10x Your Property's Shareability: Our "Build for Instagram" Guide

5 Areas of Your Property To Optimize for Instagram

We experienced firsthand just how important the 'Instagrammability' of a property is with the Onera Wimberley launch last year. 

It's was a totally different experience from our Fredericksburg launch, and we loved it.

In the next decade of travel, if you want a successful launch, it’s all about how much social hype you can build around a property.

Influencers, content teams and views on your reels are replacing the traditional PR pushes.

We designed Onera Wimberley to be perfect for social media. Turns out, it worked pretty well. So well in fact that our first Influencer collab went viral and crashed our booking site.

This is your foundation to recreate that, not just during launch, but throughout your entire property journey.

1. The Location of Your Amenities

Outside of unit locations, the location of your key amenities is of highest importance.

• Pools

• Gyms

• Spas

• Restaurants

These are the amenities that your guests are going to be spending a lot of their time at during their stay, likely sharing at least a snapshot of that time on social media.

At Onera Wimberley, we chose to have the pool peaking just over the canopy, at the top of the property and in perfect position for sunset. Leaving unobstructed views for Instagram.

2. The Exterior of Your Units

This will be hands down the most photographed aspect of any unique stay. Guests are paying top dollar for that unique experience, you better bet they are going to show their friends.

Make sure the unit is actually possible to photograph for your guests. 

This comes down to a few things: 

• Angle of the unit: 

  • If the best angle is the front of the unit, make sure guests get to see that angle right when they walk up.

• Areas around the unit: 

  • Maybe the unit photographs best from the back or side, make sure guests can get there to capture it (no heavy vegetation, a cliff, etc).

You want to give guests the best opportunity to shoot your property with minimal effort.

3. The Interior of Your Units

This is one of the reasons why we love our Spyglass unit so much, you can capture the whole unit in one shot. From the kitchen, all the way through the unit to the soaking tub and view.

An easy way to think about this is to have as much of an open floor plan as possible. If the inside of the unit is a puzzle, you’ll struggle to get awesome shots (and so will guests).

4. The Forgotten Areas

Walking paths, areas between the units, random lounge areas throughout the property and common areas outside of your main amenities.

Usually, these are the areas that less thought is put into, but with the right ideas, landscaping and furnishings can be game changers to your social accounts.

Everyone is going to photograph your main areas and units, but give them some cozy nooks with loungers or winding walking paths with awesome landscaping, views and lighting–

You’ll double your user generated content.

Plus, it adds more variety to your Instagram page, giving your content team more than just a handful of shots to choose from.

5. Experience Areas

These are slowly starting to stand out more and more to us as we realize the potential they unlock on Instagram, for a pretty minimal lift.

Some of my favorite examples are coming from mountain escapes like Chalet Al Foss and African safari lodges. 

• Yoga pads

• Meditation areas

• Breakfast nooks in the forest

• Private dining areas by the river

• Secluded hot tubs on the mountain side

• Areas designed for romantic proposal setups

• Wedding dinner venues tucked into a rockface 

There are so many “small lift,” low CAPEX additions that can be added and immediately unlock 5x the virality potential of your stay.

The key here is location. Make sure there are views, natural features or something that makes this area pop on someone's feed.

Building an Instagram-friendly property turns your guests into your second marketing team. 

Their user-generated content becomes organic promotion for your property, reducing reliance on influencers and paid content teams.

Make it easy for guests to showcase your property to their followers, expanding your reach beyond your own account.