DIGITAL MARKETING Social media Resolution 02/09/2011
Lauriane LAURENT MBA 2 A
I.
Read the entire article linked below – then chose 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/HeBSBest-Practices-2011-Social-Media-Resolutions1.pdf 1.
Why do you feel this particular Resolution is most important – for what types of hotels?
I believe the Resolution 2, about creating interesting and engaging topics, is the most important resolution you can take. Indeed, what social media are used for is mainly and first of all to create and build a relationship. Would you talk to someone who is boring? Now, would you follow a company that is? It is the same. The key is then to share with people, to find ways to captivate their attention and to make them react to get their opinions, to exchange to make them talk about themselves and of course… to make them come back to your page and follow you! Posting interesting comments, pictures, videos, questions, fill in the blank, trivia, ideas, product reviews, specials etc. are a good way to get people’s interest. If they know you can teach them something they like, or entertain them, they will be curious to see what will be posted next. Nothing has to be special or creative about your content, only personal and honest. The “likes” and comments can give you an idea of what people prefer. The best is that what is entertainment for your fans may be a great source of information for you. That is why the content is so important and should be formulated wisely.
As for the question: “for what type of hotels?”, in my opinion the greatest thing about social networks is that it can be applied to all kinds of business. You can decide to launch a digital marketing campaign whatever your positioning (we see how luxury brands are now using internet to build their brands while a few years ago, internet and luxury was just a “sacrilege”) and segmentation. It is not necessarily costly and
what it requires mostly is time, commitment, patience and a good understanding of the social networking. As a result, having an interesting content is a must for all kinds of hotels. Still, your content will differ if you are a luxury or up-scale hotel and if you are an economic hotel. Indeed, what the customers of an economic hotel will look for are “specials”, “coupons” and the last offers of the hotel. They will also be interested in the good deals they can make around the hotel or at the hotel. For them, the history of the hotel will not be important for instance. On the contrary, the guests of a luxury or up-scale hotel will be sensitive to what is “around the hotel”, the “experiential” part of the hotel, its stories, its anecdotes. To conclude, the content has to be adapted to the kind of guests the hotel targets and be interesting to them. The system, the strategy does not change, only the content.
2.
What additional actions would give that Resolution even greater impact – drive more impressive results?
Incorporating “specials”, coupons or discounts in your social network page would give an additional reason to people to visit your page. The same with social rewards, which are a sort of loyalty program for the users of social networks. It would increase the customers’ loyalty and interest in your brand and they even may become your influencers. Still, you can (and should) go further to maximize your chance of success. Below are additional measures you could take to give your Resolution more impact:
Regularly post new content to encourage the customers to visit your site more often and be also constant on the quality of the posts…
Go on sites and blogs to “dig” your topic deeper and offer more valuable information to your fans.
Have a well defined strategy plan.
Listen and engage in the conversation to help your customers or just show you are actively listening and interested in what they say.
Monitor how your followers react to readapt your content.
Share anecdotes and experiences, as well as pictures and videos, about the brand and the products so the customers are more familiar with your brand, feel closer to your brand.
Follow your Resolution on all sites you are in and post different contents to encourage people to share the right things, at the right place, with the right people…
If you can, do not limit yourself to virtual exchanges, organize meet up to talk face to face with you fans! Be as interesting in life as in the web to strengthen your relationship with your followers.
Below are the screenshots of 3 companies (Nokia, Hard Rock Café and Mandarin Oriental) that are successfully executing this Resolution online. The reason why I chose Nokia is because the brand is very active on its Facebook page. It interacts a lot with
its
followers
and
posts
contents almost every day that generate a lot of comments and “like”. The content is also varied and does not deal only with its products or brand. We can see this strategy work for Nokia as it is followed by 2,806,989 people! For a brand whose slogan is “connecting people”, it would have been a shame it did not manage to succeed.
- The brand has many sorts of content (videos, pictures, last offers, quizzes etc.) - The brand generates a lot of activity (comments, “likes”) - The brand interacts a lot with its fans. - The brand has many followers.
Content is varied and not self-focused
The brand does not forget to answer and comment its followers’ posts.
The brand is very active and constant in its posting.
The brand posts generate many reactions (like and comments).
The reason why I chose Hard Rock Cafe is because the company is also very active and the tone of its page is very casual, which give an impression of proximity with its followers. Every day, sometimes twice a day and even more, HRC posts videos, pictures, open-questions that generate many answers and comments. HRC also takes the time to comment the posts of
its followers.
