Every social media manager knows the pressure of sharing engaging content, but what if your job requires you to promote a luxury destination while protecting the privacy of members who pay hefty dues specifically for that privacy?
That’s exactly what social media professionals in private clubs and exclusive resorts face every day. You’re tasked with attracting prospects, yet moments often can’t be shared. Your most engaging content might be sitting unusable on your phone because it includes a member who values their privacy. Unlike other hospitality venues, you can’t just encourage location and share their experiences.
If you’re not in your head right now, you’re going to love today’s conversation.
Gideon Heller, guest of Social Pulse: Hospitality Edition with Agorapulse’s Chief Storyteller Mike Allton, navigates these challenges every day. He’s here to share his insights and practical strategies that you can apply to your own hospitality venue.
[Listen to the full episode below, or read along for the transcript of the Social Pulse: Hospitality Edition, powered by Agorapulse. Try it for free today.]
Walk us through your journey and unique challenges with a private club and social media management.
Gideon Heller: I guess my journey began with professional photography and content creation. I’m from Cape Town originally. I came over to the States about 10 years ago. And I got into hospitality at first. I started a side business of photography and content creation.
Over the years, it transitioned into social media and storytelling. When I got the opportunity to take it on full-time at a private club, I saw that as a great opportunity to expand on the skills that I had and take a different route and be a brand ambassador or voice for a company.
My role evolved into connecting with members, learning their preferences, and sharing experiences. It’s been a learning experience over a long time where I figured out as I went what the goals were, and they changed along the way a little bit.
Initially, it was targeting a younger demographic at the club. It was rebranding the entire visual aspect of the club. When I started 10 years ago, we had a very old website. We had very little social presence. I don’t think any country clubs were on social media at that point. And so it was a new frontier where I didn’t have other clubs to look at for examples of what other people were doing.
It’s just been one long experiment, really.
What’s your process for determining what to share versus remain private?
Gideon Heller: It comes down to just understanding what members’ preferences are, building relationships with them, and understanding their comfort levels. Some members love being featured without while others prefer discretion.
I focus on capturing the club’s essence and promoting the experience of being a member of the club while staying away from too much highlighting or featuring specific people or divulging any private information, obviously. Don’t use any full names, that kind of thing.
It’s an eye into the club life for the outside world. Some of our content is capturing what’s going on, and then some of it is creating and curating what’s happening to showcase an experience that’s harder to capture.
We want to always portray the club in the most luxurious way. With a very high reputation in the club world, we want to showcase that on our visual side and our social media—while still showing off the fun side. There’s a lot that goes on at the club that you don’t see on any of our social media, obviously. But that’s for the privacy of the members, too.
Catch up with some of the other hotels and other hospitality organizations we’re talking, like Best Western and MGM Grand.
Which social channels are you focused on right now?
Gideon Heller: I’m primarily focused on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
We do have accounts on other platforms, but we don’t use them that much. Instagram is my main focus just because it’s visual. I love the visual aspect because it’s so easy to tell a story. We do post a lot on LinkedIn, too. Because we have every-now-and-then achievements and awards, and that’s the best place for that kind of thing.
Facebook is where most of our members are. So we do repurpose a lot of our Instagram content with a different narrative sometimes or different wording or grammar for Facebook.
But my primary focus is Instagram because I do a lot of stories as well. So day-to-day sort of events are something that I don’t want to focus too much on with a post that stays perpetually on our feed. I’ll just create some Stories throughout the day that can last 24 hours. Then, if I want to, I can save it into a highlight.
Could you share a time when you did have a challenging situation regarding privacy versus promotion?
Gideon Heller: Well, I will say I have had a number of times where I’ve had something happen at the club. You know, something that I thought was amazing, and I wanted to showcase on social media. Then I have either posted something and had a member reach out and say, “Hey, I’d rather not have that online.”
I’ve reached out and asked beforehand to check if it would be okay, which I usually tend to do. They’ll either say, “Yeah, absolutely, go ahead!” or “Nah, I’d rather not have that on there.”
But there have been times when I’ve had to censor what I’m putting out, even though it could be amazing promotional material—just because the members involved would rather not have that on our social media.
How do you maintain engagement and keep creating compelling content while working within private club constraints?
Gideon Heller: That’s a difficulty. And it’s something that I’ve been battling over a long time and figuring out and learning as I go.
There are a lot of creative strategies to keep our content engaging without giving away too much or showing too much.
