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Hospitality Marketing With Social Media


With consumers spending more of their time on social media sites, companies everywhere are trying to reach them by social networking. There’s now a common expectation that a strong online marketing strategy is necessary for any company trying to see an increase in their marketing efforts. Lately, those companies in the hospitality market have been really utilizing social media to see an increase in sales.

Why hospitality? It’s an industry driven by recommendations and reviews. People make purchasing decisions with different criteria in mind, yet peer reviews and recommendations are among the most popular ways to persuade. With the popularity of social media and the growth of the Internet in recent years, consumers jump online to give their positive or negative reviews of brands.

Hospitality is an industry where customer service is crucial, so it makes sense that the industry would want to develop the greatest customer service experience possible. Social networking is being viewed as a new and improved customer service platform for a variety of companies. Social media provides online visibility and lets companies market their products and services online to people everywhere, increasing their reach and exposure to potential consumers.

If you’re in the hospitality industry, there are some things to keep in mind when developing a social media strategy.

Consider what your goals and objectives are with social media. This will assist you in choosing the perfect social media platform to start with. If your company is new to social media, start with setting up just a single platform. Once you get more comfortable using this platform, record how much time it takes you on a daily and weekly business to manage the site then consider making other presences on different social media sites.

Also, have a content strategy. Think about what you want to put out on your social media sites and how often you’ll put it out there. Keep your customers in mind at all times when choosing content. Think about if your consumers want to view constant promotional messages, or if they would prefer to view interesting articles you found and shared.

To make social media work for your business, you must use it regularly and be constantly engaging in conversations with your consumers!

Carefully choosing the right social media platform to start with is very important. In considering Twitter, know that it lets companies connect with consumers, and other companies on both a local and a global scale. If it is important for your company to have fast customer service, Twitter can be used to respond quickly to questions, comments or complaints consumers might have.
Immediate, real time customer service is marketing in itself. It should generate positive emotions from your fans and followers and lead to influential word of mouth recommendations for your company.

With Facebook, your brand’s page acts as the online “headquarters” of your company. It’s like a marketing hub for consumers to come and see what your brand has to offer. You should give your Facebook fans exclusive information about your latest specials and deals, as part of your online marketing strategy. Also, think about making Facebook check in deals to reward consumers for checking into your business by giving them coupons or discounts.

Blogging can also be used in your marketing strategy. You could set up a company blog on your website, and also find influential bloggers who can review your products and services then direct readers to your site. A business blog lets you position your company as an expert in the industry. Blogs are also good to use for sharing company milestones which consumers would be interested in knowing, like if your company has changed locations, or opened a new office.

YouTube is another great site to consider. It’s a great platform to show off important and fun events happening in your company. It gives consumers insights into your company and promotes curiosity, which can lead to an emotional connection with your brand. You can increase the effectiveness of your videos by posting them on any other social media platforms you might have.

There’s also Pinterest. It’s the latest trend in social media, allowing users to “pin” their interests onto boards that they create. For your marketing strategy, you could create a board to show off your products, or pictures from company events to catch the interest of users. A great benefit of Pinterest is providing consumers a visual appeal to your brand.

While there are many options available to develop your marketing strategy, remember to start small, then become comfortable with how your strategy is working, then build your social media presence gradually to provide quality customer service to all of your consumers!

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Important Features of Facebook’s Timeline Format

Yesterday, Facebook’s Timeline format took over, turning all brand pages into the Timeline format. This change is mandatory on Facebook and the format is definitely a new, exciting way for brands and followers to interact.

The Timeline format will be a great way to encourage fans to add user-generated content, which ultimately will increase user engagement. Furthermore, brands can talk directly to consumers, so it’s a great opportunity for businesses to show off their brands in a humanized manner, with a personal touch. In order to find the most benefit out of this new Timeline format, you must understand its structure, as it can be an extremely useful marketing tool.

Here are just a few important factors to note about the Timeline to get your business prepared!

1. The Newly Constructed Wall
With the Timeline format, you will notice a more visually appealing style that allows brands to act like publishers. So, all the content a brand shares on the page should encourage followers to add and share their own content.

