What we look for before a hotel hosts a creator
Our team at Revpar Media gets creator requests every single day, both at the agency and directly at the hotels we work with. The question we ask about every new request is whether we can confidently put this hotel in that creator's hands.
Start with audience fit
A creator's audience has to realistically overlap with the audience the hotel is going after. If a family-friendly hotel near Disney gets a pitch from someone who mostly posts about fashion and high-end designer things, the hotel has to ask whether that audience is really what it's looking for.
Back when I worked at a lifestyle forward luxury hotel, a DJ with over three hundred thousand followers reached out to us. That's fantastic for him, but it didn't really vibe with the hotel, and he also didn't post about travel.
What a strong pitch includes
A strong pitch explains who the creator is and why their audience fits this specific property. It brings a creative concept, because everybody is going to post content. It also scales the proposed deliverables to the stay. A three-night stay asks the hotel to invest more than just one night, and the more nights they have to invest, the more they're going to expect in return.
A big red flag is a pitch that leaves out the creator's demographics and engagement rates. If you're hiding your likes, that tells me you have something to hide.
Choosing between small and large accounts
More often than not, we go with the creator who has a highly engaged audience. A high engagement rate tells us they understand how to reach the people who are there to see them.
It still depends on the goal of the hotel and the campaign. When a hotel is selling a holiday package with a discount, we may gravitate to the creator with the smaller following and higher engagement, because a larger percentage of the people who see it are likely to take action. When the hotel is looking for exposure or a new influx of followers, we may partner with someone with a large following.
A million followers who don't care about the hotel are worth less to us than twenty thousand people who might actually book it at the end of the campaign.
Content that could only be your hotel
If the picture or video a creator shares could have been done at any hotel, it failed. A simple video of the creator walking into the hotel and up to the room does wonders, because it gives the audience an opportunity to walk into that space and visualize themselves being there.
I saw content recently for a lifestyle property in New York City where the creator's only video showed maybe three-quarters of the bed and a small hallway going to the bathroom. He stood in front of an ironing board with one sock on it, pretending to iron the sock while talking about the hotel. He talked about the arrival experience and how comfortable the bed was, yet visually this could have been any hotel room in the world.
If that was someone we had worked with, he would not be somebody we'd work with again. He promoted himself and the fact that he was staying at a great hotel, and his audience got no opportunity to share in that experience with him.
Anytime a creator can connect with someone at the property, that's going to be fantastic, even if it's just a picture with the concierge who recommended a great restaurant. One of our hotels in New York City had a simple picture of a room's balcony view overlooking the city as its top post for the month, with over 200 interactions. Of those comments, most asked how to get that view when they book.
What gets a creator invited back
The hotel is still an operating business with paying guests. A creator who shows up in the lobby with lights and an entourage, or interrupts breakfast to stand in front of the buffet, is a nuisance. Find a point of contact at the hotel when you check in and coordinate a good time for the shot you want.
Deliver what you promised. If you promised two reels, make sure those reels are delivered at the time you agreed upon. Great content might get you the first collaboration, but being great to work with is going to build a partnership.
After your content goes live, send the links to the hotel, and maybe a week later send a screenshot of the engagement and reach. Your collaboration shouldn't end when you hit publish. That should be the start of a business relationship.
We go through all of this in the full episode. Watch on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Calvin and the Revpar Media team build hotel marketing that drives bookings, from social media management to influencer campaigns.
Book a 30-minute callFull transcript
Calvin Tilokee If your hotel content could be shot in any lobby at any pool with any hotel name on the feed you haven't told the hotel story today, I'm breaking down what we actually look for when creators pitch us from audience fit and professionalism to the actual content itself and why the best creators don't just show that they were at the hotel they make their audience understand what it felt like to be there with them So we'll start at the beginning, and here's the problem. Before you reach out to a hotel, how do you know whether you're actually a good fit for the property?