I tend to focus on amenities, the events, and the staff. Focus on the members appropriately. I can show members having fun at a party and quick glimpses and videos [of] laughter, smiles, and things like that where it’s not showing their face for too long.
Sometimes we do have a feature or something on a member—especially if they share it on their own social media, then I know, okay, they’re fine with it being out there. Then I can repost that or ask them if I can do my own take on it and reach out and do an Instagram story or something. But it’s the use of storytelling and behind-the-scenes content that is even pretty engaging.
People like to see what goes on inside the kitchen or in the golf shop, what’s happening, and what new stuff do we have in the shop? We’ve started having some of our staff even doing fashion shows of golf clothes, for example. And so it comes down to showcasing the club’s amenities and lifestyle.
But [we’re] creating a narrative that the members are proud of without infringing on their personal privacy.
What other strategies have you used that don’t compromise the exclusive nature of the club?
Gideon Heller: A lot of it is showing the beauty of the club.
We have a lot to offer here. It’s a beautiful property. The golf course looks amazing at sunrise and at sunset. There are birds and nature outdoors. We have a lot of fun and amazing events that showcase what’s possible for potential members to enjoy.
Potential members are drawn to the lifestyle. My goal is to have someone see our Instagram or anything else, any other posts we put out there, and visualize themselves as a member and say, “Hey, I could be there having an amazing time with my family, playing golf, using the spa amenities, living in an incredible community of friendly people, and eating amazing food.”
We do that while still trying to maintain the mystique of the club and keeping that intact.
Have you found social media balance to be a challenge?
Gideon Heller: Yeah, absolutely.
It’s challenging, and it keeps my creative juices flowing. Because I am always thinking, “How do I portray this event in the right way so that I show just enough for people to be interested, but not enough to give everything away—and also showcase everything I see?”
Since I started in this position, I’ve seen a lot of other clubs start doing the same thing: They’re hiring someone full-time internally, as opposed to what they used to do, which was just hiring photographers for big events. They’ve also increased their social presence and things like that.
But I see a lot of mistakes made where people just document the entire event and put up a two to three-minute video of everything that happened. That gets very boring for someone out there watching! It also reveals a bit too much, in my opinion.
Sometimes people don’t need to see everything. They just need to see the highlights and what is going to pop out at them, and attract them to the club.
The rest of the stuff is just fluff. And so I try to keep my content short and sweet. I’m going for shorter and shorter Instagram Reels. As you know, people’s attention spans are getting shorter. I am targeting a relatively younger demographic for country clubs, whereas most other hotels or other people other companies out there can target even younger audiences. Our demographics are 45 plus up to late 50s as far as our targeted audience, whereas our current membership is on the older side, predominantly 70 plus, and a lot of them are not even on social media. So, it’s when the families come down, we get a lot more engagement and things like that.
How are you measuring the success of those channels?
Gideon Heller: When it comes down to ROI and success, in that regard, I’m lucky in that aspect where it’s not a major focus for the decision-makers, the board of governors, and the management here at the club.
Because we are a private club with a membership that lives on property, you need to own a home to be a member. We only have a certain number of homes for sale. It’s about long-term branding success and engagement.
The way I measure success is by looking at the engagement, seeing how people are reacting and enjoying our content, and how much they’re engaging with the content.
And I see that as the main measure of success for me because my goal is brand image and long-term brand growth. I’m not converting immediate sales. I’m not selling homes. That’s the realtor’s job, and we leave that up to our real estate agents with their own marketing channels. We have a realty aspect on our website, but we don’t showcase houses on our Instagram for example.
We’re all about the lifestyle, and we’re all about the experience of being a member.
Are there any other resources or communities that you turn to for staying current with?
Gideon Heller: I mainly get most of my information from just watching the market and seeing what other clubs are doing on social media.
I do follow all our competitors, if you will, or you know other clubs around the country. And I just stay abreast of what’s happening. I do get a lot of ideas and inspiration from other pages, like food pages that do amazing visuals, but sometimes it’s stuff that I don’t have the time or the resources to do, but I still get amazing ideas from pages that film food content full time, for example, where they have incredible video and sort of yeah, visuals of food making and things like that.
Thank all of you for reading the highlights of this episode on social media balance. Don’t forget to find the Social Pulse Podcast: Hospitality Edition on Apple, and drop us a review. We’d love to know what you think. Don’t miss other editions of the Social Pulse Podcast like the Retail Edition, Agency Edition, and B2B Edition.