For mobile marketing in particular, this visual style will be hugely important. It follows in the footsteps of sites like Instagram and Pinterest, which found success though visual images. So, Facebook’s upgraded wall entices followers to share videos and photos. And any of this content that highlights a user engagement with the brand can go viral immediately, with the click of the Share button.

Additionally, the Timeline format has a Wikipedia factor to it. Important milestones or events regarding the brand will now be highlighted so that followers become more informed about the brand and have more of an incentive to share their favorite aspects of the brand.

2. The Bold Landing Page
With the Timeline, brands can post a prominent image on the façade of the Timeline to give fans a clear, distinct image that connects them to that brand. Businesses should choose a photo that embodies the heart of your brand, and clearly shows off your specific product or service.

This cover photo will be the banner image, and the profile picture will show up on the lower left side of the page. It’s important to write quality copy to present your brand in an exciting way to potential fans. And the more visual you can make your page, the more it will stand out and will gain more views!

3. New And Improved Tools
The Timeline format comes with new analytics tools, which will be a huge help in monitoring for page admins and brands. One unique tool is that any fan can directly message the brand. This is important because in the case of a consumer complaint, the consumer can send the complaint in a message to the brand, instead of posting it on the brand’s wall. This also adds more of a personal connection consumers can have with brands, as they can be heard by the brand as a real, individual person, and not just a customer.

Once you understand the format of the new Facebook Timeline, use it to your advantage and your consumer engagement will quickly increase!

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What Consumers Really Want With Companies’ Social Media Marketing


It’s no surprise that social media is here to stay, as the world has watched sites like Twitter and Facebook continually grow. Furthermore, new social media sites like Pinterest pop up constantly and consumers become immediately drawn to them.

With this increased consumer engagement in social media, there is now more pressure for companies to step there game up, differentiate themselves, and cater to their consumers’ needs with their social media marketing campaigns.

Based on these trends in social media, Wildfire Social Media Marketing developed an interesting report at the end of 2011, called, “2012 and Social Media: What’s Next?” This report gave major predictions about how companies would utilize social media in their marketing efforts this year.

The main claim of Wildfire’s report was that 2012 would be, “the year of understanding how to engage an audience and learning how to monetize it through better analytics and a focus on results.” Now, three months into the year, it is evident that the prediction was exactly right.

However, a more recent study done by the CMO Council and Lithium discovered that several companies’ social media marketing campaigns aren’t effectively addressing the needs and wants of consumers through their social media.

An article published by Steve Olenski, contributor to Forbes.com, analyzed this study and claimed that there is a clear, “divide between what marketers think consumers want vs. what consumers really want when it comes to social media.”

Olenski discovered that the most main issue involving what marketers think their consumers want and what their consumers actually want, involved the category of incentives. It was reported that about 65% of social media users connected with brands on their social platforms through the use of, “games, contests and promotions,” while just 33% of companies felt that consumers were really “looking for incentives or rewards for engaging with the brand.”

So, it seems that it’s not so much about how consumers are using social media sites to connect to brands, but it’s more about the fact that consumers want to engage with companies through social media because they are hoping for something in return.

The good news: social media marketing is a newer area that is still growing and changing, so marketers still have time to examine their social media marketing campaigns and modify them to really connect with consumers.

Ultimately, success in any companies’ social media marketing comes down to two main issues: first, clearly identifying and addressing the needs and wants of consumers, and then offering incentives to those target consumers, regardless of consumers’ social media habits.

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6 Latest Lessons For Social Media Marketing

In order to carry out good online marketing practices, you need to be constantly learning the latest digital trends and getting training a few times a year. Make sure everyone in your company, or at least everyone involved in the marketing of your company, is up to date on the latest social networking changes, and try to update all your social media platforms about every six months.

Here are some lessons on how to keep your business’s social media marketing campaign running smoothly.

1. Look for new ways to engage your online communities
Marketing is an essential practice for business, and today, social networking is the best way to provide better customer satisfaction and discover insights into how your consumers feel about your products and services. The fans and followers on all your social media sites are your main strategic tools to use to see how to modify your business to meet their needs more effectively.