- The brand has many sorts of content (videos, pictures, last offers, quizzes etc.) - The brand has many followers
Content is varied and not self-focused
The brand does not forget to answer and comment its followers’ posts.
The brand is very active and constant in its posting.
The brand posts generate many reactions (like and comments).
The reasons why I chose the Mandarin Oriental are its rich and varied content, its regularity in the posting, the interaction with the followers and the efforts in the originality of the content.
- The brand has many sorts of content (videos, pictures, last offers, quizzes etc.) - The brand generates a lot of activity (comments, “likes�) - The brand has many followers. - The brand is present on many network sites.
Regular posts The brand comments and answer regularly its followers.
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 business) what steps would you take to compete effectively online?
Technology does not play an important role in hotel’s internet strategy success but a CRUCIAL role. Now, internet is everywhere. Almost everybody has internet at home and in a few years, almost everybody will have a Smartphone. Social networks, with its hundreds of millions users, have changed the way people behave on the market, buying online and sharing about anything, anytime and anywhere. Social marketing
is about to replace regular marketing as consumers rely and trust more the other users than the brands’ discourses. Thus, digital marketing is not the future but already our present. The problem (or rather the best) is that technology is improving and evolving very fast so hoteliers have to keep up to date not to be left behind. Here are the reasons why hotels should include digital marketing and social networking in their sales and brand building strategies:
Free to create accounts on these sites
A free marketing analysis: you can collect feedbacks about your brand, your products, your competitors, the trends etc. It is as efficient as a consultant and it is free!
Develop customers’ trust and maybe loyalty: the way of talking in these sites is more casual, which will make your brand seem more accessible, more “human” and “closer” to the customers.
The possibility to improve your image and reputation
A better visibility and then awareness
Increase your customer database: thanks to the words of mouth, the spreading of messages (like, retweet etc.), the sharing of all kinds of things and with the help of influencers, you will have a better visibility and encourage other customers to join the community you built.
Widen your customer target by reaching people you would have not
Fix the problem before it is serious by reacting immediately online and have a chance to get the customers’ trust back
Develop your sales by offering promotions, specials etc.
Ability to be on mobile websites, to develop applications and to be part of the life of your customers, reaching everybody, anywhere, anytime.
Many tools at digital marketers disposal to help them monitoring the flows (be faster, more organized and have a better view of what is said ) and that are not necessarily costly
As you see, they are many advantages to be on the social networks and to develop a digital marketing strategy. Even if the financial aspects may to show directly, you can at least expect other gains: a better image, more trust, more reliability, more popularity etc... As long as you are regular in your efforts, take the time to build a relationship with your customers and understand well how social medias work, you should succeed in your marketing strategy. As an independent or limited budget hotel, you should follow these steps to compete effectively online:
Master the SEO and SEM: to be more visible on the web, the basics are to know how internet works. What you need to do for instance is to use the maximum of keywords in your web pages, to tag everything you post, to have a site map, to link your site to others, to be visible on Google Map, to work with 3rd parties, to update your sites regularly and to create a blog.
A fast, clear and attractive website: Your website must reflect your personality, it is very personal. Still, it also has to be convenient and be downloaded fast for the users and its “structure” must maximize the “search-ability”.
Write great newsletters: Newsletters are a good way to differentiate from your competitors and to build a relationship with your customers. If they subscribe, it is because they want to know more about your brand. Follow the same advice as for the social networks when you write them and you may see the difference.
Create an account on the main social networks: users are on these sites for different reasons, which explain why you have to be active in so many. The key is to be present in at least each kind of social places like: o General network: Facebook o “Public network”: Twitter o Professional network: LinkedIn o “Video network”: Youtube o “Picture network”: Flickr
o Presentation network: Slideshare o Location network: Foursquare or Gowalla o Q&A sites: Quora or Formspring o Review sites: Trip Advisor o Buzz site: Google Buzz o Social commerce site: Blippy
Use these sites efficiently: Respect the codes and rules of each site (be careful about what you post and where!) and maintain your resolutions (see 1st question).
Create a blog: It will not only give more highlight to your site but it will also develop your community if you post interesting articles.
Mails: Use your mailing list database. Mails are still a very useful and personal tool and you should not hesitate to send emails to your more loyal customers, not only to warn them about the last offers but also for the pleasure of hearing from them!
