Social media has become a powerful weapon of communication and interaction between the companies and customers. Although several people can see these tools as a way of chatting or showing the exhibitionism of the internet users, the facts have demonstrated that it is much more than that. Twitter, Facebook, the blogs, even Youtube can be instruments with a great potential for companies to gain customers’ insights or create experiences.
On the one hand, there are clients that can be interested in what a company communicates in a specific moment, without waiting for a press new or an advertising message, but like a direct message, brief and immediate. And, on the other hand, they can be interested also in what other clients say about this company, also briefly and immediately.
I am going to talk about how hotels use the Social Media to create experiences. Most people tend to think that this is just a new way to do marketing or to sell more rooms. However, in my opinion the Social Media allows hotels intervene or, what is more, influence in the purchase process that before were totally inaccessible for a hotel (only accessible for big companies with great budgets who could afford great advertising investments).
The purchase process of a client (both traditional and online) starts when the customers decides to travel and finish with the return home, so the attitude of the hotel in each phase will be different if they want to influence in the purchase decision.
First off, the decision of organizing a trip is the moment when a client receives some recommendation or simply as a response to the need or the interest in travelling. So here it is especially important the social information as well as the one generated by hotels. At this moment, it is not only important customers’ opinions in online agencies but also the comments in videos, photographies, forums…
Secondly, the planning. When a client is planning the travel he will visit travelling guides, other websites and consult with other clients about the possibilities of the destination, the activities and recommended services. And this is the point when a hotel needs to approach the customer, show their products and make an adequate proposal.
About the price, other users’ opinions, especially in online agencies, become very important because the client will contrast the online reputation with the experience of other users’ with the price. Besides, the customer will make his own expectations which will influence in his decision as well.
When purchasing, hotels must be interested in being fairly accessible and visible for clients that are already willing to buy. From my point of view it is a good strategy the sponsored links (The advertisements which appear when opening the Facebook or the messenger, for example).
And the last phase and probably the most important is the return. When a customer finishes his travel he will probably want to share his experience with others, generating social content, evaluate the hotel’s service and definitely contribute to the Social Media to inspire or influence in others and, this way, the cycle of this newer tend starts again. Because the next customers’ decisions will depend on their evaluations, opinions and comments in agencies websites, blogs, forums, etc. about the hotel’s services.
As for the Google search tools you provided us, I found really interesting the one of the blogs. In other marketing class, we are working on a project to organize a marketing campaign of a newer Texan vodka just emerged in the market. It is named SAVVY Vodka and I needed to find the current perceptions of the customers about this brand. It was something challenging for us, as it is still quite unknown between the customers. In our firsts researches we only had the website opinions and some comments in the company’s Facebook, but nothing more. I did not know about this site where you could find all the blogs which talked about a particular issue, but surprisingly I found several blogs talking about SAVVY vodka! So it has been really useful for my project, now we can build the general perceptions (much more accurate) of customers towards SAVVY vodka.
To conclude, I would like to say that the Social Media is all around us, it is an advantageous tool for everyone to feel free to use it, not only as an entertainment but also as an important channel of communication, in terms of sharing experiences, perspectives or learning about other people.
Finally, the knowledge and the intention of orienting the actions towards the client is the key for determining the marketing success.
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