A recent article published on November 17th 2009 on the website Hotelmarketing.com caught my attention on the internet social media. It lists the reasons why hoteliers should further capitalize on them. Two of them were particularly insightful. The article says that the social media are a new marketing channel. What I find interesting for the hospitality industry is the fact that hotels no longer need to systematically implement an expensive internet-based advertising campaign since these social media are highly efficient and cheap. Their reach is endless because their marketing channels are many: sharing photos and videos on dedicated websites, unveiling updates, promotions and news on others... the possibilities are infinite. I consider the notion of the so-called “viralability” as a key concept too. The idea is to be visible on these social media in order to virally spread over the net: some hotels generated great revenues on Facebook for example. I increasingly see Facebook, Twitter or Youtube icons on web pages to encourage social media users to refer about these pages among their social internet communities. My opinion is that the internet social media have yet to achieve their peak so this article confirms the huge marketing opportunity that lies behind them.
http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/the_time_for_hotels_to_get_involved_with_social_media_is_now/
I agree that Internet is now the new strategic tool to promote hotels, in particularly, since the appearance of the social websites. However, I find that the concept of "viralability" gets some drawbacks. Indeed, hotels invade the private life of consumers and they are already confronted every days to advetising. So this concept may be perceived as a rejection by web surfers and thay may be not sensitive to this kind of promotion.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you are saying, but social media users may not necessarily see this as invading. If we take the example of Facebook again, you can "become a fan" of virtually anything. This is not imposed on users, they choose to do it and very often they become fan of certain brands. This is then suggested in the news feed of their community contacts...and there you have your "viralability".
ReplyDeleteI think that you boths are right but the point is the advertising has to invents new ways to make promotions and usually it always works.
ReplyDeleteThe point is that a social media is very efficient at the beginning, then it starts to be less effective because of an overexposition to advertising campaigns.
My suggestion is that a social media, like facebook, is a good short term advertising means.
Thank you for your attention,
Ignazio SUTERA
MBA 2 \ EMC - CMH
I agree with you that social media is really important today but I don't agree with Ignazios comment that social media works on a short term. I think that social media really only works on the long term. Foor example on facebook you create a kind of fanbase and it takes time to get all the people becoming a fan of your page. After a period of time this fan base will grow and the hotel will be able to reach a lot of people.
ReplyDelete