Posts Tagged ‘Online Reputation Management’

When Luxury Got A Social Facelift

Saturday, September 15th, 2012

Hotel facebookHospitality was not among the sectors which were early adopters of social media but now it’s become an integral part of their marketing and other activities, and more importantly for the online reputation management and customer relationships. Previously, the online activities of hotels, apart from their own website, were limited to all they can do on TripAdvisor; but the scenario is fast changing. The most important thing in hospitality industry is to provide a personal touch while servicing customers and social media has been spearheading the efforts. Here’s a look at how the hospitality players could leverage (and are leveraging) the social medium.

Building the brand with effective Online Reputation Management

In today’s scenario, travelers are voicing and seeking opinions on review sites, social networks and blogs, propelling the relevance of online reputation to a level of importance that rivals price, location and brand in influencing purchase decisions. And thus, it is necessary to create an end to end process to effectively manage the online reputation of and to enhance the overall online health of the brand which in turn influences the traveler’s choice in selecting a hotel.

ITC Hotels built a three-fold strategy for the same and cracked it:ITC

1. A real time reporting mechanism to track and monitor all relevant mentions across platforms.

2. Identify & engage with bloggers, travelers, & other influencers to generate credible online positive impressions.

3. Engaging with guests in real time by tacking foursquare check-ins and tweets, and effective conflict resolution over Twitter.

Building credibility with Foursquare concierge:

Ritz Carlton took and interesting and indirect approach to use Foursquare by creating a concierge on the platform. They simply put exclusive tips at the places around their properties are situated. With having presence in multiple locations and countries it is mammoth task, but sure worth the effort as it gives their visitors (and other Foursquare users too) a perfect ‘local experience’. For this purpose they created a Ritz Carlton page on Foursquare and started posting interesting tips about nearby landmarks, restaurants, and hidden gems for each of their 75 locations. It was to serve a dual purpose of guiding their guests through the real world, and also to extend their brand to the larger foursquare community. Within a week of launching this campaign, their Foursquare page gained 1000+ followers.

ritz-carlton

Building online properties to increase brand recall:

ITC Hotels again have recently started two weekly activities #WineWednesday and #InspiringTastes on twitter. The objective of both the activities is to create valuable content and information for the audience on twitter around the subjects ‘wine’ and ‘food’ respectively. Both properties have three levels of activities:

1. Tweeting exclusive tips, information on the subject.

2. Organizing interactive Tweet-Chats with experts on topics and answer audience queries.

3. Organizing physical Tweet-Ups on the subjects.

Currently, both the activities are in the inception stage but they are gradually picking up pace with a 200% retweet rate and a reach of 25000+ for an hour long interactive TweetChat with 10+ audience questions.

Social Loyalty Programs:

It is a known fact that acquiring a new customer costs 5-10 times more than selling to an existing customer. An effective social loyalty program establishes this as a proven fact and while a lot of hotel properties are creating shockwaves in the space there remains still a huge segment who are still exploring their options.

The only difference in simple loyalty program and social loyalty program is in the former points are earned on every purchase, and in the later points are earned for every social action i.e. share, like, comment etc. While helping repeat sales the social loyalty program is also an important tool to increase the social mentions of the brand, and thus the reach and voice.

Following are the two key things to be kept in mind while creating a social loyalty program:

1. Simple point system: never-ever confuse the audience with complex systems.

2. Keep a tier-system in place: the rewards should increase exponentially for loyal customers.

What do you think about some of these campaigns? Do you think they are potent enough to grab eyeballs? Share your views on the same in the comments section below. It’s always great to hear from you all.

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Posted in Social Media, Social Media Marketing | 3 Comments »

Social Media Reinventing itself in 2009

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

I am sure you must have read my first five predictions on the socio-economic changes that the world will see with use of social media. The next set of five predictions that I have written are  relevant in the realm of social media medium per se.

  1. First time use of social media through Mobile:

Majority of people world over will surf the Internet and social media for the first time in their lives using mobile phones. Mobile phone penetration is increasing rapidly in most countries and along with the its value added features like streaming. In India, close to 10 million subscribers are being added every month. These small towns will skip landlines and opt for cell phones directly. These towns will take technology leap in a manner of speaking. Simultaneously, several companies are in the process of launching social networking sites for mobile. Put these two together and you could see this prediction come true.

I predict that in 2009 itself, several small towns and rural areas will experience Internet & social media for the first time through cell phones and not through computers.

2. Online reputation management:

As our conversations move online, it will be imperative for brands and corporate to participate in them. Not only that, they will have to track those conversations to understand how their brands stand with the consumers. Are their brands in the consideration set or if they are they being spoken about in positive tone? These are very important questions for companies to get answers to as their marketing spends will be determined accordingly. There will be specialized agencies that will provide these services to the companies.

I predict that in 2009 online reputation management will be big business and most corporates will turn to it in a big way.


3. Facebook will become a paid site:

So will any social networking site that wishes to survive the next year. There have been enough and more articles written on SNS not being able to monetize on the huge subscribers that they have got for themselves. Venture capital funds can’t sustain them forever. Also purely by advertisements alone, they will not be able to break even or advance on their business plans.

I predict that in 2009, Facebook will turn a paid site. Facebook can charge $10 (Rs. 500) from every user for a year-long membership. Even if out of the 150 million users that Facebook boasts of, 2/3rd drop out, we talking of $500 mn (50m users X $10 per user) of revenue that it can generate in one year.


4. Twitter will become a verb i.e ‘To Tweet’:

Unofficially it already has. But in 2009, the importance of Twitter will grow so dramatically, that Oxford will be forced to accept it as part of our normal parlance. The role that micro blogging has played was fairly evident from the recent Mumbai terror attacks.

I predict that in 2009 twitter will become so important that at least one Indian company will use it to tweet important announcements being made in their Annual General Meeting (AGM)

5. Online videos will be most important marketing tool:

In the social media sphere, online videos will gain prominence over other marketing ploys. I had written in my earlier post that online videos will gain popularity even more in times of economic slowdown. In fact some brands like Kaya have already started using it. Other companies will soon follow and attempt to reach out to their potential consumers and collaborate with them to produce user generated content.

I predict that in 2009, social media agencies and production houses like Common Craft will have to specialize in providing online video solutions for corporates.


My friend, Gaurav Mishra who genteelly pushed me into writing these predictions has his written his seven predictions on social media.  Peter Kim has compiled his predictions along with 13 other social media gurus that really makes a good reading.

I hope my predictions have given you some food for thought to start off your own set of predictions for the next year. Do mention them and comment on this post.

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Posted in Facebook, Online Videos, Predictions, Social Media, Twitter | 28 Comments »