The social shareability of a destination is one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing forces available to mixed-use operators. Engineering that moment is not an aesthetic project. It is a performance strategy.
"Instagrammable" has become a term that sounds frivolous in serious CRE conversations. It should not. The social shareability of a destination, the degree to which visitors naturally and enthusiastically document and share their experience, is one of the most powerful and cost-effective marketing forces available to mixed-use operators.
Every visitor who shares a photo of your destination is providing organic reach to their social network, authentic endorsement to their followers, and free impressions to an audience that advertising dollars cannot buy with the same credibility. At scale, this user-generated content creates a marketing flywheel that compounds with every visitor who contributes to it.
Every visitor who shares a photo of your destination is doing something no marketing budget can fully replicate: providing authentic, personal endorsement to a trusted social network. Engineering that moment is not an aesthetic project. It is a performance strategy.
— Leslie Himley, Founder & Fractional CMOWhat Actually Makes a Destination Shareable
Shareability is frequently misunderstood as a function of design novelty, murals, neon signs, and Instagram walls. These can generate sharing, but they are not the deepest or most durable source of organic content creation. The destinations that generate consistent, high-quality, authentic social sharing have something more fundamental: experiences that make people feel something worth communicating.
Distinctive Design Moments
Not gimmicks, but genuinely beautiful or surprising design elements that feel specific to this place: the landscaping detail, the lighting at golden hour, the material choice that catches the afternoon sun in a specific way. Specificity is what makes a photograph feel like somewhere, not anywhere.
Community Programming
Events and activations that are worth documenting, not because they are spectacular, but because they are genuine expressions of community that people want to be seen participating in. Programming that creates social identity is programming worth sharing.
Culinary and Beverage Moments
Food and beverage experiences distinctive enough to be worth photographing, where quality, presentation, and environment collectively create a shareworthy moment. The dish that earns a photograph earns a table reservation and a return visit.
Unexpected Micro-Moments
The small surprises and delights that catch visitors off guard and earn a spontaneous photo, the detail no one told them to look for but everyone photographs when they find it. Designed serendipity is the most authentic content generator available.
The LHSA Shareability Audit
The LHSA Shareability Audit is an assessment I conduct for destination clients that evaluates the property's current and potential social sharing moments across five dimensions. It identifies the highest-opportunity investments for increasing organic content generation and provides a prioritized action plan for each.
1. Design Distinctiveness
How specific and memorable is the physical environment? Does it feel like somewhere particular, or could it belong to any development in any market?
2. Programming Quality
Are events and activations worth documenting? Do they create the kind of social identity that people want to express by sharing their participation?
3. Culinary and Beverage Experience
Do the food and beverage offerings meet the quality and presentation threshold that makes them shareworthy? Is the environment as photographable as the product?
4. Micro-Moment Density
How many small, surprising, and specific moments exist across the property? What is the ratio of designed serendipity to predictable experience?
5. Lighting and Atmosphere
What are the environmental conditions that make photography naturally compelling? Is the destination at its most photogenic at the hours visitors are most likely to be present?
The Output
A prioritized action plan that identifies which dimension offers the highest-leverage investment for your specific destination, and what implementation looks like across design, programming, and operations.
The NOI Connection
The connection between social shareability and NOI is not direct. There is no formula that converts Instagram posts into lease signings. But the indirect connections are significant and measurable.
Organic discovery
User-generated content reaches audiences who discover the destination for the first time through a trusted social connection, expanding the top of the awareness funnel without paid media cost.
Tenant attraction
Quality tenants evaluate destinations' social presence as evidence of audience quality and community engagement. A destination with strong organic UGC signals genuine community enthusiasm that co-tenancy data cannot replicate.
Dwell time
Experiences worth sharing are experiences worth staying for. The design and programming investments that generate sharing also generate longer visits, which correlate with higher tenant sales.
Repeat visitation
People return to places they enjoyed enough to share. The emotional investment that sharing represents is a reliable predictor of return intent, which is the foundation of long-term destination performance.
Shareability is engineered through quality and authenticity, not novelty alone. The destination that earns a thousand authentic photographs has built something no advertising campaign can replicate.
The Strategic Reframe
Every investment in design specificity, programming quality, culinary distinctiveness, and micro-moment density is simultaneously a brand investment and a marketing investment. The destinations that understand this spend their design and operations budgets differently, treating shareability not as a social media outcome but as a financial performance driver. The return on that investment compounds with every visitor who documents and shares their experience.
If you would like to explore a Shareability Audit for your destination, we would be glad to help.
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