature, the standard Instagram features will also see more users. This in turn will give more visibility to the standard Instagram posts which can never be a bad thing for brands looking to expand their reach through this platform, isn’t it?

Brands can also use the tool effectively during their campaigns. Often brands try to have a certain theme and character to their posts, which of-course is the right strategy for Instagram. However, during contests or campaigns, they either prefer to use different accounts or have to ditch their character, and even their publishing patterns. Stories would allow them to share this content without having to disrupt the standard publishing.

Apart from the ‘Stories’ that is making stories all over, the parent company Facebook has got some plans with live videos. While Instagram built a Snapchat into the app now, Facebook built a Periscope into the platform a while back. They have been pushing the live video feature aggressively and now sources suggest that Facebook has started testing ads between live videos. They are working with a small group of publishers at this point to let them insert short ads in live. These ads can appear after five minutes in a live stream and can be up to 15 seconds long.

When Facebook rolls out the feature, it is likely that advertisers will have the ability to create custom ads to be shown during live videos. Adage has reported that publishers will have control over what category of advertisers can advertise during their live streams and even turn it off. We might also see a revenue sharing between Facebook and the publishers. Certain things about the new ad formats aren’t clear yet but a public launch shouldn’t be far.

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