Final Exam – Digital Marketing Jenna Reverchon
Jenna Reverchon MBA 2A
Final Exam – Digital Marketing I.
Read the entire article linked below – then choose one Resolution that you think would have the most + positive impact on a hotel’s internet success http://www.hospitalityebusiness.com/blog/wp-‐content/uploads/2011/01/HeBS-‐ Best-‐Practices-‐2011-‐Social-‐Media-‐Resolutions1.pdf The Resolution I chose is: write interesting and engaging post and I think it is the one which has the most positive impact on hotel’s internet success. Provide your analysis: 1. Why do you feel this particular Resolution is most important – for what types of hotels Write interesting and engaging post: I think this Resolution is most important because it is no longer enough to be present on the web and to have a website and it is not longer enough to have only a facebook page and a twitter account. Customers need to be attracted by something and if the company does not post anything, it would never have an impact on the net. The article explains that you need to create exciting posts to captivate users. If a business wants to attract customers, it needs to create a specific relationship with the customer, and increase page views. Interesting and engaging post does not mean that you should be the only one posting on your page but users are also allow to and interaction with users is obviously a good way to engage users. The article gives some tactics to reach more efficiently users and to engage them in your business: • Open-‐ended question • Prompt to “like” • Fill-‐in-‐the blank • Photo post • Trivia This kind of strategy could apply to any kind of hotel because every business needs to be visible. Moreover, this resolution can be joined by other strategies because it does not go by itself and a strategy such as regularly post new content can be added to the first one to create even more interesting and engaging post. From limited budget hotels to luxury hotels through independent ones, each type of hotel needs to engage people to visit their pages and interact with the brand in order to reach more and more clients.
2. What additional actions would give that Resolution even greater impact – drive more impressive results Additional actions that would give this Resolution even greater impact could be: • Give prizes to the correct answers or the best pictures. Prizes are always a good way to attract users on your page. Prizes or gifts are not very original but they are the basics to engage people. • Create events/meetings for your fans meaning that you keep in touch with your community and they become fully engage in your business • As it has been said before being interesting is not the only thing to do but you have to post regularly to interest users. • Answering to the questions of your fans or just react on what they have posted to show them that you do not leave your page These actions are a way to improve user’s interest in your business and they would have a greater impact on your page meaning that you would certainly gain fans. 3. Research 3 examples of hotels (or other businesses) that are successfully executing this Resolution online. Take screenshots of each example. Comment below the screenshot how the examples you have chosen supports the selected Resolution 1st example: Disneyland Fill-‐in-‐the blank
The Disneyland Company uses this resolution to engage more users in letting them the answer. This kind of contest let the “customers” express themselves and it makes the company more valuable because there is an interaction.
2nd example: Walt Disney World
Open-‐ended question
Photo post Walt Disney World engages its customers through questions so that people can say what they have liked during their journey. In terms of photos people can react to photos or they can also put theirs in order to show that they are interested in the brand. The Disney Company is more active on Facebook in terms of movies but in terms of amusement parks they can be found more easily on twitter. Moreover, Twitter is good way to communicate quickly rather than Facebook which is more complicated because users have to go the fan page and then “like” the post or comment but they have done ten manipulations before so they read and they go back to their profile.
3rd example: Go Voyages
Informing users that there is a new website. The company also ask users to give their impressions about the new website so that they can make modifications if needed Open-‐ended questions
Go Voyages encourages people to comment and react on their posts. They are also making contests to create “competition” between users but it is specifically to engage them in their company. There are some “likes” but they could have improved the “prompt to ‘like’” for example in order to win a trip or as a contest rather than answering a survey. The “like” button is only one click and people do not want to loose time with taking a little poll. II. From the article, what role does technology play in a hotel’s Internet strategy success? If you are an independent, limited budget hotel (or other businesses) what steps would you take to compete effectively online? Technology plays a huge role in a hotel’s Internet strategy success and in fact in every business’s Internet strategy success. As I said before, social media like Facebook and Twitter are no longer enough to reach your clientele, this is why technology is important in a business’s Internet strategy success. Technology (internet, social media, blogs, website, reviews, mobile…) will allow your brand to be visible and technology can help you to become reachable and to reach customers. It also helps your company to develop its image and reputation.
