Video Matters Most
In the final instalment of our three-part series, Video Matters Most, the owner of The Torridon, Dan-Rose Bristow, discusses the importance of clear positioning and authenticity when building your brand on social media.
Dan joined fellow panelists Bryan Gabriel (CCO, Six Senses) and Hannah Bennett (Head of Travel, TikTok) at our Business Breakfast event in London, adding a valuable independent hotelier's perspective to the discussion.
As the UK’s most northerly 5-star hotel, The Torridon is a beautiful, family-run, 30 bedroom hotel set amongst 58 acres of private parkland. Read on to discover how they celebrate their incredible setting within their social media content.
Location, Location, Location
As highlighted by both Bryan and Hannah, short-form video content can yield significant commercial benefits. However, it’s crucial to ensure your brand message remains consistent across any content you create.
The Torridon's success on social media is testament to this. But, it wasn't an overnight achievement.
“Around 4 years ago, during the Covid pandemic, we took the time to refocus our business, working with David and the 80 DAYS team to help with our brand and positioning” notes Dan Rose-Bristow, Owner of The Torridon. “We wanted to grow our social presence organically. We had good buy-in when people knew about us, they almost always returned, but as a small property we didn’t have the same reach."
Dan continued, “We didn’t want to be just another 5-star hotel. We’ve all got rooms, we’ve all got nice properties, but for us we wanted to focus on our point of difference and our personality”
For The Torridon, the brand positioning work undertaken identified that, perhaps a little unsurprisingly, it was all about their location.
Accelerated Growth With TikTok
For a smaller property, deep in the Scottish Highlands, achieving one million reels views during the last three years has been a strong milestone. However, even more impressive is that during just the last 10 months, videos on their newly created TikTok profile have already racked up 625,000 views.
Dan admitted some initial reservations about joining the platform, but quickly added “it’s really grown, the age demographics have changed and whether it’s my current guest or soon to be guest, it absolutely is our audience”.
Analysing their top performing TikToks to date, around 1/3 of all their views come down to just five videos – all focused-on location, with very little to do with the hotel itself.
Selling the scenery
"It really is all about location" notes Dan. "We’re all about dark skies, sunny mountains, northern lights, beautiful lochs. We’re ticking off all the trends; cool vacations and getting away from the heat, the great outdoors, wellness without walls."
Despite prioritising location first within their social media content, the hotel reaps the rewards. "We’ve actually had extra business from this. For example, we’ve had L’Oreal come in and do a takeover of the hotel for a product launch, we’ve had Love Island influencers stay, and of course we benefit from the exposure".
Real Reels
Echoing Six Senses’ Bryan Gabriel, Dan also believes delivering authenticity is one of the fundamental reasons behind The Torridon’s success on social media. “It’s the opportunity to show your personality in an unpolished form”. In fact, both Dan and the 80 DAYS team encourage the entire team to get involved. “We have 50 live-in staff, who enjoy the outdoors, kayaking, hillwalking and the like, so they’re often out, using their phones, gathering content and sharing it with us”.
“Real, raw, authentic, unplanned, unscripted content often performs best” adds Andy Whiteside, Director of Digital Communications at 80 DAYS.
In fact, one of The Torridon’s top performing videos was a grainy, poorly-lit, clip of an otter, 200 yards in front of the hotel, that a staff member managed to capture at 5am!
Powerful Numbers & Messages
And while social media isn’t solely responsible, The Torridon’s direct bookings are testament to their overall approach to digital marketing.
The hotel now achieves an impressive 85-90% of all bookings, direct online. “Revenue has increased by 65% since 2019 and since 80 DAYS have handled our social media, revenue is up 30%" notes Dan, "Big numbers for us!”.
Dan emphasised the significant role of social media and short-form content: “It’s massive. We’ve facilitated growth with the website of course, but for us it’s all about our personality coming through and short-form video is the perfect platform to showcase what the customer is going to get that’s different from somewhere else – it can be a very powerful message”
For more on The Torridon, visit their website.
To learn more about our work with The Torridon, read our interview with Allan Paterson, Commercial Manager, here.
See also:
Need social media support for your hotel? A short-form sidekick?