LinkedIn Content Creation Tips for Hospitality

July 13, 2022
LinkedIn, Personal Branding

The hospitality industry is a great place to start building a personal brand, but once your brand is created, then what? When you’re in hospitality, you’re in the “experience” business, so our industry is prime for those creative individuals who want to carve out a personal brand in our vibrant industry.

Developing your content to serve your audience is a large part of why we build a brand, and hospitality has some very unique opportunities for those that want to create engaging and enticing content.

Before we dive into ways that hospitality professionals can create content for their clients and customers, let’s review the objective of building a personal brand.

As defined by Wikipedia, Personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence public perception of an individual by positioning them as an authority in their industry, elevating their credibility, and differentiating themselves from the competition, to ultimately advance their career, increase their circle of influence, and have a larger impact.^[1]

The process of personal branding involves finding your uniqueness, building a reputation on the things you want to be known for, and then allowing yourself to be known for them.

When it comes to content creation in the hospitality industry, you are not only “creating and influencing public perception” of you as an individual, but there are a plethora of opportunities available to influence your customers’ perception around your product or offering as well. Your content can create trust in you as their go-to person for the product, but also create transparency in your operations.

Here are a bucket-load of content creation tips for the hospitality industry:

“Behind-the-scenes” at your organization – Whether you work for a hotel, a destination or a neighbourhood restaurant, there are plenty of “behind-the-scenes” opportunities for you to film.
1. Take your clients on a tour through the facility’s back-of-house kitchen or behind the bar.
2. Do you have an employee break area or employee housing complex that you’re particularly proud of? This content could work well for both your clients and for a recruitment campaign for seasonal employment.
3. Take your customers through your hotel spa or other amenities onsite.
How To’s – these pieces of content can provide both education and entertainment to your clients and customers – Your short videos could include:
1. Cooking tutorials, baking tutorials and mixology lessons
2. Involve your housekeeping staff and help teach your customers how to fold a fitted sheet (many of us would love that tutorial, let me know when it’s coming out!)
3. Wine tastings and tea tastings with your resident sommelier
4. Fitness centre or other recreational activity demonstrations
Tips on how to use your product or service – There are a number of ways that you could showcase tips and tricks as it pertains directly to your offering.
1. If you work in hotel sales, showcasing a tour of your ballroom with various setups for meeting planners works well. Bonus tip if you can partner with both your AV and a decor company to show how you can transform a space into a client’s dream setting.
2. Also consider showing non-traditional meeting spaces being transformed into extra useable, desirable meeting spaces – the basement parking lot garage transformed into a tradeshow space, the outdoor tent turned into an afternoon coffee break location, etc.
3. Does your restaurant have any private spaces available for booking? Show us the spaces and how it interacts with the rest of your space.
4. Creating meal-kits-to-go? Take us through a cooking tutorial with one of the meal kits.
Interviews with colleagues and staff – Introduce your clients and customers to the personalities that make up your organization.
1. Your restaurant or hotel manager
2. Your concierge or greeter
3. Front desk staff and servers
4. Housekeeping staff
5. Chefs, bartenders, bakers, sommeliers- these creative individuals have a lot to share with your community!
Answer FAQs – This is a great way to engage with your customers, and perhaps save yourself some time in the future. Explore FAQs through one of the other content tips listed, including team members’ interviews, how-to tutorials and video snippets. FAQs can make a great series of content if you’re looking to create something consistently; your customers can come to expect your FAQ segment and start to look forward to it!
Highlight new products or services – This will keep your clients informed of new offerings and changes at your venue.
1. During gathering restrictions – your offerings have likely changed; consider being front and centre by helping your customers out with the changes
2. Post-pandemic return to operations – there will likely be changes ongoing; help your organization out by continuing to update your clients to help create clarity and trust in your services
Partnerships and collaborations – If one of your company’s main drivers is outside tourism, consider partnering with other local businesses to showcase the strength of your destination as a whole. Make it a night, or a weekend, of discovery for your clients and customers.
1. Partner with other local restaurants, breweries, wineries and hotels
2. Partner with local farmers and suppliers that help you feed your clients and customers
3. Partner with sister hotels, and highlight the different services and amenities at each
Focus on CSR initiatives – Do you or your organization contribute to causes and other social responsibilities throughout the year? Let your client’s in on your journey!
1. Work with community organizations such as the food bank, Habitat for Humanity, etc
2. Does your venue invest in locally grown products? Herb gardens, bee habitats and micro-greens are some common themes in venues that have the space.
3. Does your venue take a public stand for or against social issues? If your personal brand’s values align, consider creating content in collaboration with your company.