You wanna look at the hotel's brand, their audience, their location, their posting style, their aesthetics, and overall guest experience. How do you fit into that? How does your content and your audience fit into what they're already doing and the existing audience that they're going after? You wanna ask yourself, does your audience realistically overlap with what the hotel audience is or what their target audience is? For example, if this is a family-friendly hotel, say something near a Disney or some sort of attraction like that, and you're mostly posting about lifestyle, fashion, high-end designer things, modeling, any of those kind of things, is that really what that audience is looking for?
Or would they more be looking for someone who has a family or is posting about family travel or has a mom blog, these type of things? And that's just a very basic comparison, but those are the things you wanna look at. Does your audience Match what the hotel is looking for. Just because you have a lot of followers doesn't necessarily make it a good partnership. What you wanna do is you wanna think about what story you could tell that would be a fit for that property. Let's use the Disney example again.
Even if you are a lifestyle, fashion-forward content creator, but you pitch a hotel on something that you're gonna show your audience a different side of what you do, a different side of your personality, maybe some of your content could be how to be designer and fashionable with Minnie Mouse ears on, right? That's something fun and engaging that the hotel could align with that the audience may find interesting. That's where you can create an overlap. You want to, again, make sure that what you're posting and what you're pitching to the hotel is unique to the property.
What you don't wanna do is send the same pitch to every hotel that's in the area simply because you're looking for a room or a place to stay. You can't just lean on the fact that you have a bunch of followers. You really need to curate the experience and curate your storytelling around what the hotel may need and what your audience can provide. If you can't explain why this hotel would make sense for you as a partner, the hotel probably won't be able to justify it either. And considering hotel rooms are the most valuable asset for a hotel, that's where all the money is made.
That's their most valuable asset. They're, you're asking them to give away one of their most valuable assets for either free or severely discounted rate. They need to be able to justify that. They need to be able to turn around and say, "Well, this was worth it because we've got X amount of exposure. We're partnering with someone who has a large audience, and these are how many followers were generated from that," or, "How many rooms were booked? How many visits to the website were generated through your partnership?"
A good partnership is both people are using each other. You're using the hotel for a free room, they're using you for exposure. That's what a good partnership is. It can't just be one-sided, and that's how you have to start to think as a creator. Of course, you want the free room, and you want the ability to stay in a city and, and showcase what you're doing, but what are you giving the hotel in return outside of just I have a lot of followers, and maybe they'll watch this video? How are you gonna weave a story?
How are you going to put yourself in the position to show what this experience is like for any other guest that may follow you? And that guest may not look or feel like you. They might not be your exact demographic, right? But the content needs to be relatable enough that even if this person doesn't look like you or come from where you come from, they should still be able to envision themselves doing what you're doing at this hotel. Hey, quick question for you. When was the last time your hotel social media actually brought someone through the door?
If you can't answer that, it might be time to rethink your approach. At Revpar Media, we don't do marketing for the sake of marketing. Every strategy we build is designed to drive measurable results, more bookings, more visibility, more revenue. We've been on the operations side, and we know what matters. If that's something you're looking to solve right now, scan the QR code on screen or hit the link in the show notes. Now, back to today's conversation. So as a creator, here's the research you should be doing before you ever reach out to the hotel.
Spend time on the hotel's website and social channels. Start to get a feel for what the hotel is currently doing, and ask yourself, are you a match for the current content, for the current strategy, the current aesthetics? Does this match what you're currently doing, or will it take some adjustment? Secondary question to that, if that adjustment is going to be a fit for your audience. For example, are you musically inclined? Are you a DJ, a dancer, these type of things? Um, does that fit in with the current hotel?
As someone who, again, has worked in hotels for a long time, I was on the opposite side of a lot of these requests, and I worked at a hotel that was very lifestyle forward, luxury, and we had someone reach out to us who was a DJ, had over three hundred thousand followers, which is fantastic for him, but that d- wasn't, didn't really vibe with the hotel. He also didn't post about travel, and that's where I think the nuance comes in. If you're a creator that might not be a travel creator, but if you periodically post about travel, say again, this DJ, had he posted, "You know what?