2. Don’t let staff tweet and comment outside of the workspace

This may sound harsh, but it is a currently trending idea that could really help businesses. Employees’ online social networking and tweeting done outside the company could have potential consequences; so to be safe, keep all company social networking done inside the company.

3. Restructure and/or retrain a couple times a year

Because social media is such a quickly evolving field, it is vital to stay on top of all the trends and new tools. If you can make an effort to have your company restructure social media platforms to stay up to date, as well as, retrain employees on the latest social networking changes at least twice a year, your business is sure to continue to thrive with social media marketing.

4. The main way for finding products is becoming social search

Currently, Facebook seems to be one of the main tools people end up using to find information on products and places. With this in mind, it is likely Facebook could take over Google’s rep as the main ecommerce search engine. So make sure you’re aware of social searching, and highlight your products and services effectively on Facebook.

5. Create a long term social data plan

Creating social media campaigns based off behavioral data is now more popular that ever thanks to online conversations, interests, groups and friends, which companies can use as vital information in their social networking. Don’t merely join social media platforms and gain fans and followers, but also be continually thinking about how to build up your social media presence based on interesting information from these sites so you are able to grow and evolve.

6. After your target audience is created, watch your social engagement grow

An average brand oversees multiple blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube channels, etc. So, what companies must remember, is to maintain a common brand image and communication style that is uniform among every social media account. Consumers will be able to recognize your company amongst other competition and have a solid understanding of your brand image and want to engage with you for life.

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The Power Of Social Media

 

 

 

 

It is a fact that developing a presence on social media is far more complex than simply making a Facebook page.

Social media marketing tools have become intricate and numerous this year, and the evolution of social media is peaking.

Businesses are struggling to keep up with all the new technology, and are finding out just how important it is to learn tools and techniques for online marketing and social media. As a result, there is now there is a big emphasis on teaching online marketing in universities, as the Internet becomes more and more relevant for conducting business.

Marketing instructor Jessica Rogers from Texas A&M University is a major supporter of taking advantage of every social media tools available.

According to Rogers, “Social Media creates a whole new world…Schools embracing these tools deserve a lot of kudos.”

Both students and companies around the world have more access to information than ever before, thanks to the Internet. And now social media has allowed businesses and consumers to connect and engage with each other on a more intimate level than ever before.

One of the latest tools used by students to get more in tune with social networking is Chatter. This platform is similar to Facebook, but allows for more privacy and has private, numerous subgroups that can be created. In addition to engaging through these subgroups, you can go into separate chat rooms to exchange and view videos and slides.

Always remember that there are so many different social media platforms in existence, so take advantage of the platforms that make the most sense for your business goals. There are sites with more simply stated and shared information, and other sites that are more “hands-on” and require a greater level of engagement.

Today’s students are gaining knowledge of social media because when applying for jobs, companies know social media and social media marketing are the future of business, so knowledge of how to properly use these sites is extremely important.

With all of this in mind, it is clear that knowing social media networking is power. You can take your business to new heights by learning and utilizing the right social media marketing techniques for your business.

In the social media world, the sky’s the limit!

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Solving Business Problems With Online Marketing

 

 

 

 

Top SEO company Oracle Digital has released new marketing techniques and marketing tools to assist businesses in finding an easier transition from the conventional marketing techniques to the newer, more efficient online strategies. Today, online marketing helps all businesses reach optimal success.

With the global financial crisis felt globally, a lot of businesses have been struggling to find success. This is mainly due to the increased interest rates and financing that have resulted from the financial issues in the market.

Retailers have been some of the hardest hit businesses from this economic crisis. Yet, there are many retailers who have actually been able to increase sales by effectively using Internet marketing strategies in operating their businesses.

Furthermore, online shopping has become a much more popular way of consumer purchasing recently. This trend could be both good and bad for retailers. Online purchasing offers convenience, which consumers certainly enjoy, but it also creates increased competition for retailers as more companies enter E-commerce marketing.

A recent survey conducted by Nielson Research Company found that the fashion industry gained 43% of their total online purchases from international online companies. Experts feel that this is a significant increase in online purchases since the year 2005, proving that more consumers are now very likely to make purchases over the Internet.

