social media marketing strategies for travel and hospitality professionals

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MarketingStrategies

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY PROFESSIONALS


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Brian A. Cliettewww.briancliette.com

@briancliette

Digital Marketing Strategist

www.superlinkjuice.com


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Social Media Marketing Funnel for Travel and Hospitality Professionals


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In the travel and hospitality industry, it is always insightful to take a closer look at how hotels embrace new technologies and upcoming challenges.


Social Media is the Future of Hospitality Industry

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2015

2014

20132011

2012

Social MediaWeb Design Search Engine Marketing


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To get insights into the guests

Appear in their tablets

Meet them on their smart phones

Move into their laptops

Digital Marketing enables the industry

Show up in their desktops All from a single

platform


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Increasing influence of Social Media in search and planning stages of travel


8Practical Application of Social Media for Hospitality Industry

AWARENESS

CONSIDERATION

PREFERENCES

ACTION

LOYALTY

ADVOCACY

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Theories of Social Media Marketing classically govern the outcomes in Hotel and Travel industry.


Take Great Step 1 9

Step One

Make a strong presence in Social Media to create brand awareness. The content should be valuable, educational, actionable, relevant, shareable, builds trust and user-generated

AWARENESS


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The awareness stage of marketing funnel is where you introduce potential customers to your brand. You build awareness and encourage prospective customers to remember your brand name so that when they make a future purchase, they include your brand in their consideration mix.

AWARENESS


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It is about creating and communicating with communities, telling your story, participating in latest social trends.Stretch yourself beyond Facebook and Twitter.

AWARENESS


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In this discussion we will explore the various social platforms available to travel and hospitality industry and help you determine which social networks will be most effective to create and integrate communities helpful in this regard

AWARENESS Social Media is your front office


Take Great Step 2 13

THINK AND PLAN

Social media is an ocean. You have to perform multitasks like Brand building, Lead generation, Research and development, Product and Service launch, Customer retention, Partner and Channel communication and many more.

CONSIDERATION

Brand Building Lead Generation

Research and Development

Product and Service Launch

Customer Retention

Channel communication


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CONSIDERATION

• Who are the present users?• Is your business relevant to present set of

users?• How much time and resources are required to

participate in this medium?• Do you have necessary expertise and

knowledge to create unique and attractive content meeting the standards of a particular channel?

To make money

Making people happy

Giving them the latest knowledgeFacilitating their voice to come out

What is your goal?



SELECTING CHANNEL

Selecting the channel is crucial. Having countless channels available for reaching out to your prospective customers, selection of right channels to meet your specific needs is the first step to your success.

PREFERENCES


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PREFERENCES

Needless to mention that complete data is available for statistics of activity on each channel. Commercial organizations exist to facilitate analysis in this regard.

Defining the goal

Selecting the right channel

Developing the right message

Content Distribution Strategy

Services of Commercial Organizations

Engage and Monitor

You can do yourself this research to find out a suitable channel


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PREFERENCES

No doubt Facebook is the World’s largest social network channel.

Over 1 Billion Users

67% Users in US only

83% of 18-29 age bracket in US73% with income above $75,00066% Sharing on mobile phones

2.7 Billion likes daily

50 Million Facebook Pages



PURCHASE LOCATION

Today Travel Purchases can happen in many places. Detailed research and analysis of site of purchase for your product and facilitating your customers giving a call to action is crucial.

ACTION


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ACTION

Focusing on the “Purchase Location” of your prospective customers considerably decreases the amount of effort and expenditure thus increasing ROI

Physical Location

Via Online Store

Via Smart Phone

Via Tablet Device

Via S-commerce on FacebookSocial action service like Groupon


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ACTION

• Where can customers purchase from you?

• The easier it is to purchase ,the more likely the customer will take action.



CREATE LOYALTY

Given the cost of attracting new customers – thought to be as much as eight times more expensive as holding onto existing buyers – ensuring customer loyalty can be the difference between failure and success.

LOYALTY


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LOYALTY

The relationship with the customer doesn't end with the sale. The most important task is to create loyalty with your customers. Here is a list of follow up actions.

Deliver on your promisesAcknowledge OrdersKeep Customers InformedGet personalSupport Multiple ChannelsSort out ProblemsReward CustomersComplaints equal opportunity


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LOYALTY

Rewarding customers is perhaps the most powerful tool to create Loyalty among your customers. So how do you create loyalty?

Thanks for BusinessPost-sales follow upRegular touchesIncentivize repeat purchasesFrequent upgrades with rewardsFollower specialsIncentives to share infoAdvocacy development

Post Sale

Programs

Social



BRAND ADVOCATE

"In electronic commerce and online advertising, a brand advocate is a person, or customer who talks favorably about a brand or product, and then passes on positive word-of-mouth (WOM) messages about the brand to other people" webopedia.com

ADVOCACY


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ADVOCACY

Why do you want advocates?• They are highly active - Advocates

recommend brands more 32% rec More than 10 brands/year

• Large Networks - Advocates have more contacts 18% have over 500+ Contacts

• Impact Purchases - Advocates use online tools that drive purchases


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ADVOCACY

Who are your brand advocates?

“A brand advocate identifies with & supports your brand in her everyday interactions by dint of goodwill & natural affinity.” –JD Lasica, Social Media Strategist, Co-author of SocialMedia.biz


Summary of Social Media Marketing Funnel

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Build brand awareness in online

media

Let your customers take action to purchase

Ensure that your brand makes it to the

Consideration phase for a potential customer

Help your prospect compare your brand to the competition to find

their preference

Build loyalty with customers that have purchases

your brand

Develop advocacy with your existing customer

base

AWARENESS CONSIDERATION PREFERENCE

ACTION LOYALTY ADVOCACY


Social Media Marketing Strategies 28

01Facebook

02Twitter

04Google+

05Pinterest

03Instagram


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Facebook and Hospitality Industry

• Facebook has become a lifestyle and providing a platform for social communications and central hub for daily life.

