How to Stay at Hotels for FREE as a Content Creator 

In 2020, I saw so many posts about how you could only work with brands with 10,000 followers. I am here to tell you that you can start collaborating with the hotel right where you are. All you need to know is how to accurately communicate and show your capabilities to hotels.

If you’re wanting to pitch hotels for free, discounted or upgraded hotel stays, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I will be breaking down the steps to working with your favorite hotels along with what to include in your hotel pitch.

• Instagram
• Facebook
• TikTok
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• YouTube

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you make a purchase. Check out my Disclosure & Privacy Policy for more information

Choosing the right hotel

Now, we all want to work with Four Seasons, but we want to ensure the hotels align with our content. This means you want to pitch hotels you genuinely enjoy, have previously stayed or their amenities match with your brand. You can find these hotels on google, Instagram, booking.com, or Expedia, etc.

For example, you are a mom blogger and a hotel has stroller delivery, nightly treats or kids’ play area. In your pitch, you would highlight those amenities. Or maybe you’re a makeup or fashion blogger, and a hotel has a beautiful vanity for you to get ready or a full-size mirror to do a try-on. The list goes on and on. You want the hotel that you pitch to be aligned, so your community will engage authentically and book their stay.

• What problem does this hotel solve?
• How can you tie that into your content naturally?

Understand what hotels want

Hotels want to work with you, so they have access to your community. Especially, new and boutique hotels want to use your community to create more of a buzz and increase hotel bookings. If you read that and thought, well I don’t have many followers, so the hotel will not want to work with me.

Hotels also want photography and content for their social media channels. If you do not have a large following, you want to highlight your photography and video skills. Having a small engaged community who would book the hotel is something you want to highlight. Here’s a couple of creator tools you can use to maximize your potential as a content

That being said, everyone wants to see on your feed, blog, Tiktok, etc what you are capable of. This may mean taking photos and videos of a hotel you’ve stayed at. You could even take a photo shoot in your home that can showcase what content to expect.

What to know before pitching a hotel?

Have you ever gotten a cold dm from a brand or another person spelling your name wrong or saying they follow you, but they don’t even know what you do? As a social media manager that manages influencer collaborations, nothing is more frustrating when someone pitches themselves without fully understanding a brand.

That being said, DO YOUR RESEARCH! Hotels are no exceptions to this. They want to make sure that you will talk about their features, significant history, or their amenities correctly. Here are a couple of things you want to know about the hotel before pitching them:

• Hotel vibe: Is it a chain, luxury hotel, boutique, motel, resort, extended stay, etc. This information will help you understand which direction to go when talking about their hotel.
• Location: What area will you be staying in? You can use this information when pitching to talk about how perfect their location is.
• Price: Although you are wanting to pitch a free stay, price is important when determining what content you’ll be offering.

Creating the PERFECT pitch

I cringe every time I see my very first hotel pitch. It focused on myself along with my brand and barely even mentioned the hotel. I didn’t get a response, but I say this to say, sometimes you won’t get a response. You will be told “no,” but that doesn’t mean not following up or pitch again at another time.

Here are things to include in your pitch:

1. Who you are & what you do. Make sure to include direct links to your website or social media channel, so hotels can easily get to your page.
2. EXACTLY what you intend on providing. Having an idea of what you want to do for the brand will help them see you have a direction.
3. How your content benefits them. Remember that hotels want from you & leverage that.
4. Metrics. Numbers aren’t the be end-all, but showing DMs from followers and reach is a great asset to point out to the hotel.
5. Use your research to talk about something unique to the hotel or the city.

Imagine missing out on $2,500 because you did not understand the terms. Ouch! It was painful. I want you to be prepared, so I created a small list of terms you should know when working with brands. If you’re trying to figure out how to make money on Instagram, check out this post.

Terms to know

• Click-through rate is the number of times someone clicks your link to the brand’s site or affiliate links. If multiple people click your links, you can use this to land a hotel.
• Deliverables are the content that you will be providing to the brand or hotel. I always make sure to clarify the deliverables and list them out to avoid confusion.
• Engagement rate is the percentage of people who engage with your account. You can find this percentage on phlanx or notjustanalytics
• Exclusivity is usually seen in a contract. It usually states that you can only work with a certain type of brand for some time. For example, a vitamin company says that you cannot work with another vitamin company for x months.
• Media rate is a discounted hotel rate in exchange for content. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door to working with brands especially when you’re just starting out.
• Media kit is a resume for the work you do with all the information about your brand.
• Whitelisting gives brands advertising permission.

Remember that pitching doesn’t have to be stressful. Plan ahead of time and enjoy the process. You’ll get no’s, but when you get that yes, it will be worth it!