Another interesting feature of the online business world is that Facebook has now become a listed company, which will have a great impact on businesses. This will result in more changes in social marketing, across all social networking platforms, like Twitter and Google+.

Experts have also noted that the increased use of smartphones and mobile devices is making Internet marketing more relevant. With all these new ways of conducting business and marketing, finding business success could be a simple task if you develop a strong Internet marketing strategy.

While many may find that using Internet marketing can be difficult, it’s important to take advantage of resources available to help you learn the tricks of the trade. Businesses are shifting more and more to have a strong online presence, so it is worthwhile for you to get the most out of your business by utilizing online marketing!

 

 

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7 Steps For A Location-Based Marketing Campaign

 

 

 

 

When the idea to have users on social media sites share their geographic location on their mobile devices popped up back in 2009, location-based engagement became a popular trend. Foursquare became one of the best-known platforms that tackled this marketing idea.

Location-based marketing gives customers incentives to “check-in” to a company’s location so that consumers automatically engage with that business.

Some platforms aside from Foursquare that utilize this technique include Yelp, Gowalla, BrightKite, Facebook, and more. No matter which platform you choose, if you’re considering developing a location-based social media campaign, use these tips to be successful.

1. Measure Your Performance

Right at the beginning of your campaign, come up with a way to measure the campaign’s performance.  State the goals you want your business to reach and identify the appropriate tools to use to measure those goals.

2. Select Your Online Venue

Select a platform, or platforms, that you want to use to create your online presence for your location-based marketing plan. Register and create an account, then “claim” your online venue. This gives you complete ownership of your venue.

3. Use A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System

Figure out how to combine data from the location-based marketing systems you use along with the data from your CRM. This way, you will be able to see the social media activities that users are engaging in, along with the user interactions reported into the CRM.

4. Design Your Location Marketing Page

With each account you start for a location-based campaign, you should customize a profile page.  Current and prospective customers will want to check out your profile to get a feel for the personality behind the brand. In addition, this information is indexed in search engine databases, so people will be able to find your company more easily if you’ve filled out a profile page.

5. Adjust Your Marketing Plan

Look back to the goals you wanted to reach with your location-based marketing campaign and decide if there are things you need to change in order to see better results.

6. Adjust Your Budget

Go into location-based marketing strategy with a budget. Examine how your brand is performing with this marketing technique and make any changes to you budget in order to continue to be able to carry out the campaign.

7. Come Up With Incentives

Think of great offers to give to your users that are relevant to your brand. Incentives are what location-based marketing is all about, so you must create unique rewards for your specific target audiences.

It can be hard to start a location-based marketing campaign, but with a strong plan to stick to, location-based marketing can prove to be a huge success for your company!

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Some Negatives To Google+

 

 

 

 

With about 90 million users joining Google+ since it came out in June, it would seem as if Google+ has become a successful social media platform.

However, that number of users doesn’t explain how Google+ really matches up in the social media world. In fact, compared to its rival site Facebook, Google+ seems almost invisible. Research firm comScore Inc has found that while Google+ is getting many users to sign up for the site, users really aren’t actually on the site utilizing the tools Google+ has to offer very much.

Users on personal computers spent an average of three minutes a month on Google+ during the months between September and January, whereas they spent six to seven hours on Facebook during this same time, according to comScore.

In addition to this lack of engagement on Google+, there’s also the issue of differentiating Google+ from Facebook. With the launch of Google+ last year, the site was positioned as a Facebook rival where users could share content with very specific groups of people, however sharing on Facebook is much more commonly used.

An original feature of Google+, the “Hangouts,” where users can conduct a videoconference with up to 10 people, hasn’t seen much excitement from users. This feature has not proven to be compelling enough to convert Facebook users to Google+ users.

Executives at Google have tried to ignore this comparison to Facebook and continue to state that they are making a long-term investment on a strong idea and that they are still working to build up more tools to make Google+ triumph over Facebook’s features.