I'm gonna be in Miami this week. Here's where I stayed. Here's where I stayed the last time. Here's what I loved about the hotel. Here's how it ties into the music scene. It was a few blocks from the club I DJ'd at," et cetera. That's how you can sort of weave in the two and kinda create that overlap between what you're consistently doing and how a partnership may work for both sides. So some of the other things you wanna take a look at as you're understanding the hotel, understand the neighborhood, the amenities, the food and beverage, their design story, uh, the history of the hotel, history of the building, the guest experience.
You c- because when you stay at a property, you wanna give your audience all of that. They need to be able to feel through your content what that experience is gonna be like. So the more you can learn about it and the more you can curate your outreach to the hotel to say to help tell that story and to make it unique. That's gonna help you stand out from all the, the bombardment of influencer, uh, requests that we get here at the agency and directly to the hotels. So as we get to the decision-making process on our side, here's what strong hotel collaborations usually include Who you are, what your content is about, why your audience aligns with this specific property.
What you're sending could be sent to any hotel, then it can fit any hotel, and you're not unique and not likely to get a response. Come up with a creative concept, not simply, "I'll post content." Everybody's gonna post content. What's a specific angle, something creative about this hotel, something different and creative that you can do? Come up with, uh, proposed deliverables. If you're looking for one-night, two-night, three-night stays, those deliverables are gonna all look different because you're asking the hotel to invest more than just one night.
The more nights they have to invest, the more they're gonna expect in return. So come up with some proposed deliverables that are going to be sufficient for what you're asking for. And lastly, a big red flag is if people are not sending us their demographics, their engagement rates, a brand kit. Give us, uh, some background because, again, you guys really need to understand that there are so many people looking to do this, so many influencers, so many content creators that are sending their information to the hotels and to us every single day.
In order to stand out, we need all of these boxes checked, otherwise it's sort of like send- it, it is sending your resume for a job offer, and if the information is not easily available and not, uh, not speaking the language that the hotel's looking for, you're not gonna get a call back. And last point on that is a good pitch doesn't just ask for something in return. It gives me a reason to believe the partnership will be successful. So when creators are reaching out, what are we looking at? Here's a few points for your knowledge.
Quality and consistency of your content, not just the production value. These days, everyone can kind of make high definition photography and, and images and video, and I don't wanna dismiss that. I mean, there's a lot of effort, time and effort that goes into editing and making things look beautiful. But we need more than that. As we say here at Revpar Media, aesthetics are just the baseline. We need a story. We need something that's gonna connect. So tell us in your own words what you're gonna create that's gonna be meaningful and resonate with our audience.
So again, we're looking at the quality and consistency of your content, not just the production value. We're looking for a story. We're looking for what are you putting behind those beautiful pictures and videos? Because nowadays, people are shooting movies on iPhones now, so we, we know most people can create things that are visually pleasing. But as we say here at Revpar Media, aesthetics are just the baseline. We need to see how you're using those aesthetics and those visuals to connect with your audience.
Then we can kind of, uh, extrapolate from that how are you gonna connect with our audience. And big thing that we're looking at is whether or not you and your audience connect w- and make sense for the hotel. Again, we've used a few examples so far in this podcast, but if you're not posting about travel, why would all of a sudden your audience care about that? If you're someone who's posting about food, if you're a food influencer and my hotel doesn't have food and beverage, does that really make sense for us?
These are things that we're looking at and making sure that it's a fit. We're looking at your engagement. That is a big thing, and I can give you one huge red flag that's gonna get you ignored immediately. If you're hiding your likes, we're not gonna take any step further than that. If you're hiding your likes, that tells me you have something to hide. You're maybe embarrassed about your engagement. We wanna know how many people are liking your posts on a regular basis, and if you're confident in what you're doing and your audience is engaged, there's absolutely no reason to hide that.
