Instagram is a powerful tool for brand promotion. There are already many exemplary hotel accounts. Surely, your competitors will be among them.
The page of your hotel in Instagram can also be a good channel for promotion. There are three important actions without which it is impossible:
- filling out a profile;
- content creation;
- online and offline promotion.
Correctly fill in your profile
Make the hotel logo the title picture of the profile. If there is no logo, use a photo that will show you to the guests: reception, main entrance, memorable decoration elements.
In the description, tell us about your unique offers and competitive advantages. Here, the main task is to catch the guest at a glance. In a few seconds, he should understand what you are offering and where to look for it.
Add your phone and email to your profile so that the guest can get in touch with you quickly. If you have a business profile, setting up the communication buttons is more convenient than typing everything by hand. This way, subscribers can call or email you directly from your profile.
What to publish
Put yourself in the guest’s shoes and think about what might interest him. Tell us what you have to offer to make your guests feel comfortable at the hotel. If you often have children coming to visit with you, show that your rooms are fully equipped. Or concentrate on the entertainment that the hotel has to offer.
A photo will do for your profile:
- interior;
- the sights nearby;
- hotel staff;
- celebrities who’ve been staying at your hotel;
- regular guests: people are interested in watching live photos.
The main thing about the content you post is that it’s good for the guest.
Attract more subscribers
A beautiful account is great. But you have to make people know about it. Every subscriber you have is a potential guest, and guests are potential subscribers.
Tell us about the account on your resources, on Instagram, third-party websites and partners (like Victoria Inn Hotel Winnipeg do) and in person when guests come to the hotel.
On your resources.
- Add social network buttons to the official website.
- Tell subscribers of other social networks that you have a profile on Instagram.
- Tell us about your account directly on your booking confirmation.
Instagram has internal promotion tools:
- Contests, voting, polls
They raise the activity of subscribers, motivate them to like your posts and leave comments. The easiest thing is to offer guests to publish a photo with your hashtag in exchange for a small discount or bonus.
- Likes and subscriptions
Don’t be skimpy on likes and sign up for potential guests. This way you’ll notice your guests to your account. If your content seems interesting to a person, he will also subscribe to you.
- Hashtags.
They have several useful actions at once:
They make it easier to navigate your account. A unique branded hashtag will show you all the posts about the hotel.
I advise you not to treat the hotel profile as an ordinary advertising platform. Endless ads about your services are unlikely to supply you with subscribers, or even reduce. Approach the management of your account in Instagram creatively, with a sense of humor. Be a friend to your guest.
Related: how to make money on Instagram with 1k followers
Where most hotels get their Instagram promotion wrong
I’ve audited enough hotel Instagram accounts to spot the same five mistakes over and over. If you fix these before you spend another pound on ads or influencer trips, you’ll get more out of the channel than most properties twice your marketing budget.
The first mistake is posting the room, not the feeling. Every hotel shows the bed, the bathroom, the view from the window. Guests scroll past this in half a second because they’ve seen it a thousand times before on a thousand other hotel accounts. What stops the scroll is a guest laughing over breakfast, a staff member carrying bags in the rain, the exact moment someone walks into the room and reacts. Show the experience, not the inventory.
The second mistake is treating Stories as an afterthought. Stories get more reach per view than feed posts for most hotel accounts I’ve looked at, and they’re where booking intent lives. A poll asking “beach view or garden view?” tells you what your audience wants before they even ask reception. Use the question sticker to collect real guest questions, then answer them on camera. It builds trust faster than any polished feed post.
The third mistake is ignoring user generated content. Guests are already posting photos from your property. Most hotels never repost them, tag them, or send a message saying thanks. A simple system fixes this: search your location tag and branded hashtag once a week, message the best five posts for permission, repost with credit. This costs nothing and gives you a stream of authentic content that a photographer could never fake.
The fourth mistake is inconsistent posting followed by long silences. The algorithm rewards accounts that show up. A hotel that posts three times a week for a month then goes quiet for six weeks loses whatever momentum it built. Batch content in one sitting, schedule it, and keep a rolling three month content calendar so gaps don’t happen by accident.
The fifth mistake is not linking Instagram to bookings directly. A pretty feed with no clear path to a reservation is a vanity project. Use the link in bio tool to point straight at a booking page, not your homepage. Add a “Book Now” sticker on Stories. Track how many people tap through with UTM links so you know if the channel earns its keep.
A quick real example: a 40 room boutique property I worked with switched from staged room photos to daily Reels of staff, food, and guest moments. Within three months their reach tripled and direct bookings attributed to Instagram traffic went from near zero to roughly 12 percent of total online bookings. Nothing expensive changed. The content strategy did.
More questions
How often should a hotel post on Instagram?
Three to five feed posts a week plus daily Stories is a solid baseline. Consistency matters more than volume, so pick a frequency you can sustain for months, not just one busy week.
Should hotels pay influencers or focus on organic content?
Both have a place, but organic guest content and staff driven Reels usually build more trust and cost far less. Save influencer budget for a handful of well matched partners rather than spreading it thin across many.
What is the biggest sign an Instagram strategy is not working?
Growing followers with no increase in website clicks or direct bookings. Followers are a vanity metric. Track link taps, booking page visits, and reservations tagged to Instagram traffic instead.
More Instagram help: Instagram fixes, settings and how-tos.