Google vice president of product management, Bradley Horowitz, claims that Google+ is meant to be more than just a destination site and acts as an auxiliary to other Google services like YouTube and Gmail, by adding a social-interaction component to those services. However, other Google+ partners are concerned by the lack of activity on the site.

Google still has not gotten companies to advertise on Google+, and some marketers testing the site have found that brand messages don’t seem to reach consumers as much as they had hoped.

It seems that Google+ does not have the same frequency of activity that sites like Twitter, Facebook and the latest, Pinterest, currently offer. And without the level of engagement on the site, there’s not a strong desire to advertise on the site.

Twitter and Facebook have come to change the way people find new content on the Internet, which competed with Google as the main gateway to the Web. Most activity done on Facebook cannot be accessed from the Google search engine because of privacy controls, which have made the search engine less useful since people are spending more time on Facebook.

So, what’s the main point to take away from all this? Google+ is definitely a prominent site in social media networking, but to find the benefit out of it, you must be effectively engaging on the site. Keep in mind that as far as consumer usage on social media sites, Facebook and Twitter are still the dominant sites used.

 

 

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Seven SEO & Social Media Trends For 2012

 

 

In the year ahead, there seem to be some major social media tactics you can expect to see affecting businesses. Some of these trends have already been carried out by companies, but in 2012, expect to see a mass adoption of these plans carried out by all types of businesses.

1. Google+ Explosion

Google+ will continually come out with new features, and Google+ pages will continue to become more business-friendly. The integration with other Google properties, like in paid search ads, its search engine results page, Google Reader and YouTube will be the greatest advantage for Google.

Google had a strong focus on social media last year by basing its employee bonus and salary structure off of its success through social media. This has resulted in everyone involved the Google world constantly considering social media. This internal focus will lead to an external force where consumers will make Google+ a main social media platform in 2012.

2. Creating Engaged Communities

Businesses will be sure to pay attention to their current community members in 2012, as marketers become more advanced in planning and measuring their campaigns. There will be a stronger emphasis on creating an engaged community as opposed to mere numbers of followers. So, community managers need to energize community members and engage with them in multiple areas, like market research, product development and product discounts, for example.

Managing and building communities is about the consumers, the information and staying consistent. This strategy will be seen heavily in 2012 and will become a key part of community management.

3. Stronger Marketing Intelligence

Last year there was a lot of new technology platforms that changed social media monitoring and provided advanced data to help drive marketing campaigns.

This year, businesses will move beyond just looking at company mentions and influencer scores, and move more toward combining different social data in order to create a marketing intelligence that will drive future marketing campaigns. Many tools do this already, but there is sure to be more this year.

4. Social Media Driving SEO

The usual on-page SEO factors will still remain constant, as it makes your content search friendly, but in 2012, strong sharing activities through social media will drive SEO results.

SEO conversions will be higher and simpler to measure on organic search. And as a result, more companies will carry out a closer collaboration between their social teams and searches.

5. Real, Quality Content

Everyone appreciates content that is relevant, engaging and unique to the consumer. In the past few years, companies have worked hard to come up with content with the sole purpose of creating content for SEO.

In 2012, there will be a more structured way for businesses to form content with a focus on giving unique value to consumers that will lead to higher engagement levels with community members.

5. The Power of Facebook

In the past, companies worked to get a somewhat superficial quantity of Facebook fans without considering the quality of those fans. This year, expect to see companies focus on finding greater profitability with a sharp ROI emphasis in the form of Facebook ads, contests and promotions.

Companies will find that there’s more to Facebook than measuring a linear conversion path from a fan to a consumer. Marketers will measure the non-linear path of ROI more by making Facebook-exclusive promotions to drive foot traffic to the retail stores.

Facebook Ads campaigns will be measured based on the profitability that leads to revenues or supports.

7. SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile)

More integrated campaigns that combine social media with local offers involving mobile devices will be seen in 2012. Socially promoted mobile content can build brand loyalty, and ultimately increase sales.

Sites like LivingSocial and Groupon are good examples of using deals to drive local sales. Foursquare is another example of the SoLoMo strategy.

It’s clear that the quickly changing social media environment can be overwhelming. However, by staying on-top of the latest social media tactics, your company can stay strong in the social media world.

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