What we're also looking for is any previous brand partnerships that you have, you have had and how those have performed. We wanna see how you take a brand and tell that story to your audience using your creativity, but keeping that brand in mind. Maybe not front and center at all times. There are ways that you can weave a brand into your current narrative without it being the main thing about the post, but we wanna know that when you're posting about something, you know how to do the marketing and keep the brand visible while remaining organic and aligned with your current audience.
And lastly, we're looking at professionalism. I think, uh, we have a larger percentage now of content creators that are running their Instagram pages and their social media pages as businesses, but there's still a long way to go with that. We wanna know that you're taking this seriously. If we're going to invest our most valuable asset as hotels into you, we wanna know that you're gonna give us something re- in return. You're gonna represent the hotel well. And if we as the agency are gonna promote you to this hotel, we wanna know that you're representing us well because once we engage into a collaboration with you as an influencer, as a creator, we're putting a bit of our reputation into the fact that you're gonna come and deliver what you say you're gonna deliver, and if you don't, that doesn't reflect well on us as the agency.
So we need to understand that you're someone who's gonna do what you say you do. So overall, when we're looking at a new request for a content creator, we're not asking, "How many followers do you have?" We're asking, "Can I confidently put this hotel in your hands?" So here's one that we've kind of become a bit more of a conversation over the past few years is follower counts and micro-influencers versus macro-influencers. So if a creator has a smaller but a highly engaged audience while others have a large following but maybe a s- a weaker relevance to the hotel, who are we gonna pick?
And It's a great question, and this is one that we, that we get a lot. So the cop-out answer is it could be both, and it really depends on the, on the goal of the hotel at the time on the, and the goal of the particular campaign. So I would say more often than not, we're gonna go with the creator that has a highly engaged audience, because if what you're posting currently is working and you understand your audience, a high engagement rate tells us that you understand how to reach the people that are there to see you.
And that gives us a bit more confidence that if we put this hotel and this brand in your hands, you're gonna know how to do that in a way that engages with the audience that you have. Now, that's not to say that we don't do partnerships with l- people with large followings, because we understand, um, that's just kinda the way numbers work. If your audience... The larger your audience is, the lower your engagement's gonna be. That's just kinda the way numbers work. Um, the more people there are, there's only a certain amount of people that remain consistently engaged.
Plus, we understand that everyone is not seeing all your posts all the time. So it really depends on the goal of the hotel. So if we're looking for something that's gonna promote a specific time period, a specific, um, package, for example, the holidays are coming up soon. If we want somebody to show what this hotel is like during the holidays, and we ne- need to make sure we get a lot of eyes on this because we're selling a specific package, the hotel's doing a holiday package with a discount off or something like that, uh, maybe we, we gravitate to the, the smaller Uh, following the influencer with the smaller following but the higher engagement because then we know a larger percentage of people that see it are likely to take action.
They're likely to engage and hopefully visit the hotel website and, and book the package that we're looking to sell. On the other hand, um, a time where we may partner with someone with a large following is when we are looking for exposure. Maybe the hotel is, is looking for a new influx of followers. We're looking to just generate some buzz. We've got things going on in the area. You know, hotel accounts or all accounts, and I'm sure all of you creators understand this just as well because it happens with yours, there are periods of time where your goal is to more curate and engage the audience you have, and then there are times that you're looking to grow, grow the following.
So wherever this, whatever stage the hotel account is at the time could dictate what type of influencer we look for. There's a space for both. There's a time and a place to use both, and sometimes they could be pretty much simultaneous. I think one of the things we're great at here at Revpar Media is understanding what type of influencer is-- what's the best collaboration we can, we can do with people. So if we have a large account and a smaller account, maybe those deliverables look a little different because we're leveraging that audience in a different way.
Um, but if both people are reputable, they're qualified, their engagement's good, they look professional, they're some-- they're people that most importantly align with the brand of the hotel that we're pitching, we can use both simultaneously. Um, so there's no hard and fast rule about large or small accounts. Um, really it comes down to brand fit, engagement, and understanding that that engagement will look different for each, uh, each account size. But we can make space for both, and it really is how we leverage, how we leverage that through deliverables.
