REVENUE MANAGEMENT
SECOND PART OF THE EXAM
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
SECOND PART OF THE EXAM
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
What is meant by social sharing sites, link to 2 examples
The social sharing sites enable individuals to create a profile that defines their online personae through the use of photographs, text, and multimedia elements.
They also enable individuals to articulate their social connections visibly on the site, a practice that may help them meet self-presentational and social goals.
Those sites allow people to explore and interact with a larger network via profiles and the communication tools they offer. Together, profiles, traversable "friends" links, and communication tools comprise the backbone of social network sites.
The subjects of the social sharing sites are varied: music, particular interests, tourism, pictures, stories....
Some sites cater to a wide variety of people, while others target people based on race, age, sexuality, religion, language, or nationality. Sites vary in the extent to which they incorporate new tools, such as mobile technologies, blogging, and photo/video-sharing.
Two social sharing sites are becoming more and more famous such as myspace and flickr.
Flickr, owned by yahoo, is a photo sharing website and web services which enable users to share personal photographs. It is also widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. Flickr is the best way to store, search, sort and share pictures right now.
Myspace.com, is right now, I think the most popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. It enables users to post their own profiles to be able to meet friends or to discuss with others different subjects.
How does social sharing inlfuence consumers' choices, link to 1 article to support your assessment
http://innovationweb.branchez-vous.com/archives/2006/04/tripadvisor_sin.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tripadvisor_the.php
Social sharing websites influence more and more consumers on their daily life: why? Because since social sharing websites have been created by consumers, those consumers themselves can give their own opinions to others (users and consumers). They become more and more influenced by others. Before they used to be influenced by critics, articles or newspapers but mostly professionals. Now it is different since blogs, sharing pictures / videos websites, travel websites... exist people are looking for the best experience already experienced by consumers-like them! These new tools provides recommendation and advice to consumers on different subjects to help them to get the best or not to make mistakes on their choices. But also through forums, chats, reviews...Plus, since th internet is so democratized, those tools are easy to use, contect easy to publish, free to publish but also free to publish the info you want but also to get a large interactivity with others almost at the same time.
Plus, now consumers are able to personnalized all these tools depending on the experience they had. Consumers can modify, correct and update information and content as much as they want.
I advice you to check those two links (articles) to understand how tripadvisor.com diversified itself and become one of the most popular social sharing website in the hospitality and tourism industries.
How hoteliers can best utilize social sharing trends to communicate with customers. Link to 2 examples
Consumers have changed from just searching for the lowest price to finding the best experience that’s the reason why hoteliers need to be more present on social sharing sites. There are a lot of opportunities right now in the market for hoteliers to make money and be more present. Myspace for example went from last to the first place in internet traffic. Web 2.0 is a new tool for hoteliers to use but it required to have a professional person around them to best advice them on which site to be present in. Hoteliers need to pick the right sites not to lose their reputations and to target the wrong crowd. The advantage of social sharing sites is that it is usually free to post articles, pictures or videos. So it it a great tool to be able to post info on hotels on flickr for example but it required to pick good keywords to be able to be found by users.
Hoteliers should also consider those sites initiatives only as part of a comprehensive Direct Internet marketing strategy, together with other important aspects such as search marketing, email marketing, website optimization, strategic linking and link popularity, online sponsorships and display ads. Social sharing sites initiatives like blogs should become a line item in the overall hotel marketing budget. Social sharing sites is a potential tool to provide a unique value proposition to its customers. A well-developed strategy could provide visibility to unique aspects of the hotel product and destination, and a differentiated approach to reach key customer segments.
There are different ways marketers can use those sites to their benefits.
First, listen to what consumers are saying. Hotel marketers gain unfiltered insights into the customer experience, something that in the past could only be achieved through surveys and comment cards. By monitoring sites that contain reviews and comments about your property, they could immediately address any issues and act appropriately. Second, hoteliers can establish interactive relationships with the customer via blogs. Examples: Starwood effort with their blog theLobby.com and Sheraton’s new consumer experience and phtos sharing.And third, hotel marketers can utilize the various types and formats of social sharing sites to promote their products and services. For example, TripAdvisor now accept display ads, and many discussion boards accept sponsorships and advertising.
What is your opinion...can hotels effectively establish an online conversation with customers? Yes, why...no, why not?
I think that hotels can effectively establish an online conversation with customers as now all the tools are easy to access and really cheap compared to regular advertising but this kind of strategies best served hoteliers that have already launched a robust direct online distribution strategy. Website optimization, customer segmentation, strategic linking, keyword rich density copy, email and online sponsorship strategies, and search marketing strategies are fundamental to growing the online channel. The hotel should be participating in email marketing, strategic linking initiatives, email and online sponsorships, and many other strategies to draw in customers seeking a hotel in your destination. Hoteliers need to start creating and posting spaces on their websites or be more present on sites such as tripadvisor.com to get feedbacks from customers (positives as well as negatives) to be able to grow but also to satisfy them much more. Customers like to express themselves about services and at the same time get the word out which is good for hoteliers as far as word of mouth. As well as Mr. Marriott did, the owners of hotels need to create their own blog to create forums with customers to get feedbacks from them and enable them to express themselves. Hoteliers can also create affiliated programs where customers like you and I will be able to post banners and links to your websites to enable you to get more reservations in exchange of a % of the reservations
made through their websites.
