Social media is trend synonymous with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram etc. When people say, they are social media savvy, they simply mean they use such platforms to interact with people over the internet. That brings us down to the meaning of social media. By ‘social’ we refer to interaction between people, sharing information, photos, updates about own personal lives etc. ‘media’ refers here to the internet. The socializing is done over the internet. So, social media can be described as interacting and communicating with people in the network or the public in general using internet as medium and platforms which enable such communications like Twitter, Facebook etc (Baum, 2016). At present, the technology has facilitated services and products offerings to people with an ‘instant’ feature. Everything can be book, bought instantly. The same has been made available by various industries such as tourism, food, airlines, fashion etc. Hotel Industry is also not far behind and have adopted the technologies to present the features of their offering, hotels, rooms, spa, other recreational activities etc. online over the internet. All the more, they have heavy presence on the internet which is based on the user data fetched over various websites and searching done by people. Social media usage by hotel industry is a growing trend and this shall be discussed in detail in this project. For the project, a Hong-Kong based hotel – Sohotel has been picked up to present how their presence over the social media has facilitated their business and what else could be adopted by them as strategy to use the social media to its advantage. The project shall discuss internet, social media, some features of the social media, some advantages or disadvantages of the social media, relationship between hotel industry and social media, using Sohotel as the topic present the findings, explain the same with relevant theories adopted for findings, present views and present a revamped strategy for the hotel to use.
Web 2.0 or internet as we know is the second generation of internet which is transformed from usage of static pages to dynamic pages. Earlier the internet with dynamic pages was a ‘read only’ content feature. With 2.0, the improved version; there is possibility of people to interact as well as allows real time feedback.
This has given rise to social media platforms. As discussed before, social media can be put as the platform or a tool which enables communication among people located anywhere on the earth logged on to internet and using the same platform. Communication could be simple talking, calling up, video sharing, information sharing, photos etc.
Address – every social media has its own unique web address
Space – Social media offers space over internet for the users to upload their content
Profiles – Social media allows users to create their own unique profiles, it may be personal or business
Collaboration – social media allows people to connect to people and network
Time – every content has time stamp on it
Some of the advantages of social media are that:
Large audience – the user generated content has huge audience. People could choose who they want to share the content with, specific people or public. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Digg etc. have huge memberships and with spread of knowledge and internet, it keeps on growing
Freedom – people have freedom to upload content. It could be on anything except inappropriate content
Keep on sharing – like-minded people keep on sharing content, sometimes to the level that things become ‘viral’ everyone has done that or seen that
Brand loyalty – people who have used something and have liked it openly share their love for the products and influence people in their circle to try it
Insights – Business organizations who are present on the social media platform pick up important insights, views, concerns about their products by ‘listening’ to what people write
Certain disadvantages of social media platform are:
Criticism – Since such platforms are open forums, people openly criticise and what they write is for everyone to see
No control on content – since people can post anything, it is difficult for business houses to control the content, and it could even become an embarrassment
Time consuming – It is difficult to keep a tab over various platforms as it is very time consuming to read the data available, what people are posting. Even if it is on a single platform, since things are quite instant; managing content and comments, answering queries by multiple people at same time is quite a task
There is presence of various types of social media on the internet each with different purpose and advantage + disadvantages. Let’s go through them one by one.
To begin with we have the social networking. This kind of social media allows networking with people or groups. Example Facebook. Some of the characteristics of social networking sites are that they are user based, community driven, interactive, relationship driven and they give preference to emotions over content (Wan and Law, 2017, p. 241). Lots of people from different locations, race, ethnicity, tastes, and talents use social media platforms. Their only aspiration is to connect and encourage their content, to show the world. Some may choose to be reclusive and broadcast to only their groups, whereas others join communities and post content that is liked and shared with their network and in turn their network and so on till it spreads the world (Uysal et al. 2016). For instance, a food lover could join a food lover’s community where people post lots of new food pictures, recipes through videos, live feeds etc. They are liked and shared later to their page and the content could pick up several other users in this way and is exposed to the world. People usually also comment and discuss topics of their interest or disinterest. Some of the advantages of such platforms are that they have huge users and spread across the planet. The content has potential to be viewed billions of times! People are free to post things of their liking as long as it is not inappropriate. Even business houses have woken up to the amazing platform and advertise. People open share their brand liking and brand loyalty usually influences their circles to choose the goods or services offered by the business houses. Some of the disadvantages of such platform is the open criticism which is difficult to control. Sometimes people spit a lot of hatred which is hurtful and disrespectful. Such platforms are also very time consuming and addictive. Research has revealed that many people spend majority of their productive hours on using social media platform. Another important disadvantage owing to this is people lose out slowly on the in person interactions, meeting people to discuss or inform things (Tracey et al. 2016). So, there is disconnect among people. Also, business houses use the user generated date and uses it to target its audience. This may go both ways both for the business houses as well as the person concerned who may not be comfortable in sharing his data but wants to use the internet and the platform for interacting.