Link all your sites to each others with widgets: Once you created all your websites, accounts and blogs, link them to each other to increase traffic and so awareness about your brand.
Add buttons: “like”, “retweet”, “Buzz” are very easy to add to your sites and are a good way to monitor what your guests think about your posts, products etc.
PPC: They are less costly than a banner but you have to be careful to select the right places…
Commit and imply the team: The last advice would be to see this digital marketing as important as the traditional marketing and to make your teams participate for more creativity and interesting content.
Next are the screenshots of 2 companies (Emerson Salon and Hôtel du Panthéon) that are creatively reaching customers, without expending large resources – as the large chains are capable of doing.
Emerson Salon:
The company is present on many social networks that are linked to its site. Possibility to book online Each member gave its own twitter account
-Facebook page -Blog -Buttons to tweet the articles and products you like.
H么tel du Panth茅on:
Presence on 3rd party sites The hotel website is listed 1st on the 1t Google page The hotel is located on a Map.
The hotel is present on 2 social networks The hotel has a blog The hotel has a site map and links to fellow hotels, which facilitate the search-ability.
Possibility to rate the articles On the hotel blog, possibility to share your comments on many social networks .
The hotel has a common Facebook page with other hotels but you have to ask the hotels to be added first = it can be a good way to filter the requests and to make the community more special.
III.
From the Build Your Own Brand video series – what are they KEY elements to online branding, according to Loic LeMeur?
The key elements to online branding are:
Create an account on the main social networks as mentioned above
Be the best in your field. Share an expertise.
Keep the same name to be easily visible and searchable by your community.
Customize your page to differentiate and make it personal.
Respect the codes and purpose of each site and adapt what and where you are sharing.
Post regularly, consistency is one key of success.
Be interesting, generous, available, helpful and friendly.
Link all your sites with each other thanks to widgets and add buttons to monitor what people like about what you share, sell etc.
Do not think too much! Just share and share all kinds of things (videos, pictures, ideas, specials, questions, reviews etc.) It does not have to be perfect, just personal.
Sharing is not all! You then have to listen and engage in the conversation. Answer as much and as often as you can and always be transparent.
Use emails and newsletters! (it is more personal and sites now help you to target to whom you will send them (by gender, countries etc).
Organize meet up to strengthen relationship with the fans.
Have a blog for more elaborate posts but remember to keep it simple and engaging.
Imply your team to develop your content and be more creative.
Spot the influencers and engage in a conversation with them, even try to meet them without being pushy.
Share your presentations.
Do not feed the trolls! You will always have bad comments so ignore those who take pleasure harming you and focus on helping your community.
Never be negative or criticize your competitors. It never helps.
Use the tools at your disposal: The new tools developed to help marketers being faster, better organized and/or have a better visibility of what is said about them (their brand, products and competitors) are also key elements to online branding. Indeed, being more efficient also means serving your fans better, which can make not only make the difference with your competitor but also improve your image and reliability a lot by not ignoring or missing something or by making the “extra mile”. Below are a few tools that Loic LeMeur advises us to use: o Seesmic Desktop or Seesmic Web (aggregator site) o Ping.fm to help you update your accounts o Klout to find the influencers o
Twitter search engine, Facebook “like”, comments, number of fans to monitor your success on the different sites and take the pulse
o Make list (ex on Twitter to filter the information (ex VIP list)) o Prioritize: “User voice” or Get satisfaction” give you an idea of what is said about your products, brands o Email collector sites like “Mail Chimp” o Read and share thanks to “Google reader” and aggregator sites where you can find the information you want and that would interest your community. It will help you update your content with valuable information and become the best in your field. Below are the screenshot of 2 brands (Barbie and Gucci) that are using the key elements successfully.
The reason why I chose Barbie is because the brand respect perfectly all that had been say regarding online branding and which are the best strategies to follow (including using the new service like Foursquare)
The brand posts generate many comments and ÂŤ like Âť The site attracts many followers.
The content are varied and engaging.
The site includes many different contents like videos, photos, events, shop links‌
Barbie liked all its social network sites (including the location site Foursquare and its Youtube channel), its blog and its shops to its Facebook account.
On the blog, possibility to share the articles and comments to many sites. The blog is linked to all the social network accounts.
The reason why I chose Gucci is because, like Barbie, it is an example to follow concerning the digital marketing strategy and also because it uses the latest trends (Foursquare, Digital Boutique).