Ultimately, with that question of a larger followers or, or small followers, a million followers who don't care about the hotel are less valuable to us than twenty thousand people who might actually book it at the end of the campaign. Once you get approved and you get the stay, what's gonna separate creating great hotel content versus your typical influencer post? So the first thing is the hotel stay needs to be part of the story, and it can't always be achieved through simple pictures or things like that.
And what I would encourage most content creators to do is understand you're not selling yourself here. What you're doing is you're using the audience and the the engagement and all of that, all the eyes that you've curated on your page, you're using that to promote a brand, not yourself specifically at that time. Because what's gonna be completely useless for a hotel is a bunch of pictures of you that they can't use afterwards. It can't just be you standing in front of any bed. I think this is probably the best way to summarize that point is if it looks like the picture or the video you're sharing could be, could have been done at any hotel, you failed.
So what you wanna do is you wanna take the audience through the journey, show what the arrival experience is like, show the room, the lobby. A simple video of you walking into the hotel, going up the elevator and into your room does wonders because it gives the viewer and it gives the audience an opportunity to walk into that space and visualize themselves being you, being the person that's going to walk in the hotel and understanding and maybe they can start to think and feel what that might feel like when they get there.
That's what you wanna do. You wanna immerse people in your experience. So show the arrival, the room, um, room service, food, the neighborhood, all the things you do. Get these little clips and keep in mind it's almost like you're shooting a movie. You want people to see and feel something through your content. When they are done looking at your content, they should have an idea of what it's gonna feel like to be at that hotel, and they should want to be ex- they should be excited about Stepping into that hotel, they should be excited.
Man, the next time I go to XYZ city, I'm gonna remember this. I'm gonna bookmark this, this content because I'm going to New York City, for example, in a couple of months, and you made this look so good that I need to check this out. That's the feeling that you're going for through your content. And I can give an example of on the other side of what makes bad content. There's some content I saw recently for a hotel, lifestyle property, New York City. This hotel did a partnership with this influencer, and the only content this person shared, a video of them in the room where you could only see maybe three-quarters of the bed.
You saw the small hallway going to the bathroom, and that was it. So visually, this could have been any hotel room in the world. There was nothing identifiable about the property from the way this video was shot. The gentleman brought out an ironing board, stood in front of the ironing board with one sock on it. I don't know who irons their socks, and I don't know why he was only ironing one, but that was the video. And he's pretending to iron a sock while talking about the hotel. Now, he said everything that we've been discussing.
He talked about the arrival experience. He talked about the food. He talked about how comfortable the bed was. But all you saw was him pretending to iron a sock and three-quarters of the bed and a dark hallway, uh, leading to the bathroom. How is that supposed to inspire any of his audience to wanna view the hotel? If you're going to talk about the arrival experience, you're gonna talk about the bed, show those things. That is a failed partnership, and that is something that is a complete waste of time for the hotel, and that influencer, unfortunately, if that was someone we had worked with, that would not be somebody we'd work with again because you're not doing anything for the property.
You, you promoted yourself, you promoted the fact that you were staying at a great hotel, but you didn't give your audience the opportunity to share in that experience with you. And I guess a great way to, to, to summarize this point is if the only thing I learn from your post is that you were there and that you stayed at this hotel, if I don't learn anything about the property outside of the fact that, oh, wow, this person I follow was here, then it's a failed collaboration. Couple of things for creators to remember as you're working on your content is you want, again, make yourself part of the collaboration without it being entirely about yourself.
So here are some tips and a good way to do that for you. So you should absolutely be in the content. Your audience is there for you for a reason, but you wanna use it from a viewer's perspective. Here's what I experienced. Here's how check-in was. Here's how the bed was. Here's how the F&B, I had a great drink, I had a great meal. I was able to walk from this hotel to XYZ destination I was going to, museum, concert, whatever it is that you're there for. It could be for nothing, right? Uh, but whatever it is, there are features about the hotel, and again, going back to the top, if you're doing your homework before reaching out to the hotel, you know a little bit about where the hotel is, what are its distinguishing features, what it's, what's in the neighborhood.