The steps an independent or limited company needs to take to compete effectively online are: ð Website: if you still do not have a website – you should have one because it is the basics of technology and of visibility. If you already have a website, you should update it with all the necessary information (contact, images, search bar, access information, map, phone, about your company…). In order to be visible you need the right key words in your titles and pages to appear in the first ones when somebody is searching for your company a your market. In order to let your website’s visitors share information with their friends, add Facebook, Twitter, Youtube buttons and RSS feeds. ð Social media and social networks: you should appear on social media in order to reach potential customers. You also need to reply to posts and comments (positive or negative) and give information that do not appear on your website, otherwise there is no interest to be present on social media. Facebook and Twitter are the two basics but there are a lot more such as LinkedIn, FourSquare, Hi5… it will help drive traffic to your website so integrate perfectly social media on your site. ð Create a blog: add information that bloggers will share with each other and add for example videos and photos of some special events. You also need to take time to answer to people who react to your post and if there is no answer possible, just thank them for having posted in your blog. ð Be visible: locate your business on Google map, post videos on Youtube and Daily Motion, and add photos on flickr… ð Third Party: work with them, they will help you to be more visible and build your brand reputation. ð Be honest: don’t lie to your potential customers, because they will always find out what is wrong with you and when you loose one customer, you actually loose hundreds because people talk to each other and especially when they did not appreciate something. 1. Research 2 hotels or other businesses that are creatively reaching customers, without expending large resources – as the large chains are capable of doing. Take screenshots of those examples, include in your answer.
1st example: Hotel Batignolles Villers (3 star hotel)
Reservation bar
All information needed Special offers
Facebook button-‐ they do not really work on their Twitter account but they should to reach more customers
Contact and access information
Necessary information about the hotel
Engaging users to share their plans and ideas
About space, where the hotel can give information about services Number of people who like the brand, follow them and are engaged and interesting in the hotel
The hotel is visible on a search engine and it is working with 3rd parties so it can have reviews and reach more customers.
Visibility on maps with the key words limited budget hotels in Paris. However they appear 8th but they are still in the top 10
2nd example: hotel Villa Madame (4 star hotel) Address and contact information
Facebook, twitter, skype and youtube button so that visitors can check different stuff about the hotel on other sites
Special offers on facebook and engage users in their company, the more “like” they have, the more they are getting known.
Location and company information
Special offers on Twitter. The problem is that they use exactly the same offer so they do not differentiate from other websites. This means that people who are using both social media are confronted to the same post and that makes the company less interesting to users.
Suing the key words independent hotels in Paris, the Hotel Villa Madame comes in 3rd position and located on a map, they are visible on the net.
III.
From the Build Your Own Brand video series – what are they KEY elements to online branding, according to Loïc LeMeur?
According to Loic LeMeur, there are a lot of Key elements to online branding, however, there are a few that could be put apart but the fact is that he made this video series in order to give advice on how to build your own brand and be competitive on the internet market. Then why would he tell us something wrong or useless? Ø Be present on as much social media as you can, because facebook and twitter are a good start but there are so many more such as Formspring, LinkedIn, Blogger… but it is no only a question of putting many post but they have to be interesting and relevant. Ø Share as much as you can, meaning that you have to share some information if you want to receive some. It is the case for anything: give to receive. Ø Use the buttons on your website to conduct visitors directly to your pages, so that they become users and can potentially increase your reputation. Ø Answers to your fans and followers either on a positive comment or on a negative one. Never leave a comment or a question. Be present on questions and answers sites. Ø Ask your community their opinion about something you want to do or something new and that they have tested. Listen to them because they are sharing something with you; be able to listen to what people have to share as they listen to you. Ø Organize meet-‐up to meet your community because you cannot leave them alone so you have to create some special events only for your community in order to create a relationship with them. Ø Create videos and post them as well as photos. Share your ideas and your community will react to this. Ø Be honest with your fans and followers because they might become influencers. Online branding has nothing to do with marketing so we have to forget everything we have learned since now and take everything from now and incorporate it into our online strategy in order to gain trust and to build our reputation. 1. Research 2 hotels or businesses that are using the KEY elements successfully, in your view. Take screenshots, include in your answer comment on why you have chosen these two examples.
1st example: IAAPA (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions)
International with pages in different languages
Tabs explaining everything around the association Direct access for members Invitation to join the association if you are professional in the amusement industry
If you are interested in the shows the IAAPA organize, you can see the different, date and place of each exhibition The magazine is also a very good way to share content with the community
New events, new content.
