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User-generated content is low on cost, and high on returns on engagement, but it's not always being utilized by hotel brands to its greatest advantage says a new report from consultancy firm L2. But is having a lot of UGC necessarily a good thing, or are there better ways for hotels to use them to their advantage?
User-generated content (UGC) in all of its various forms, from Instagram photos and Tweets to Facebook posts and Snapchat Stories, can be invaluable marketing tools for travel brands, especially hotels.
Luxury hotel brands that feature UGC in their Instagram posts see six times more interactions per post than brands that do not, for example, according to a new report from L2, a New York-based consultancy firm. Those that source more than half of their posts from UGC also generate 2.6 times higher engagement than brands that do not.
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And although L2 points out that UGC integration on luxury hotels' home pages in 2016 has tripled to 14 percent and integration on property pages has more than doubled to 40 percent, compared to last year, the firm says brands could be doing much more with UGC than they are currently.
To compile its report, L2 looked at the UGC strategies of 50 or so different hotel brands that comprise its annual index of luxury hotels. Sixty percent of brands on the index do not use UGC on their branded pages or sites, 86 percent have not used UGC in their site landing pages, and 92 percent do not host UGC on a separate microsite.
Why is that? Sam Lee, associate director of retail for L2 said, "It's a combination of factors. They don't understand how effective UGC is in generating guest engagement. Soliciting UGC, curating it, and integrating across channels requires a not insignificant amount of investment." He added, "Many brands are partnering with Olapic [a company that helps brands integrate UGC] to help drive the implementation."
A Difference of Opinion on UGC
But is having UGC prominently displayed on a hotel's website the most effective use of it for hotels? Stuart Foster, vice president of marketing for Hilton Worldwide's luxury brands (Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and Canopy by Hilton), said his brands actuall