Almost everyone uses YouTube these days and surprisingly after Google, YouTube is the next popular search engine! Video sharing is the next best thing as social media as retainship of information is always more when people view something. Some of the benefits of using video sharing platforms are that one does not need to have any infrastructure to video blog or vlog (Song et al. 2017, p. 671). Content could easily to just upload and the platform takes care of hosting it. Also, the videos are easily embedded. Simple link is all it takes and the video gets embedded for viewing. Business houses often use such platforms to showcase more than they can anywhere else the additional features, reviews of people and attract people to their products or services (Egger et al. 2016). Disadvantages on the other hand is this that once the video is uploaded all search engine optimisation benefits are lost. If someone looks up something on this type of platform, the video comes up on the platform but does not provide the original uploader website any credit. It is like moving the content off from power of the business house. There is also the matter of loss of control. If the platform decides to use the content post an advertisement, the user may or may not stick around as his attention is broken. Also, if some changes occur in configuration of the platform or link is changed that alternatively everywhere the link was embedded needs to be updated
Then is the photo sharing platforms. Photos are a powerful media to influence people. There are platforms such as Instagram or Flickr who have huge number of users. On these websites as well, once the photos are uploaded, their management is no longer a responsibility of the uploader. With proper hashtags, the photos reach out to millions of users searching the same keywords. Content is royalty free and fresh. Common benefits are that the users always will have access to the photos as they would be on cloud over internet, they do not need to physically store them and wont consume space (Wong and Lee, 2017, p. 13). People share feedback for the photographs which may be good for aspiring photographers. On the other hand, users should be careful about what they post as the picture is for the world to use and once uploaded, it is difficult to remove from the internet (Altin et al. 2017, p 1354816617689869). Ensure that the pictures are copyrighted and that no one can use them or it is easy for people to alter and use them for their benefit. Identity thefts have become common these days and hence it is wise to choose what to post.
Another most common social platform is the social publishing like on blogs. Blogging is a more prominent way to reach out to followers. People who appreciate skills and would be avid followers of that skill may like to have an audience just with the person concerned. Blogs are personal way to tell the world what is up and share self-made knowledge and skills. WordPress is the most famous of them all. One could choose to build a website of their own and customize it as per choice on their servers, everything except content is managed by the platform. Such platforms are free and open source and have vast user base as well. Some of the common benefits are that people who don’t have enough budget or do not know the technicalities can use such platforms and reap their benefits till they learn. It is a great way to get started at least. They have cross platform integration facilities. One could embed the same to other platforms where the user has presence as well. It is quite simple to use and is great to use. Some of the disadvantages on the other end are that since they are open source, it is easy to hack them. Performance could be an issue as well. Any updation to user website will need collaboration from the platform too (Sin et al. 2016, p. 43). Also, keeping up with blogging requires discipline, SEO skills so that it becomes successful.
Tourism sector of which hotel industry is a part (hospitality sector) is supposed to benefit a lot from the rise of the internet. With the rise of internet, people behaviour towards products and services being offered by business houses have changed immensely. The product/service is either worth to talk about or worth criticizing. These are very strong extremes but social media has made this possible. This is the reason why hotel industry is also picking up on various ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to gain from the momentum the medium has to offer. They could be segregated into various sections such as back office systems, front office systems, guest service system, distribution system and the external systems. Back office could include back office workstations, procurement, maintenance etc (Kasemsap, 2017, p. 21). Front office would include restaurant management, EPOS, activity desk information, kitchen display service etc. Guest service systems include energy management, in key locker, in room internet, telephone systems etc.
