C
ast your mind back to your favorite summer memories of childhood. Can you feel the salt spray on your face and your toes sinking into the sand? Do you hear the crack of bat against ball, and the cheers filling the stadium a second later? Or maybe you taste a fresh tomato right off the vine, bursting with juicy flavor, or a cloud of cotton candy melting on your tongue.
Social media is the perfect medium for bringing to life the deliciousness of summer and reminding your followers of all their own favorite memories of the season. Here are five ways travel and hospitality brands can infuse a taste of summer into their social media presence.
1. Celebrate the Bounty of the Season
Summer is synonymous with fresh fruits and veggies, whether they come from nearby farms or a garden right on your property. Highlight your culinary offerings by featuring content built around your seasonal menus and the plethora of produce available at this time of year.
Content Inspiration:
- Take a short video of a special seasonal dish being prepared in your kitchen with homegrown summer ingredients, such as fresh berries, watermelon, or the aforementioned juicy tomatoes right off the vine.
- Feature high-quality images of plated entrees, from a birds-eye view or using a super close-up angle, and ask followers to identify the summery ingredients on each plate.
- Use a carousel post or an Instagram reel to share recipes of your guests’ favorite summer dishes at your property — something simple like a summer cocktail or a fruit-based dessert.
Pro tip: Consider speeding up videos of food or cooking, as they can feel long and repetitive otherwise — but they’re supremely satisfying when viewed at a quicker pace.
2. Tap Into Local Activities
Wherever your business is located, there are likely multiple activities and offerings you can tap into throughout the summer months to give your followers a sense of the cultural scene in your area.
Content Inspiration:
- If your city or town has a baseball or softball team (even a decent Little League team!), go out to the ballfield and capture some footage, paired with classic baseball quotes in your caption to stir up a sense of nostalgia.
- Take a GoPro video weaving through a local farmers’ market or craft festival, and let your followers know when they can experience it for themselves — you could even offer a small discount or perk if they make a reservation in connection with the event.
- Use an old-timey sepia filter on still images of a carnival or state fair in your region, and share them via a carousel post.
Pro tip: Connect with a staff person before taking and posting images or video content. They’ll likely be excited to have their event, game, or venue highlighted — and they may have insider tips and ideas for content.
3. Put Your Blooms on Display
Summer is the season of blossoming! Make the most of it by featuring the eye-catching flora around your property.
Content Inspiration:
- Film your groundskeeper giving a tour of special spots on the property — if you don’t have gardens on site, showcase an extravagant summery centerpiece or water feature.
- Take a time-lapse video of day-blooming summer flowers — morning glories, day lilies, and California poppies — as they open their petals at dawn.
Pro tip: Gently mist flowers and foliage before taking photos and video, to add sparkle and simulate dew or rain.
4. Light Up the Night
One of 2025’s top travel trends is “noctourism” — the pursuit of unique nighttime experiences (think: seeing the Northern Lights or watching bioluminescent illumination in the water). While those natural phenomena might not be accessible on your property, you can create mini “noctourist attractions” that take advantage of what you do have on site, and capture them for social media.
Content Inspiration:
- Schedule a full-moon yoga class with live music on the beach or a rooftop deck, and create an Instagram reel that shows what the event will look like.
- Design romantic outdoor seating arrangements, like cozy couches canopied by strings of outdoor lights. Post images of each setup, with engaging captions like “Picture yourself here” or “Would you like a seat?”
- Instead of a “man on the street” video, do a “person on the lawn” shoot just before a fireworks show in your area: As dusk begins to fall, get people of all ages to answer an easy question (like “What’s your favorite thing about summer?”) and edit the best quotes together for a 90-second Instagram reel. Make sure to catch the first firework to use as the final frame.
Pro tip: Use Night mode on your iPhone to capture great images in low-light conditions.
5. Lean Into Iconic Summer Moments
There are a few perennial summertime experiences that live on in our collective imagination, whether or not we’ve actually lived them — like picnicking in a grassy meadow, canoeing down a lazy river, or sipping a cold drink on a steamy night. If you can find creative ways to activate that sweet summer nostalgia, you’ll have fashioned a memorable moment that will bring followers back to you time and again.
Content Inspiration:
- Create a picnic basket “unwrapping video.” Launch a summer picnic offering for guests with picnic lunches to go packed inside old-fashioned picnic baskets, and take a stop-motion video for social media that lets viewers see each item inside — consider tiny jars of jam, crusty baguettes, individual fruit tarts, a mini board game, and, of course, a red-and-white-checked picnic blanket.
- Share video of seasonal cocktails being mixed, maybe a watermelon margarita or a citrusy negroni, or feature a frosty glassful silhouetted against the sunset — and include a link to the recipe.
- Get GoPro video from a boat or paddleboard on the closest body of water — ocean, river, pond, or lake — ideally at golden hour (just before sunset and just after sunrise).
Pro tip: Check out our tips for capturing better content on your iPhone, including how to work with light, angles, and the rule of thirds.
Want Hawthorn Creative’s expert content team to help bring your seasonal social media ideas to life? Discover our approach to social media marketing.