#BahaMarCelebrates Grand Opening Series
Baha Mar is an integrated resort development located in Nassau, Bahamas. In 2014, the resort was under previous ownership, and missed several planned grand opening dates. As a result, travelers who had already booked reservations and bought airfare were impacted when the resort did not open as planned, and many took to social media to share their experiences and express their disappointment and anger.
The resort officially opened in April 2017 under new ownership. In order to share the exciting news on social media, a grand opening social strategy was developed and activated with a two-pronged approach.
The first social goal was negative message mitigation. Baha Mar’s Facebook page was dark from May 2015 through March 2017. Facebook activity then relaunched on March 31, 2017, with a dark video post from Baha Mar President, Graeme Davis. Davis’s very honest and transparent video message was intended to reach those who had been negatively impacted by the resort’s delayed opening, share the current state of development, acknowledge the resort’s past, and welcome viewers to visit by asking them to allow Baha Mar to try and regain their trust. As a result of sharing this targeted, personal message from the President of Baha Mar, we were able to address the concerns of potential detractors, contain negative conversations to a single post, and provide reassurance and answers via one-on-one interactions in the comments.
The second social goal was to increase awareness and buzz of Baha Mar’s grand opening. To generate awareness around the opening and create positive conversation, Baha Mar pivoted to the excitement leading up to the opening through a series of #BahaMarCelebrates videos that gave users a look into the festivities and events taking place on the resort. The development also partnered with former Miss Bahamas, Anastagia Pierre, to act as a social media “host” and to appear in Facebook video and photo content. Through video content, the resort was able to tell concise stories about on-property happenings in a dynamic, shareable format that encouraged positive discussion.
During opening week, Baha Mar leveraged a strong mix of real-time and pre-planned video and photo assets to support the storytelling aspect. The content was targeted to a social media audience that aligned with Baha Mar’s target guest. In addition to main channels, Baha Mar posted casual peeks of the events on Instagram Stories. A Facebook Live stream shared the ribbon cutting ceremony with social media users.
Baha Mar’s pre-launch dark post exceeded expectations:
- Reached 117,077 Facebook users
- Drove 47,722 video views
- Garnered 1,182 Facebook reactions, 98% of which were positive
- Received 429 post shares & 208 comments, majority of which were positive
When Baha Mar relaunched on Facebook, negative comments were limited, as users had previously expressed their disappointment on the dark post. This created a welcoming community for new followers to discuss the excitement surrounding the opening.
The #BahaMarCelebrates opening series exceeded goals and communicated a positive story of Baha Mar preparing for the April 21, 2017 opening.
During a 5-day period, the overall opening campaign generated:
- 234,793 video views – an avg. of 19,566 views per video
- 29,556 engagements on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram
- 921,440 impressions
- 3,522 new followers
Nearly all conversations were positive and expressed anticipation for the opening, exceeding expectations considering the resort’s turbulent history.