Distribution systems could include website booking engine, reservations, GDS (Global distribution system), ADS etc. and the external service system could include suppliers’ ICT systems (Sun et al. 2017, p. 451). Though people do not come in direct interaction with all these systems but these systems work in tandem and in some way or the other affect the guest experience. Specifically, in current times, people use various websites like Expedia, TripAdvisor, Bookings.com, hotels.com etc. other websites to check ratings of rooms, know about specialty of the hotel, other people experience in that hotel, best prices, comparison of facilities etc. other points carefully before booking a room in a hotel (Goklaney, 2016, p. 73) Post coming to the hotel, the guests would check the hotel services, amicability of staff, quick service and write about it in social media. If the experience is good, reviews will be put on the same websites that they checked to book the hotel to tell people their views. If the experience is not amazing, they would still be writing their felt experience in not so kind words so as to influence decisions taken by other people. Hotel industry needs to engage with social media to increase their footprints in the digital world.
Some of the benefits that hotel industry could get out of social media are that it could maximise its sale using social media presence, price comparison etc., and increase reservations, enhance market capabilities, improve guest experience etc. (So et al. 2016, p. 69). Some of the challenges that social media poses for the industry are hotel industry not taking up their online reputation seriously. The hotel website should be optimally engaging to let fewer visitors go elsewhere and presence of reward system as well. Social media platforms allow comparison of prices along with the value additions different hotels must offer, this must be taken seriously by the industry. Hotel industry also needs to analyse data and statistics for even better planning and rolling out of their marketing strategies.
Some of the functions that social media have on hotel industry are in terms of marketing. Social media is a vivacious platform whose advantages are yet to be realized in complete capacity by the hotel industry. Platforms of social media could be used for rigorous marketing and reaching out to people with experiential content they have to offer (Li et al. 2017, p. 81). In terms of customer service, social media could quickly address queries, address concerns, empathise and offer complimentary discounts if required to win customers. In terms of sales, social media is also helpful as marketing, promotional activities could lead to quick sales. People are using platforms of social media to even do booking online on their websites instead of having to call the hotel or book on the hotel website (Loveland et al. p. 99). It is hence even more important that they have competitive price offerings and tie ups with such platforms to offer the best value to the customer.
Two research methodologies have been exclusively adopted as research instruments for the project. The study conducted by Chen, (2016, p. 119), and the evaluation criteria by Ben Aissa et al. In (2016, p. 177), Chen studies extensively the extent to which in Singapore the business to consumer firms were using the social media marketing tools to enhance business and how effective it was effective. He built a 38-item questionnaire which were given to such organizations asking about the tools they were using and features of these tools. The questions were grouped under various DMFs (digital marketing frameworks) and the organizations needed to rate the usage and how effective they thought they were.
For this project, the 38 questionnaires were altered a bit to suit the purpose of the project. All the elements that were not applicable to social media marketing were eliminated. Next, the items which were similar were grouped together. Next, regarding study by Madera et al. (2017, p. 51) study, items were further modified to suit the context of the given project. Collaboration of both the studies helped make the instrument prominent and effective in conducting the research which was descriptive. In the current study, hotel industry of Hong Kong was selected. Secondary data was recorded using the web sources. Various sites were observed to find out the social media activities conducted by the hotels. A total of 132 hotels were picked up for the study (Chang and Busser, 2017, p. 53). Refer to Annexure 1.
For the research, first the hotels were individually searched for on some selected social media platforms. If no results, yielded, simple search by the brand name of the hotel followed. Thereafter, a third search was conducted by the corporate name of the hotel to check the social media activities conducted by the hotels. These had to be for their Hong Kong locations. For companies which used just a single brand name, credit was given to the hotel company.
Social media activities were searched on all platforms as mentioned in the Literature Review but pertaining to the hospitality sector. Search was conducted for not only their brand content but also for social interaction. All interactions on relevant sites which had no interaction from the management but there was posts and comments and people writing about the brand were also excluded (Nair et al. 2016, p. 613). Websites selected were based on popularity. Refer to the table below:
Table 1: Some of the sites referred to collect data
Overview of the Hotel Industry’s performance on Social Media platforms.
Out of the study conducted for 132 hotels as per list in Annexure 1, it was found that Twitter and Facebook were the most popular and widely used social media platforms. Twitter stood out at 58.2% compared to 55% of Facebook. Most of the hotels had a presence on Facebook in terms of marketing efforts conducted by them (Yang and Mattila, 2017, p. 18).. A reason for this could be microblogging has character limitations and limited features.
