so you’ve stayed at a lovely hotel
You’ve written your review and chosen your photos
You’ve written a short ‘travel guide’ about the destination
You’ve submitted your review and travel piece to LBH
You’ve submitted your social media updates
you’ve completed the database with leads and relevant additional hotel info
What next?
To improve the reach of your article it is important to do two things:
– re-connect with the hotel with specific next steps for them to follow
– maximise the profile of the hotel and LBH through social media.
Here’s a checklist of the next steps our team recommend (based on their own experience and trial and error!)
1. Email the hotel to let them know the review is now live including our seal of approval which they can use and link back to the hotel. If they made it to top 8 hotels please contact us for the appropriate seal.
2. Tweet the hotel to draw their attention to the review
3. Tweet any of your own followers with the review/ share the FB post to your own audience
4. Post the review to Google+
5. Suggest they share the review via their social media channels ie share it on Facebook and tweet/ re-tweet
6. recommend that they add a link from their website to ours to improve the performance of the review (with gudlines on how to do this)
7. Ask if there are any other hotels within their brand which they would like reviewed
8. Highlight the opportunity to boost their post if they would be interested and attach media rates document
9. After a week if there has been no sharing/ backlinks etc email again to encourage them to boost the performance of the review by sharing it on facebook and twitter (which will lead to extra page likes, post likes, views, reach and extra traffic for their hotel review).
Tips from other reviewers
Johanna 2015
‘I send at least two after-stay emails to the hotel asking for shares and back links. When I send the destination guide, and any other articles for other publications I write about them, I repeat all the links from previous emails so they have them all in one place (the easier you make it for the hotel the more likely they will do it; I’ve also found that the faster I’m able to get an article posted the more engaged the hotel is). Before I email subsequent times, I also check on the hotel site to see if they have posted our articles, thank them if they have, and encourage more posting and more sharing. Whenever I can, I also click on the hotel’s link from the LBH site — helping them see that they get lots of clicks form LBH.
I share the articles on social media, especially twitter (e.g. using Hootsuite to set up advance posts), and try to include the @ names of people / companies I think will share the post further. I also RT stuff from LBH’s twitter too, and add @ names (this is especially helpful if a hotel gets a twitter name only after you’ve submitted the article). I see that a few writers do this occasionally too. I post at least once on pinterest, FB, Google+ and am aiming to do more (I also try and do these using the links on the LBH page, to help the LBH stats). Instagram I mostly use while staying at the hotel.
Yes, all this takes a lot of work (especially since I have 50+ hotels I’ve written about), but it is worth it. The more popular LBH is, the easier it is for us to get free stays. Plus I’ve received some great thank you letters from hotels who are impressed with what I’ve done for them (I’ve heard horror stories from hotels about how they’re treated by some writers). These are good reference letters for any hotel / PR agency (for any brand/product) I hope to work with in the future. Some hotels have forwarded my name within their network, leading to more stays for me (and for many of you!). Some hotels have even invited me back for a free stay next time I’m in the country. And I’ve been invited by tourism agencies (e.g. Whistler, Canada) and given tons of free activities, plus second time around they even arranged my hotel stays for me. So – yes, it’s worth it!
Here’s the text I use when I send a hotel their feature:
“Thank you again for such a wonderful stay at XX. The feature on XX was published today on Luxury And Boutique Hotels: XX
I also mentioned XX in this article I wrote for XX: XX
We’d love it if you could post the links to your hotel feature and the article on your website, and share them on social media. You are also welcome to add the LBH seal of approval, attached, on your website.
These actions help further extend the benefits of hosting me. Having a lot of shares and links to and from your website increases the “importance” search engines like Google place on it, and helps potential guests find you.
If you tag my social media accounts (below) I can quickly see and reshare the posts, which also helps improve your statistics.
A destination guide article about XX will be posted next and I will send you the link when it is ready. Links on my website, XX, are live and the social media coverage will continue. Thanks again”