If you're traveling, why were you there in the first place? You're going to a hotel for a reason, some reason. You're going to that city for a reason. Let the audience be part of that with you. Give your audience the story. Imagine you're one of them seeing this video. If I wanted to come to XYZ city that you're going to, why would I choose this hotel, and what would it feel like if I did choose this hotel? That's the idea you wanna have in your head when you're creating content. So you wanna show authentic reactions, um, discoveries, recommendations in the area, any decisions you've made along the way.
Hey, I, I decided to take the subway to this spot. Um, I'm here in New York City, for example. We're going to Empire State Building. I realized I could walk from my hotel to the Empire State Building in ten minutes. Those are the things that you wanna do. So you're, again, you're in the content because It's your audience, and your audience is ideally and primarily there for you, but they want your experiences, and they want, they wanna understand through your eyes. They're there for your perspective.
So give them your perspective without it just being me, "Hey, I was here at a hotel, and I got a nice room. Good luck finding it on your own." You want them to share the journey with them. You're a storyteller at that point. So what you wanna do is you want, you want to be the guide through the experience, not the experience itself. People are there to experience the hotel and the travel through you. They're not just there to experience you. So the types of hotel content that tell the strongest story, anytime you can connect with someone at the property, that's gonna be fantastic.
So if you're checked into a hotel and, for example, maybe the, the concierge gave you a great recommendation for a restaurant, a show, a museum, uh, a tour, and you can get a couple of seconds with that pers- even if it's just a picture. You don't have to do a full-on interview with them. But, "Hey, I took a picture. Here's Chad, who was our, our concierge, and he recommended all these great things for us to do," that, of course, they're gonna see in the content because you're documenting all of that.
Anytime you can make personal connections, that's gonna be a, a great way to tell a strong story. Hospitality is a people business. Everything about it is creating memories and creating experiences for the people at the hotel. Social media and the content you're gonna be creating is an extension of that. So think of it as that first handshake that, of a person you, you've met at the hotel. That's the feeling that should be evoked when they see this content, when they see your content. So they should see it and say, "Wow, this is a warm, genuine, hospitable feeling.
This is a hotel." How do you create that? Talk to people that are in the hotel. Specific details about the property. We had a property recently, one of our hotels in New York City. The top post for last month was a s- a simple picture of a, one of the rooms, balcony view, um, overlooking the city. It was our top post for the month. Why? Because we had over 200 interactions. Um, most of those comments were, "Wow, if I book this hotel, how do I get that view?" That not only engages your audience because you're giving them a great view, showing them something that's not available on the website visually.
They may not be able to see, hotels have likely done photography They don't do photo shoots that often, which is why these collaborations can be so crucial and so vital, uh, when you guys, uh, work with them. So that's another thing, if going back to the top, do your research, look at the hotels, look at their current feed in the, in the websites. What view, what perspective can you give that they don't have already? That's what's gonna make it valuable. But going back to the specific post, it resonated because so many people couldn't see that view from the website.
It says, "We have views of the city," but not that specific one visually. The fact that people were asking about it and asking about it in a way that said, "When I book this hotel, I want to get that room. I wanna get that view. How do I do that?" That is so valuable to a hotel because now you've created interest. You've created intrigue around booking the hotel, and people are going to be looking the next time they're gonna book that hotel, they want that view, so they wanna know what floor they need to get, what room type they need to get.
That is so valuable, um, as part of a collaboration. It's so valuable to a hotel that that's gonna put you directly in the radar of people we wanna work with. Give the audience something they don't know and provide value to the hotel. So sh- signature drinks, um, things that, again, everything can't be shared through a menu, right? D- you go on a hotel's menu, you're gonna see, "Here's our signature drink list." But it's very difficult for anybody to understand what that drink looks, feels. Can't, we can't discover what it tastes like through Instagram, but if you take a sip and you're really into it, we can imagine, hey, we've had a good drink before.