It was also found out that mostly, hotel companies marketed their discounted products and services to online communities exclusively. Next was responding to queries, attending to customer complaints and running contests. Video sharing platform like YouTube usually showcased their products and services as adverts. Large hotel groups freely uploaded pictures of their hotel and hospitality videos which instilled a sense of ‘pure bliss waiting’ on watching them (Campopiano et al. 2016, p. 1117). Most of the hotels were on TripAdvisor however, roughly only up to 32% responded to customer reviews. Only few of them even attempted personalized responses. Even fewer hotel companies were using blogs to self-promote their offerings. On the hotel websites, there were some entries mixed with collages, pictures and also good quality videos to mesmerize the customers.
Discussion on how the selected organization “Sohotel” fared in the research. Out of the 132 hotels selected. Sohotel stood out because of its good property value. It was ranked 4/5 in it ratings and had over 200 reviews by community members. It ranked #162 out of 716 hotels in Hong Kong, listed on TripAdvisor. People had specifically mentioned that it was an unexpected property at the heart of the city offering stellar service at a very reasonable price.
This project shall discuss how Sohotel fared in the evaluation criteria set for the research and the findings pertaining to what right/wrong it is doing in terms of its social media marketing strategy. The first digital marketing framework in which questions were grouped was ‘Attracting’ It was checked if Sohotel had presence of social media on its brand website, on property website or corporate website. Also, what promotions was it making and types of affiliations. Whether it was collaborating with brands under same corporation, under different corporation or both. Findings were favourable for Sohotel. Sohotel embedded logos of social media sites, specifically – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TripAdvisor. Upon following them, it was found out that it is fairly active on Facebook. The last interaction by the management was in April, 2017 itself. It has 81 people who have liked it services and commented on its page. Twitter on the other hand was enrolled in 2015 and except for some posts and pictures, no activity has happened since Sept 2015. Instagram was also a sad picture with last upload on it some 41 weeks ago. Besides, Sohotel also had the logo of TripAdvisor where people had written nice reviews but there was no response at all by their management. It seems to have some kind of collaboration to offer its products however it is unclear if that is the only purpose (Xiang et al. 2017, p. 287)
Then the data was checked for the second phase of DMF i.e. engaging. While many hotel companies from the lot had attempted creating virtual communities to engage with the users, Sohotel had made no such attempts (Okazaki et al. 2017, p. 109). There was a promo code section which implies that may be some promotional activity was carried out however no such details are further mentioned. There were however options of selecting up to 13 languages. No campaigns, draws etc. activities were conducted by Sohotel to connect with its users and keep them loyal on social media platforms. There was a package in offering for a suite with some services complimentary. Sohotel website also has some features mentioned on their website which are choices of hotel rooms for the guests and additional features like free Wi-Fi-unlimited 3G calling etc.
In the third phase of DMF i.e. retaining, hotel companies’ websites were checked for dynamic content, security features and privacy statements, hyperlinks to related social media platforms and vice versa. There was none for Sohotel. Other social media platforms were also checked however, except for offering their products at discounted rates, there was no other campaign being marketed rigorously on social media platforms (Xiang et al. 2017, p. 631). There was a link to terms and conditions and cancellation policy mentioned in two links.
In the fourth phase i.e. Learning of DMF where website was checked for customer interaction data, any market research or support to chat groups were checked, Sohotel only disappointed as there was presence of none. Not even over social media platforms.
The hotel company’s website was also checked for the 5th phase of DMF i.e. response to customers. There was few available on just Facebook and none other; despite presence, where people had provided excellent feedback ratings to the company (Zhang et al. 2017, p. 233). There was no option for real time interaction with prospective clients except over telephone or email. No information on organization policies, except cancellation and terms and conditions for booking was made available to public. There was no link mentioned for the corporate website.
The following figure shows the five phases of digital marketing framework adopted for the project.
Table 2: The five digital marketing framework adopted
Overall, if gauged, Sohotel made scarce and half-hearted attempts to connect with people and engage them to their company or make them loyal. The only thing written about the hotel was about its offerings in terms of facilities and the location advantage. There were lots of photographs which showcased the rooms and cosiness of it but that was it.
