Bel Air Resorts Group

It is easy to look at a social media post with thousands of views and call it successful. But throughout my career in social media and digital marketing, I have learned that visibility and results are not always the same thing.

A Reel can reach hundreds of thousands of people and generate very little action. Another piece of content may receive fewer views but lead to website visits, inquiries or bookings. The difference often comes down to whether the content was created simply to be seen or whether it was created with a clear purpose.

Working in hospitality has made this especially clear to me. Social media is often the first place someone discovers a destination, restaurant or experience, but discovery is only the beginning. The goal is to make someone imagine themselves there and eventually take the next step.

Start With the Action, Not the Content

Before deciding what to post, I like to think about what we actually want the audience to do afterward.

Is the goal to introduce the brand to new people? Encourage someone to save the post for an upcoming trip? Visit the website? Make a reservation? Book a stay?

Those goals require different approaches.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that not every piece of content needs to sell directly. In fact, constantly asking an audience to book or buy can have the opposite effect. Some content should inspire, some should educate and some should convert. Expecting every post to accomplish all three can lead to content that tries to say too much and ultimately connects with no one. What matters is understanding the role each piece plays within the larger strategy.

Create Content Around the Customer Experience

In hospitality, beautiful visuals are everywhere. A great room, mountain view or restaurant dish can certainly stop someone from scrolling, but I have found that experience-driven content often gives people a stronger reason to engage.

Instead of simply showing a property, for example, content can show what a weekend there actually looks like: where you stay, what you eat, what you do during the day and what makes the destination worth visiting.

This approach answers the questions potential customers are already asking themselves.

It also makes the content useful. Someone planning a weekend getaway is much more likely to save or share a guide to a destination than a traditional promotional post. The brand is still part of the story, but it becomes part of an experience rather than the entire message.

Give Every Format a Purpose

Another important part of my strategy is understanding that different formats serve different purposes.

"The strongest social media strategies balance creativity with a clear business purpose. Getting someone to stop scrolling is important, but what happens after that matters just as much."

Short-form video is particularly effective for discovery because it can introduce a brand to people who have never interacted with it before. Stories can then provide additional details, answer questions and create a more direct relationship with an existing audience.

Influencer and creator partnerships add another layer by allowing potential customers to experience a brand through someone else's perspective. In my experience, the strongest collaborations happen when creators are given a clear objective rather than a rigid script. The brand should know the message it wants to communicate, while giving the creator enough freedom to translate that message in a way that feels natural to their audience.

Look Beyond Vanity Metrics

Views and follower growth are useful indicators, but they should not be the only measures of success.

I pay attention to saves, shares, profile activity, website traffic, inquiries, bookings and revenue when evaluating performance. I also compare different creative concepts to understand which stories are actually motivating people to act.

Sometimes the highest-performing content from a business perspective is not the content with the highest view count.

That is why social media strategy should constantly evolve. Testing different hooks, formats, scenarios and calls to action provides much more useful information than repeating a format simply because it performed well once.

Visibility Is Only the First Step

The strongest social media strategies balance creativity with a clear business purpose. Getting someone to stop scrolling is important, but what happens after that matters just as much.

A successful piece of content might inspire someone to save a post, research a destination, visit a website or make a booking. The action will not always happen immediately, but the content should give people a reason to stay interested in the brand and eventually take the next step.

That is why I do not look at social media as simply a way to generate views or grow an audience. The real value comes from turning that attention into genuine interest and, ultimately, action.