Situational Analysis
Social Media Marketing can be referred to the process of gaining attention or traffic over the social media websites. Social mediahas become one of the most significant medium to promote a particular business. Le Meridien hotel is going to start their business on September 2017 in Korea. Therefore, it does not have currently any social media with the help of which this hotel can publicize their food brands. Hence, in this scenario, social media marketing would be the most flexible, reliable and easy approach by which Le Meridien can easily create huge awareness regarding their presence in the Korean food industry. Therefore, the major aim of this report is to design and implement an effective social media marketing plan for Le Meridien Hotel through which this startup restaurant can easily get in touch with its target audiences. In order to develop the social media marketing plan, this report sheds light on the situational analysis of Le Meridien Hotel along with the proposed target audiences, goals, strategies as well as the action plan. On the other hand, the action plan within the social media marketing plan incorporates the implementation and content plan.
Situational analysis is nothing but the collection of methods that the managers generally utilize for analyzing the external as well as the internal environment of a specific organization in terms of understanding the business environment, customers and capabilities of the organization (Nair et al., 2014). Hence, in case of the social media marketing plan of Le Meridien Hotel, situational analysis would play a significant role in order to conduct a food market analysis (Charmaz, 2015). The situational analysis of Le Meridien Hotel can be portrayed in the form of SWOT analysis of this startup restaurant in Korea.
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Particulars |
Analysis |
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Strengths (Internal Factors) |
1. Le Meridien Hotel is offering the extensive line-up of premium as well as healthy Pan-Asian flavored food that incorporate gluten-free, organic as well as vegetarian options (Bull et al., 2016). Therefore, Le Meridien Hotel can assure their customers with the best quality food. 2. Le Meridien Hotel is dedicated to provide the best quality food with the best and the most prompt customer services. 3. On the other hand, Le Meridien Hotel has also decided to give a good discount over the prices of food offered by the restaurant. 4. Le Meridien Hotel has also significantly focused on the packaging as well (Chen Kim & Yamaguchi, 2014). The wide range of packaged food services can strive for completely satisfying the needs of its consumers for great taste, convenience and health. 5. Le Meridien Hotel has also connected with the major distributers as well as the manufacturer of Pan-Asian food products (Culp et al., 2016). |
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Weaknesses (Internal Analysis) |
1. According the weaknesses of Le Meridien Hotel, the rise in the costs of the raw materials and the volatile gas can be a huge concern for this restaurant because this hotel is completely new in the Korean food industry (Bull et al., 2016). 2. Again, the pricing pressure due to the rise in the costs of commodity can also be one of the most significant weaknesses for Le Meridien Hotel. 3. Apart from that, the local, state and federal food processing controls can also be a huge weakness for this restaurant |
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Opportunities (External Analysis) |
1. Korean people are fond of spicy food with Pan Asian flavor. Therefore, Korea can become a good market for the business of Le Meridien Hotel. Most importantly, Le Meridien Hotel is going to come in Korean market with the best quality food with delicious taste (Chen, Kim & Yamaguchi, 2014). Thus, it can be the most significant opportunity for this restaurant. 2. On the other hand, the market prospects of Le Meridien Hotel in the sugar industry can also create a huge business opportunity for this restaurant. |
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Threats (External Analysis) |
1. The initial economic scenario would be the major threat for Le Meridien Hotel as this restaurant is completely a start-up business in Korean (Culp et al., 2016). Thus, Le Meridien Hotel has a limited budget due to which it would be difficult for this restaurant to cope up with the economic scenario of Korea. 2. The growing competitive food market in Korea is the other most significant threat for Le Meridien Hotel (Nair et al., 2014). 3. Apart from that, the political as well as the international risks can also be a key threat for Le Meridien Hotel. |
The number of target audiences for Le Meridien Hotel is huge and diverse. According to the demographic context, people from all age-groups including children, adults and aged people are the target audiences for this restaurant (Kumar et al., 2013). On the other hand, according psychographic context, the people with low and medium income level are the major target audiences for Le Meridien Hotel. This is simply because of the fact that most of the famous restaurants generally target the high income people whereas Le Meridien Hotel has tried something different in setting their target customers.
