Building Cheeca Lodge & Spa’s Instagram Presence
Cheeca Lodge & Spa is a long-beloved luxury resort in Islamorada, Florida, with a rich history dating back to the 1940s. When Beutler Ink took the lead on the property’s social media strategy, it already had a vibrant and dedicated Facebook community - many of their fans had been vacationing at the property for years. To allow a new generation of travelers to find Cheeca and fall in love, we turned to Instagram.
We started the account from scratch and mixed UGC with professional assets. Performance analysis quickly showed guest content was resonating with our audience more than staged photos. We leveraged additional UGC content with discounts and contests to encourage hashtag adoption. We also developed “selfie stops” for the hotel, with metal signage and a physical map to encourage guests to explore the property and tag their photos. Consistent and high-impact content attracted a younger demographic than on other channels, but one just as passionate.
Cheeca Lodge & Spa now has over 79k followers and growing. It stands as one of the Florida Keys’ top-performing Instagram accounts. Through a combination of carefully curated UGC and partnerships with content creators, our posts organically reach hundreds of thousands of people every month while maintaining a minimum 5% engagement rate, nearly double the industry standard.
In fact, our strategy was so successful we were recognized with a Gold Davey Award for Best Brand Social page on behalf of Cheeca Lodge and Spa!