We've had, we've tasted something that tasted really good and that looked like a genuine reaction. I'm gonna try that when I get there. Do these type of things. Those are the kind of things that are gonna help you tell a very strong story. Again, documenting your journey, arrival, checking in, getting ready to go to wherever you're going, events, things like that. Um, what it's like to wake up in the morning, getting ready. All of these different things, um, again, help tell the story and help people understand and touch and feel what you experienced.
Any useful information that you can share that helped you plan your stay is gonna be great for the audience. So, um, saying, "Hey, I checked in right at 3:00 PM. There was a short line. I was able to bypass the elevator because I was only on the third floor and I could take the stairs." Whatever. Whatever that turns out to be. These little snippets and these little behind-the-scenes and these little nuggets that you can give your audience is gonna help, uh, resonate. Again, it's different. Anybody can just post a picture of a hotel or post a video of, you know, of, of a lobby, a, a panoramic of the lobby.
Get creative. Tell the story. And remember, you wanna be authentic. We wanna give our audience an authentic experience and an authentic idea of what it's like to be at the hotel. So even if it's just you walking out of the taxi and into the hotel and what that's gonna, what that felt like at the end of a day of shopping or being out and about. Whatever it is, give us something. Genuine reactions to what you're experiencing and not just luxury buzzwords. What we're saying is the story usually isn't, "This hotel is beautiful."
The story is the specific thing that made the hotel memorable. That's what you wanna share. So gonna give you a little behind-the-scenes tip here from someone at, who runs an agency that deals with a lot of these requests every single day. The fastest way to lose our interest during the pitching process is to be generic. If you're gonna send us an email or a lead that says "Oh, I would love to stay at your hotel." Or worse yet, we can tell that you copy and pasted your pitch from another hotel because you didn't change the hotel name in the, in the subject.
We're not reading the rest of it. If you can't take the time to do the homework on the hotel that you're actually pitching to and understand that this is a unique property and how you can curate your audience and your story, we're not gonna call you. One other thing that will turn us off real quick is when we post content about hotels and you just hit us with, "Oh, sent you a DM." Nobody's gonna respond to that. For example, last month we posted one of our top creator posts across the portfolio.
We re-shared the reel of a creator and highlighted why this worked, why it performed well, 'cause this person did a lot of the things we're discussing in this podcast. Uh, she documented the stay. She took a video of herself off the balcony, so she was in it, resonated with the audience, but also showed the view from her room being around the city. And there were so many boxes that she ticked, we highlighted why this worked so we could educate fellow creators. The first comment that we got on the post was, "Just DM'd you about collab."
And it's like, okay, well, nobody's gonna respond to that because clearly you're not, you're not engaging with the content. You're just trying to get attention and leave a comment and, and hope that... Why do you think that would work? Genuinely, if you're a person who's done that before, really rethink why you think that would work. Here's how it could have worked, and here's something that I would have responded to. If that person responds showing us that they actually engaged with the content that we just posted, "Wow, this is a great, this is a great video and a great collab.
I can see why this worked. I'd love to do something like this for you." That would get a response. Stop being generic. Stop shortcutting the process. If you really wanna work and you really wanna get these collaborations, take the time to be invested in what we're doing. Take the time to be invested in the hotel. We can tell when people are really about creating content, um, and we can tell when people just want a free stay. And Just sent you a DM, HMU tells me you're not really interested in working with us or doing what we need you to do.
You're just here for a free stay. So if you've been approved and you, you work with the hotel, what things can you do to make the hotel wanna work with you again? So number one, remember that the hotel is still an operating business with paying guests. So it's not all about you when you're at the hotel shooting. Try to be natural, try to be organic. What you don't wanna do is show up in the lobby because you're doing a full-on photo shoot and with lights and, you know, mics and boom mics and all of this stuff, and you've got an entourage of people taking pictures with you, or you're interrupting breakfast because you need to stand in front of the breakfast buffet and take a picture while people are waiting.
