Excerpt from Travel Weekly
When it comes to marketing, few tools are as powerful as social media. Thanks to their sizable caches of personal data, platforms like Facebook and Instagram have made it easier than ever for brands to target specific markets based on age, location, gender and interests.
What can vary widely, however, is how marketers choose to target audiences. One of the fastest-growing methods is Instagram influencer marketing, which focuses on using prominent individuals, typically with large numbers of followers, to promote goods and services.
"The impact of social media has completely changed the way travelers are making their decisions," said Dorothy Dowling, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Best Western Hotels & Resorts, which has grown its Instagram following to more than 30,000. "In the age of people posting and sharing their lives online, users are more inclined to make travel decisions based on what their friends or followers are posting."
Hotels in particular have proven themselves adept at harnessing influencer partnerships, offering discounts, complimentary stays or monetary compensation in exchange for promotional Instagram posts and other content.
Rachel Kaplan, director of digital marketing at Dream Hotels, which has more than 55,000 followers on Instagram, said, "Our Instagram influencers are essentially brand ambassadors, and they can be incredibly useful."
Kaplan pointed to a recent Instagram partnership with lifestyle influencer @gigigorgeous, who has more than 2 million followers and worked with Dream Hotels to successfully promote the brand's Pride campaign in June. But while @gigigorgeous' following is certainly sizable, Kaplan said an influencer's effectiveness is more dependent on the quality of his or her following than on the number of followers.
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