A good friend of mine recently asked me why I was so interested in Social Media.
My reply was simple.... it is a great way to share ideas and touch the public. The challenge however is sorting the wheat from the chaff. With that in mind, I was curious what uses people are taking towards social media. Here are a few of mine, and I look forward to comments, critiques, suggestions etc.
1) Networking - as I am on LinkedIn, obviously I am very active in networking. Having recently become an active as opposed to passive participant here, I have grown my network from around 300 to almost 1,000 persons. Most commonly this is an application such as Facebook, LinkedIn or one the other applications that are in demand around the world
2) Idea Sharing - for me, this is a great research area, it may be an article or blog that someone has posted, or it may be just a great question that someone has asked. I have become active in quite a few groups, and have even started my own group, dedicated to the conversation of social media in hospitality. Come and join us at "Hotel & Tourism Social Media Connections" and let us know your thoughts an ideas.
3) Lurkers - I had to put this out there. There are a huge number of people who just like to be in on the know. This includes friends and relatives on Facebook, or people following trends and business acquaintences on LinkedIn and other mediums. I've even been known to do this from time to time.
4) Bloggers - whether you use this to share your experiences, as a personal branding tool, or as a means of building your company brand. Blogging is a great way to share thoughts and idea. I have to admit, I am new to it, but I have both a personal blog about-the-service.blogspot.com and this my professional blog dedicated to social media. Check me out, I would love the feedback. You have both blogs such as this, or microblogs such as are found on Twitter (@ivyservice) or Weibo, etc.
5) Personal Branding - whether as part of a job search, or just as a brand builder, people are participating in a wide range of social media platforms to build their own personal brand. It enables the ability so share thoughts, ideas, pictures, books, etc. that give life to the type of person we are, and what is involved in our lives.
6) Organizational Branding & Marketing - having developed presence for a single hotel across 7 different social media platforms, I can definately say that there are opportunities for every organization to enhance the value of their brand on Social Media. My one concern for you here, is understand the platforms you are using and ensure that you are reaching the people you want in a manner they want to be reached or you will be wasting your time and theirs.
7) Sales - Direct or indirect, sales via Social Media is a channel that you can not afford to ignore. The challenge here is measuring the ROI, which may or may not be a direct revenue stream.
8) Community - there is usually a sense of community in the use of Social Media. Research shows that people post reviews on sites such as TripAdvisor for quite a variety of reasons, ranging from wanting to be seen as an expert, to help others, to belong to a community, and even in some cases revenge for a negative experience (real or imagined). In addition to platforms such as Trip Advisor, look at the growing interest in Pinterest, Instagram and oh so many others.
9) Reputation Management - Yelp, Trip Advisor, Yahoo and many of the travel sites now offer the chance to review the performance of businesses online. This means that the businesses need to monitor their performance and become part of the conversation. Wyndham hotels has even incorporated these "online" reviews into the performance measurements of their individual hotels.
10) SEO - Search engine optimization can and should be a specific strategy that is explored by any business. Quality participation and engagement can drive the organic rankings of your organization.
11) Experiential & Engagement Marketing - This has to be the current largest trend in the marketing world of hospitality and tourism. All indicators are that it is key for operations to develop quality offerings to stay relevant as the trends and industry change.
12) Recruiting is the inverse of job seeking, but with some organizations reaching out to interns and undergraduates to start the process, it deserves its own space on the list.
At a small hotel 7 platforms were identified that would enhance specific strategies and needs of the hotel. Then each of those platforms had specific marketing plans developed for their implementation and analysis. It is a great start, and I encourge you to have a plan for how this works in your business.
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