Quick links to either their other sites or sites linked with the industry
Links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogger. Click the buttons and you will be directly conducted to the site of your interest
On blogger: interesting post, relevant and international as they are RSS feed to subscribe to the blog
You can share what is on the blog on twitter and Facebook with these buttons
Numbers of followers, numbers of people they follow and numbers of tweets Regular tweets and interesting for the industry. 2nd example: Disney Special offers and gifts
Number of followers, number of people who Disney follows, numbers of tweets and number of time it has been listed
Interesting post + open-‐ended question. They are not very regular in their postings
Follow on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. They create a need to follow them and in order to attract more users in one click
Info tabs where you can find Disney characters and their description, and information about the direction and the history of the brand
Special offers and prizes to win during contest in order to engage users in your brand. The reason why I chose these 2 businesses is because first of all I know them and I know that they are doing a good job online. Obviously, for Disney, because of its notoriety it has to present and to appear almost everywhere on the web. However, I noticed that IAAPA made a better job maybe because the association gathers suppliers and parks in the amusement industry. It is interesting to see how such a huge brand – Disney – manage its online campaign. Meaning that sometimes they do not reply to questions or comments of their fans but they still do not have any problem within the business. IAAPA shares much more information but not everybody can access them because you have to be part of the industry. IV. From the Build Your Own Brand video series – choose any 2 online tools that were mentioned: 1. Include a text link to each tool Klout Seesmic 2. Describe how a hotel could use these tools to effectively engage their customers These tools are important to effectively engage customers to a hotel because as I said before, you have to be present on social media but you also have to monitor them and to understand how it works before using these tools. Seesmic is a platform on which you can manage all your social media accounts at the same time. The digital era implies that everything needs to be fast and nobody has time to wait, then rather than opening your Facebook account, your Twitter account and your LinkedIn account and any social media account the hotel has in different tabs, you can
have all three together on a same platform. It would help a hotel to effectively engage customers because with this tool, the company can check if they put the same post twice without changing window. It is faster, it is easier and it ahs an impact on the community because they will see the change in effectiveness. Klout is a different tool to measure your influence on Internet. At the same time, it helps the hotel to monitor it; meaning that this tool manage your influencers because of course you have to know who your influencers are and how they influence you. This tool measures your activity on various social networks and gives you a score that will determine your influence. It helps the hotel to know where they are and to encourage their influencers to continue in order to increase engagement. 3. What actions would be needed to put the tools in place, in a hotel? The actions needed to put these tools in place would be to create accounts in as much as possible social media so that Seesmic and Klout could collect information and gather those in the same platform. 4. How could the selected tools be utilized across channels? Klout and Seesmic would work as every social media then it could be utilized across channels, having smartphone application, netbooks. 5. What problems would the use of the selected tools solve? The selected tools would solve a problem of time. Nowadays, nobody has time and having Seesmic would be helpful because it would save the time of the person who is updating every account because they are all gathered on a same platforms. Klout would solve the problem of influence, meaning that as you can measure your influence, you can control it and then increase it by being more efficient using Seesmic. 6. What problems would the selected tools create? Klout and Seesmic are now the essential tools if you want to be faster in posting everyday on each account and Klout can tell you what is your influence on the net. However, some problems could be created with these tools. For example, on Seesmic you could have the problem of impersonality meaning that everyday you might want to go faster and faster and one day you post everything on every accounts, then the different accounts will not be different any more. Klout, which is measuring influencers, would create a problem of focus. Your preoccupation could be to influence and encourage influencers and to neglect he others. 7. Why did you select these specific tools? I selected these tools because being present is essential if you want to be successful but sometimes it is complicated to control everything at the same time but with Seesmic and Klout things are different because all the information are gathered and it comes up all together.
V.
Select 5 of the following terms. Define in your own words – include a screenshot example of each term Social media: is a term created under the digital era on which you can interact with each other via your computer, mobile… it is a new mean of communication on which you can create your own community (your group) and gather with them. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Seesmic, Klout… they are all social medias. Name of the social media Name of the fan page: people interested in this page can interact with each other
Name of the social media
Interactions / communication
Tweets: is a term that goes with the social network Twitter and they are small post, article when you tell what happened to you or something that marked you. You can say whatever you want in 140 characters and usually it is related to a specific topic.
tweet