• All the Facebook -hotel integrated pages can easily be found.

• 80% Pages offer the function “book now”• 86% having mobile application integration

make it more popular. • By acquiring Instagram, Pinterest and Spotify ,

launching Facebook Places and Facebook Nearby has made Facebook more global.

• Hospitality industry can take special advantage of Facebook as people share more personal details, identities, photos, experiences and their location on Facebook.

• It is said that posting 3-4 times on Facebook each week is sufficient to keep your community moving and attached.


Facebook and Hospitality Industry 30

DEFINE YOUR GOALS SELECT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE LIVE VISUAL CONTENT

PAGE OPTIMIZATION ENGAGE AND MONITOR LOYALTY TO CUSTOMERS


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Google and Hospitality Industry

• See the enormous number of hits globally making it obvious the importance of this platform for travel and hotel industry.

• The Hotel Finder Tool incorporated in google platform is of special interest for hotel industry. The tool enables users to search for a hotel within a named destination by editing a shape on a map.

• Users can also view hotels within the shape as a list and by clicking on a book button are provided with advertisements from online travel agencies and the hotels enabling users to compare prices.

1.2 Trillion Google Searches are done per year Worldwide

Google Hotel Finder, Google maps, Google Intelligent search engines are making this platform the future of Hospitality Industry. Google is going to become the second largest platform in this regard.


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Google+ is a social networking and identity service that is owned and operated by Google Inc. Google has described Google+ as social layer that enhances many of its online properties. It is not simply a social networking website, but also an authorship tool that associates web-content directly with its owner. It is the second largest social networking site in the word after Facebook.


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TIPS TO USE GOOGLE+ IN HOSPITALITY BUSINESS1. Make a Google+ Business page and utilize this for

engaging your customers. Merging of Google pages with Google+ will maximize you benefits. Remember 50% hotel bookings (out of which 70% are of Americans) are done online.

2. Cross promote your page with other social networking platforms.

3. Add +1 button to your website and encourage your customers to add your hotel to their circles.

4. Develop visually strong content to attract customers


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500 million plus Tweets each day

Though Twitter is a micro blogging social networking site, yet its features like, Hashtags, Who to Follow, Browse Interests, ease of accessing the network from mobiles and many more have made Twitter most popular. Travelers are increasingly using Twitter to take decisions of their travel and hoteling destinations and keep on following the remarks in this regard with the personalities even they do not know them personally.

Twitter and Hospitality Industry


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Intelligent and Personalized Search

The quick and strong features provided by twitter make it more likely for customers to interact with brands and make purchase decisions.Active presence on Twitter provides the opportunity to interact with the guests more quickly and a failure to respond on Twitter may lead to loss of customers.


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TIPS TO USE TWITTER IN HOSPITALITY BUSINESS1. Record upcoming events, concerts,

conferences in your surroundings using hashtags or include them in your tweets to create interests for your followers.

2. Announce deals in the form of tweets. Include your booking link in short tweets.

3. Twitter reports is a very strong tool, connect to business travelers as they use social media more often as compared to holiday travelers.


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Blogs and Hospitality Industry

6.7 million people publish blog post dailyHistorically, hotels have relied on extensive post-stay surveys and mystery shoppers to ascertain service levels, customer satisfaction, and areas for improvement. Today, online reviews are providing hoteliers with rich data about guest satisfaction to help them please customers. In addition, online reviews provide a social currency that drives new bookings and trust in hotels.81% of US online consumers trust information on blogs


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97% more inbound links with blogs

Blogs are important sources of Social trending. Blogs on new trends in travel and Hotel industry are very helpful to provide and improve services in this sector. Emerging trends like speed and precision, WOW customer service, travel by foodies, changing desires of guests etc. can be well understood through blogs


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Pinterest users are on the risePinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jumping on board. With a relatively simple concept of organizing things and pinning them onto boards of each corresponding categories, Pinterest is becoming more and more popular among travel and hotel industry. They can simply create categories of food, drinks, resorts, tours, rooms, lobbies etc and create pin boards. Research shows that more than 20% people made purchase after seeing it on Pinterest.


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A journey starts with a dream

Most people make wish lists on Pinterest and share their dreams to their travel destinations. This is a golden opportunity for travel and hotel industry to attract customers on Pinterest.


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Instagram and Hospitality Industry

Instagram is fun way to share your moments

Instagram is a mobile App having 300 million users actively sharing series of photos through this. Instagram has seamless integration with other social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and many more, making it more and more popular day by day. By creating high resolution images of property, events, outdoor locations etc, hotel industry has a unique opportunity to join their customers through Instagram.This is worth mentioning that Instagram has crossed Twitter in terms of daily active users recently.


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A Showcase to your brand

This is the unique platform to showcase your colorful visual content of property, room décor, outside view, events, conferences and restaurants with your prospective customers. Hospitality industry can take special benefit from this creative mobile app.


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TIPS TO USE INSTAGRAM IN HOSPITALITY BUSINESS1. Enable permissions to other social media

accounts like Facebook, flicker, Tumblr, Twitter etc to the application to get maximum results.

2. Encourage guests to capture when something is happening on Instagram.

3. Encourage your employees (specially front office and valet staff) to capture happening moments and provide to the management to pasted on Instagram.


Summary of Social Media in Hospitality Industry

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Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Google Plus

Pinterest

1. Continuous growth in SMM leads to increased Awareness2. Hotel industry must consider the golden opportunity3. Analyze and set preferences for social channels

4. Allocate resources and time for SMM5. Act by launching customized remarketing6. Engage customers through SMM