Gucci is present on many sites and linked them all to its Facebook account (including Foursquare and its Youtube channel). Gucci has a very large community.
Gucci has a very rich and varied content (including events, the different links to all its sites and boutiques, pictures, its Youtube channel) The brand posts generate many reactions (comments & “like”) Gucci is very regular in the posting.
Gucci website includes links to the major social networks and to its new “Digital Boutique”.
Gucci has a “Gucci connect” site where it displays the last fashion show and where we can see in real time what is happening on the different social networks.
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
The tools I chose to describe are Klout and Seesmic. You can find the link to their sites below: http://klout.com/ http://seesmic.com/ 2.
Describe how a hotel could use these tools to effectively engage their customers.
The first tool, Klout, is a service that can measure the influence a person (your customer) has on the social networks (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). The score is updated every 6 days. How does it work? You just create an account on Klout, via your Twitter account. Klout will measure your influence (the score goes from 1 to 100) thanks to many variables like:
The ratio between the your followers and your followings
The number of retweet
The number of followers who @ you
The number of “like” in your status
The comments on your status
Etc.
There are 35 variables divided into 3 categories: (3 “under-scores” that make your total score):
The True Reach: your total community (Followers, Amis..)
Amplification : the virtual echo (total of RT, number of @, total of “ like”, total of comments)
The Network : the authority of your audience
Now Klout is so efficient that it is everywhere: it gives the polling score, it gives the “top 50 something”, it calculates automatically everything. Why is it a great tool for the hoteliers? It leads them directly to the influencers! Thanks to this service, it is easy for them to know who talk about your brand and has a large community of followers. Once the marketers spot them, they only have to engage the conversation with the right persons and try to meet them to see how they could help broaden the brand awareness and increase the sales… Seesmic has a different purpose. It is a site developed around Twitter that allows you to manage your brand online by offering you support in the management of your accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare etc. You can indeed access all your account on one single screen and have a better visibility of what is going on all the different sites. This way, you can share more easily and more quickly and keep up-to-date. The interaction with your customers is facilitated and it makes it easier to engage with them. 3.
What actions would be needed to put the tools in place, in a hotel?
Implementing these tools in a hotel would not require much. The only thing the hotel has to do is to create an account on each site. Of course, the hotel will have created accounts on different social networks first. Once it is done, Klout will do the work. The only things the marketers will have to do are monitoring what is said and react accordingly. Training will probably be necessary so the marketers can use these tools properly and at their best.
Concerning Seesmic, the same strategy will apply. Training will be provided to the marketing team once the account is created and then they will be able to use it to update the accounts, share, to sum up, implement their digital marketing strategy. Of course, the hotel will have to wonder whether its staff is qualified to do the digital marketing or whether it will need more staff. It may also be a question of time and once again, hiring a new person could be considered. 4.
How could the selected tools be utilized across channels?
5.
What problems would the use of the selected tools solve?
Klout would help the hoteliers manage their brand reputation more easily and efficiently finding the right persons to influence the mass. With less time and much less money, hoteliers will be able to target the influencers and to “use” them for increasing their brand awareness, image and hopefully sales. Seesmic will also enable the hoteliers to gain time and efficiency in their marketing job not missing anything that is going on on the web. While it was difficult and time consuming to update each site one by one (and during that time maybe missing an important post or comment), it is now solved with the Seesmic platform. 6.
What problems would the selected tools create?
Regarding Seesmic, the problem will be for the marketers. I would say that while it makes you gain time in updating your pages, it may be too “captivating”. By driving the flows of information from all your accounts in real time, they can get “stuck” on the screens not to miss THE comment, expecting always something “hot”, feeling guilty not to have been there at the right moment. At the end, I think it needs a planning, some limits on the time you spend on that service in order to not forget the rest… For Klout, the problem may arise if the hoteliers start relying only on the influencers to promote their brand and do not continue their efforts on the social networks. The influencers cannot replace the marketers. The brand has to continue interacting with
the others customers in order to maybe turn them into influencers as well or at least to show how trustful and reliable it is. 7.
Why did you select these specific tools?