Sohotel displayed that it lacked most intentions with aspect of connecting with the generation on social media platforms. Some of the findings which highlight the issues of Sohotel in using the social media platform for business growth are:
Lack of interaction between themselves and the customer – Out of the 132 hotels, only few showed some level of constant touch with customers and maintaining it with efforts. Sohotel has used the platform of Facebook and reached out to the customers who cared to give good reviews after visiting. It seems to continue functioning in the offline reputation mode which fails on a big picture to attract new customers as part of tourism and hospitality which is a bigger game then maintaining local/domestic business. It could open some avenues on forum/discussion page of its own where it could handle customer interactions vigorously to gain reputation online as well (Gursoy and Sandstrom, 2016, p. 17). Also, it should plan to provide space on their website for customer comments as well
Limited usage of social media platforms to boost business – Sohotel has made scanty attempts to use the social media platforms. It needs to build a plan, put together a proactive team and show its presence on social platforms aggressively just like its competitors. Also, it is quite important to start a communication channel, Sohotel should also be focussed on maintaining it regularly unlike what it has done with its Twitter and Instagram pages. It could showcase promotional activities on its website and use the social media as another advertising channel. Since competitors are already practicing this, it may be a good move for them as well. It could also focus on launching a loyalty program for its repeat customers. Since the presence is dull and passive, it is yet to face the difficulties companies in this sector usually encounter to counteract and change the situation in its favour eventually.
Conclusion
Since Sohotel has just not taken up social media activities as part of its growth strategy yet, its presence is still not ‘felt’ there. It is hence, losing out on a great business growth opportunity. Some of the things which fall under digital marketing framework strategy and have been partially implemented by Sohotel are good; and in some parts and there is room for improvement as well. Since Sohotel has such good feedback on various communities based social media platforms like TripAdvisor, it will be wise for it to capitalize on it. It could engage with the customers personally and build loyal customer base. This is one front where it is definitely not doing well. Apart from that, its own website could be little more interactive and have people’s touch on it. Sohotel could encourage customer testimonials, feedback space etc. to capture customer feelings, good or bad. Also, Sohotel’s website is not interactive. It could be easily bracketed as a basic website. This is also a major limitation as customers unaware of researching feedback etc. just in case do land on the website may leave because of this (Naim and Lenka, 2017, p. 33). If the website is interactive displays and reveals more, customers would spend some time in checking out their options. That could convert into business. Sohotel has no presence at all on any of the platforms where they have owned the content, they have simply responded to customer reviews in a very generic manner. They could have capitalized the opportunity to win back the customer who has written good things about it by offering something, this was absent. The only place where they have fair presence is Facebook, TripAdvisor and some of the travel websites which are community based. They have not been owned by Sohotel as there is limited or no acknowledgement by their officials. Sohotel has been running totally on offline reputation which is following what used to be done earlier but it needs to recognize and adopt the power of today’s technology more involvedly. Other than Sohotel, many other hotels taken as packet for this research, yields same result except for some well-established names who have been early adopters of the user generated content on social media platform and are reaping the benefits today. They have some of the amazing content on their website along with interactive design, display and content to keep the customer hooked to it and keep on looking to find something just out of curiosity (Xie et al. 2017, p. 103).
To summarise, it is evident that Sohotel has been passive in creating or maintaining an image. It has still got miles to go when their competitor is capitalizing on the tremendous potential social media as a platform has to offer. It has been proven that organizations who are avid users of social media platform on a business front have fared better. Specifically, the hotel industry of Hong Kong has typically picked up the social media marketing strategies as part of growth strategies and those who have not yet adopted it like Sohotel, should learn from its competition and look up to various corporations and seek assistance in building it up. Companies are unusually under notion that social media platforms are typically just for advertisements but fail to recognise its potential as an important forum for customer interaction and engagement to its products and services. Companies like Sohotel should quickly put in place a strategy for social media marketing and implement across all levels in the organization to stress commitment on this front. Post this, a control system so that the brand could be effectively managed and that there is consistency and maintenance of the process of social media marketing on platforms adopted. This is important as it has been noticed that companies mostly pick up and then leave and the last updation is almost 4-5 years ago! If organizations are going to invest their time, energy and resources in the venture, it would take some time for the benefits to start showing. It is important in the meantime to continue with the efforts. This portrays consistency and degree of sincerity to even the customer. Proper people who have the right talent and key responsibility to maintain social media platforms should be hired by human resources. That would ensure a lid on content legitimacy and quality of interaction. It may not be fruitful for the company to pick up just any platform, it should choose the appropriate medium where it would be feasible and beneficial to have a presence. Competitor study in this case could provide important insights. Thereafter content posted should be relevant and exciting for the customer to go through and further promote. There should be easy links form the company’s own website as well as the link to go to the actual home page of the business from and on social media platforms.
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