That's gonna be a nuisance, and that's gonna, that's gonna not reflect well on you or the collaboration. Remember, this is a functioning business. You're there to be part of the experience, not take it over. So respect filming times. Ask. If, if there is a s- a certain shot that you want, that is something that you can, you can coordinate with, with the hotel. Perhaps that can be part of the deliveral, deliverable process when you go to contracting. Um, but inform people and find a point of contact at the hotel when you check in and say, "Hey, you know what?
I'd really like to get this shot of the, of the breakfast buffet. Do you mind if I come up a few minutes before you open so we can, we can film it properly? Or after you close, or is there a good time to do it?" Respect the business and, um, that will be a very big feather in your cap as far as getting approved, uh, for, for future collaborations. Most importantly, deliver what you promised. If you promised two reels, then make sure that, that those reels are delivered at the time that you agreed upon.
Great content might get you the first collaboration, but being great to work with is gonna build a partnership. You'll get referred to other hotels. This is a very, you know, people say it's a small world. Well, it's an even smaller industry. If you work well with hotels, you are gonna get referred by us and the hotels that you work with. I can guarantee you that because great content creators are not easy to find, and people who, who are good to work with, people who are, who deliver, who do what they say what th- they're gonna do and deliver on time Are going to be people that, uh, are going to get referred and, and will get further, uh, collaborations with that hotel and likely others.
So after your content goes live, be proactive. Send those, send the links to the hotel, um, and to the people that you, you contracted with, so they have that. Be upfront about sharing the metrics. So once your content goes live, maybe a week later, send us a screenshot of the engagement reach, things like that. This is not only very helpful for us and for the hotels, but it helps you sell yourself. If your content's doing well, let us know. Um, don't wait for people to ask for it and, um, send a summary email about how everything went.
Another great thing to do if you're, um, visually inclined, if you're a good photographer, send a couple extra photos. Um, and make sure those photos are not necessarily of you, but of the property, of things that you experienced, because the hotel can use that for their feed. Of course, they can, they will credit you for that. Um, but those are the little extra things that you can do to stand out and make sure that you're memorable in a good way. And one thing you can do once your content goes live, explain what resonated with your audience.
If you did a certain tour, POV tour, whatever, and you started to get a certain kind of comments, uh, for example, going back to that balcony, uh, shot that we took at a hotel in New York, uh, most of the comments were about, "How do we book this?" If something like that hit on your page, explain to us, "Hey, yeah, you know what? This really resonated with my audience. The audience was really into that mixology that I did at the bar. When I posted the video of, of my drink being made, they really were into that."
That's good information for the hotel to know because we know what's becoming popular out there, and then we can use that information going forward. So any kind of summary, pay attention to what's, what worked, to what resonated with your audience, and, um, be upfront about sharing that. Be proactive about sharing that. Again, if you're looking to, to be someone who gets repetitive work this way, your collaboration shouldn't end when you hit publish. That should be the start of a business relationship.
So to summarize this podcast, if you're a creator, what do you need to do to move from a one-off influencer to a trusted hotel partner? So number one, consistently deliver good work. Number two, understand the hotel's objectives and not merely your own content goals. Bring new ideas instead of repeatedly just asking for accommodations. Build trust with agencies and the hotel teams. And lastly, think long term. You want to be someone that people will proactively call when opportunities arise. The goal shouldn't be to get one hotel to say yes.
The goal shouldn't be to get one hotel to say yes. The goal should be to become the person that every hotel is gonna think of when they're looking for a good collaboration. This is Calvin Tilokee, and this has been Socially Awkward on influencers. I really hope that this was beneficial for you as influencers and those hotel people that listened anyway, I hope this is helpful for you as you start to go through your, uh, content creator requests and help you understand what we're looking for and what would make a good creator and a good partnership to have.
Thank you again, and we'll see you on the next one.