I selected these tools because they were the most efficient for me. On the one hand, competition is harder and harder on the market. On the other hand, social networks develop very fast and we have to manage more and more accounts. In addition, with time, you receive more and more comments, your community is growing and you still have to be careful of your followers, engage with them. It is harder when you have thousands than hundreds, but easier then if you had a million. That is why you need tools not to be overwhelmed by your success. In addition, losing control of your sites can damage your brand as your followers would feel abandoned and this failure would of course benefit to your competitors. Klout and Seesmic are great tools to be more efficient helping you in your organization, time management, monitoring and visibility of what is going on.
V.
Define in your own words the 5 terms you selected among the list and include a screenshot example of each term.
1.
Location based services:
Location-based services are information available via GPS-enabled mobiles and that identify the location of a person, shop or product in one’s surroundings. For instance, imagine you need to withdraw money but you do not know where the closest ATM is or that you are craving for a pizza, thanks to your LBS application, you will know where to go. You just have to register your current location or announce that you are present somewhere in particular, which is also called “checking-in�. Actually, the LBS application is able to locate your mobile by interacting with other location technology components and to provide a list of what you are looking for. This is becoming the tool that marketers love as it allows them to turn geographical positioning into valuable and relevant data for a customer to make a profit. For instance, LBS can allow them to send advertisements and coupons to customers based on their business area. Some retailers and businesses (like Starbuck) are also moving past the
“experimentation� phase with location services and will increasingly provide offers and rewards to users that utilize check-in services). Currently, some of the most popular LBS applications are Foursquare and Gowalla but there are many others like Facebook Places or Google Places, Whrrl or My Town just to name a few. Below is a screenshot of one of the most popular of the LBS: Foursquare.
2.
White Label
White label products are products manufactured by one company but packaged, promoted and sold by one or many other companies, under their own brand. As a result, it gives the impression the products are made by the marketers when in reality they are created by the manufacturing company. Common examples of white label products can be found in supermarkets, where the stores sell products under their own label at a discount relative to other well-known brands. Thus, Leclerc, Carrefour or Auchan have their store-brand name on many products while they do not produce any goods. Still, white label products can be found in a wide range of categories. The
most popular types of white label businesses right now are: softwares, web host reselling (you buy the web host space and re-sell it to others as if you are the provider), booking platforms or E-books with reseller rights (you buy e-books and resell it to others). You can also find sites like Alibaba that give you a list of white label products looking for marketers. Below is a screenshot of a site that offer white label design services: Askgraphics.
3.
Rate Parity
Rate parity is defined as the fact of maintaining the same rates for the same products in all online distribution channels- which include the hotel website and the OTA (online travel agencies) - regardless of what the required commissions are. The purpose of this strategy is to protect a hotel relationship with its partners (as no channel is favored), to allow the hotelier to evaluate its partnership with an OTA to decide whether or not the business relationship is profitable and to be more reliable to the customers. Below are the screenshots I took to show that the Shangri-La Paris prices are the same on the hotel website, on Expedia and on Hotels.com.
4.
Social Rewards
Social rewards are the new way the marketers found to encourage loyalty among their customers and thank their most loyal and influent fans who use social networks to promote, review, talk about their brand and products. To sum up, this is the new social media loyalty program that rewards users based on social actions, sales, and their level of influence. Thus, the brand enthusiasts can be offered discounts, points or miles (that they can redeem into gifts, cash, discount or gratuities), cash or gratuities. For instance, more and more businesses uses Foursquare to engage their clients with “specials” (discounts, prizes) when they “check-in” on Foursquare at their venue. A new company named “Social Rewards” launched recently a new service using Klout technology to determine the influence level of the social media users and reward them differently based on their Klout score. This definitely answers the question: how much a tweet or Facebook like is worth? Below is a screenshot of the loyalty program offered by the Venetian and The Palazzo hotels in Las Vegas, which chose to propose the social reward program elaborated by the business called itself Social Rewards.
5.
Aggregator site
Aggregator sites are websites that collect information from multiple online sources and bring it back on its own page, simplifying research for the users as all the data are gathered on one page. There are different aggregator sites, offering a more or less specific content:
News aggregator websites aggregate news from other news sources (Netvibes, PaperLi, Popurls, Google news, Diggview).
Poll aggregator website aggregates polling data for upcoming elections (Pollster.com).
Review aggregator website aggregates reviews of movies or other products or services (Giddi).
Video, music and pictures aggregator website collects and organizes online video sources (WeShow, Aggrega, uVouch, Vodpod. Pikspot, The Daily Tube)
Below is a screenshot of VodPod, a video aggregator site: