How Omni Hotels Increased Reach by 50% with Brandwatch Social Media Management

The challenge

Darryl’s social media team is just two people, but across Omni’s properties, roughly 100 social media ambassadors extend the brand's reach on the ground. Some are full-time marketing managers, while others are front desk agents, salespeople, and staff who handle social media on top of their regular roles. They share real, on-the-ground content about venue- and location-specific experiences across Omni’s dedicated social media channels.

Keeping posts consistent across that many properties was harder than it sounds. Omni’s previous social media management tool had a clunky user interface and lacked adequate customer support. More than 40% of ambassadors posted natively on social media with no brand guidelines or templates in place, creating inconsistent content that gradually chipped away at the brand image. And without proper analytics dashboards, there was no meaningful way to show property managers what was actually working. 

The tool was only part of the story. An even bigger challenge was getting the organization to prioritize social media. For Omni, managing a network of 100 ambassadors across dozens of properties made this especially true for Omni.

Then there was a brand recognition gap. As a growing brand, individual Omni properties often had stronger recognition than the Omni brand itself. “The Omni brand is still on the rise. People don't know it as well as some of our large global competitors,” Darryl explained. “But what people do interact with is all of our individual properties.” The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, for example, has been around since the 1800s and carries significant brand equity, while a newly opened property in Fort Lauderdale doesn't have that same legacy recognition yet. 

Influencer marketing also presented some challenges. “We had been in more of a reactive phase where we just said yes to the influencers who contacted us,” Darryl explained. “You can throw a couple thousand dollars at an influencer, have them come on property; they post about it, and then it does nothing for you.” The team needed structured influencer discovery, clearer ROI tracking, and a way to align creator activity with actual business results. 

For Darryl’s team, the path forward meant taking a more deliberate approach to every part of their social media operations. That meant centralizing their efforts, rethinking how they worked with influencers, and finding better ways to report on impact to leadership.

The solution 

When looking for the right solution, Darryl focused on usability and support. Having dealt with insufficient customer support and a tool the team struggled to use, Omni wanted to partner with a vendor who’d provide strong onboarding.

Enter Brandwatch.

The Brandwatch suite had what the team needed: a platform they could actually use, plus the support to make a smooth transition. 

The onboarding experience proved essential for driving buy-in across the organization and ensuring all social media ambassadors were comfortable with the change. From day one, Omni had a dedicated onboarding success manager who created custom training materials and introduced the team to Brandwatch Academy.

Once Omni fully transitioned to Brandwatch, Darryl’s team built dashboards that give staff clear guidance on which metrics to prioritize. 

Building brand consistency

Rolling out any brand changes across 200+ accounts can be a substantial undertaking. To maintain consistency, the Omni team uses Brandwatch's built-in asset management to keep everything on-brand across the organization.

“Within the Publish module, having an asset management bank has been huge,” Darryl shared. “This year, we have new fonts, a new color scheme – and driving compliance is really important for us.”

Instead of digging through emails and scattered messages, social media ambassadors can now find all creative assets – Instagram story templates, brand-approved fonts, or campaign-level copy banks – in one place, anytime, anywhere.

For ambassadors who can only dedicate three to four hours per week to social media, a central hub with all the assets makes a huge difference. Having on-brand assets and templates readily available across the organization means “less time fighting with tools” and more time creating on-brand content.

Empowering ambassadors to prove local value

Securing buy-in from corporate leadership is an ongoing effort. For Darryl, helping ambassadors prove their value is essential to keeping property managers invested in their success. After all, these ambassadors are the ones on the ground – posting from individual properties and elevating local branches on social media. They need tools to show property-level managers their impact.

Darryl shared that these Brandwatch features have been instrumental:

• Easy-to-use mobile app – many Omni ambassadors work primarily off their phones while juggling other duties like guest check-ins. Mobile access became critical for driving platform adoption and compliance across properties.
• Customizable dashboards for different skill levels – every contribution, big or small, is now recognized and tracked. “By building these dashboards centrally, we can say, here are the three or four things ambassadors should focus on. That helps them prove the value of their time,” Darryl said.
• Consistent metrics across properties – giving every ambassador, regardless of experience, a common language to discuss social media performance.

“Posting on social media will never take priority over opening a new hotel, but that doesn't mean that you're not driving incremental value for the organization,” Darryl noted.

With clearer reporting and shared metrics, Omni’s social media ambassadors now have the data and tools they need to prove their impact, leading to continued support from property managers. 

Proving ROI on influencer partnerships

In our conversation, Darryl shared that with the help of Brandwatch Influence, Omni took control of how they work and who they work with, bringing more structure and clearer ROI tracking for every collaboration.

The Omni team can now search for creators based on their demographics, location, and genuine engagement rather than just follower count. They’ve also shifted from paying flat-rate commissions to performance-based payments, as Influence lets you track the performance of links used in campaigns. Today, instead of big upfront investments, Darryl’s team uses unique tracking links and compensates influencers based on the consumed room nights they actually drive.

"The goal is to give you a percentage of every consumed room night that you drive for us," Darryl explained. "That both de-risks it for us and really aligns incentives so that the creator focuses on creating engaging content rather than just posting to fulfill a contractual requirement."

Darryl’s quote says it best: every partnership now has a clear purpose and a measurable return on investment. 

Stronger internal visibility and alignment

Beyond the numbers, the Omni team has improved the way they communicate the value of social media across the organization.

With unified dashboards and consistent reporting, Omni’s ambassadors can now clearly demonstrate their impact to general managers and property leaders. Leadership has a much clearer view of what's working, both at the brand level and across individual properties.

Social media is no longer just a tactical channel. It’s become a recognized part of Omni’s broader business strategy.

Transformed influencer strategy

Perhaps the biggest change of all is how Omni now manage their influencer strategy. By using Brandwatch Influence to identify better-fit creators and tie compensation directly to consumed room nights, the team has brought structure and accountability to influencer marketing, aligning creator activity more closely with business results.