The strong presence in the social media websites has become very important for every organization especially for the startup and medium ranged organizations (Solomon, 2014). Therefore, in this particular scenario, Le Meridien Hotel also has to follow few important and essential strategies to implement the social media marketing plan. These are as follows:
- Creation of Social Media Goals as well as Objectives – Le Meridien Hotel has to implement a proper social media marketing strategy for establishing goals as well as objectives that this business can hope to accomplish (Scott, 2015). The business objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic as well as time-effective for Le Meridien Hotel. Therefore, it must be stated that a simple way to begin with the social marketing plan is by writing down minimum of three goals related to social media.
- Social Media Audit conduction – Le Meridien Hotel has to assess the newly implemented social media use prior to the creation of the social media marketing plan (Tiago&Veríssimo, 2014). Le Meridien Hotel should also monitor how the social media use is working out for this restaurant. Therefore, this restaurant should make a proper mission and vision statement in this purpose.
- Creation or Improvement of the Social Accounts –After auditing all the social media accounts of Le Meridien Hotel, the social media marketing department of this restaurant has to hone its online presence (Ashley &Tuten, 2015). Therefore, in this regard, Le Meridien Hotel has to choose what networks can best accomplish the goals of social media marketing. As Le Meridien Hotel does not have any social profile, thus this restaurant has to focus on every social media network and build them from the ground up with the widened objectives and audience in mind (Vinerean et al., 2013).
- Getting Social Media Inspiration from the industry clients, competitors and leaders – Le Meridien Hotel should get the social media inspiration from the consumers by applying few essential and suggestive sources of inspiration such as content marketing, social media customer service, social media advertising, Facebook strategy, Google+ strategy, Twitter strategy and Instagram strategy (Macarthy, 2014).
- Creation of Editorial Calendar and a Content Plan – the social media marketing plan of Le Meridien Hotel should incorporate the plan for content marketing by comprising of strategies for content creation and content creation and editorial calendar as well (Trainor et al., 2014).
- Testing, evaluating and adjusting the social media marketing plan – Finally, as the last step, Le Meridien Hotel should properly perform the method to test, adjust as well as evaluate the social media marketing plan implemented for this startup restaurant (Kumar et al., 2013).
Proposed Target Audiences, Strategy and Goals
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Particulars |
Objectives |
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Specific |
To create brand awareness of Le Meridien Hotel through social media marketing |
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Measurable |
To reach huge number of target audience |
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Achievable |
To generate a huge revenue and a great popularity among the target audience of Le Meridien Hotel |
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Realistic |
To provide the scope of earning huge reputation in the Korean Food industry |
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Time |
To complete the entire plan within the duration of 6 months |
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Intelligence |
Venue for Content |
Promotional Platforms for Le Meridien Hotel |
Key Performance Indicators |
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Le Meridien Hotel should listen for the brands, competition as well as industry trends for this restaurant Le Meridien Hotel should also listen in Suggestion Sites, Forums, News, Blogs, Facebook as well as Twitter. |
1. Pinterest 2. Google+ 3. YouTube |
1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. LinkedIn |
There are few significant and key performance indicators in regards to the social media marketing. These are as follows: 1. The major key performance indicator of this social media marketing plan is the size of the community. 2. On the other hand, the level of engagement over the social media websites by Le Meriden Hotel can also be another very crucial key performance indicator in regards to the social marketing plan 3. Apart from that, the number of reviews and bookings in the restaurant directory app such as Zomato can also be a crucial key performance indicator. 4. Moreover, number of queries resolved is also very significant key performance indicator for this social media marketing plan for Le Meridien Hotel. 5. At last, content curated is also a very important KPI for SMM implemented by Le Meridien Hotel |
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Le Meridien Hotel should aim on performing the market research, public relations, branding as well as customer service in a proper manner. |
Public Relations and Digital Marketing |
Digital Marketing – It helps this restaurant for building the community that can be leveraged for numerous functions. |
Metrics for the Social Enterprises – Office of CEO, CMO or CFO. |
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Objectives |
Activities |
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Blogging |
ü To improvise the organic search method ü To enhance the subscribers of email newsletter ü To enhance website traffic |
ü Monitoring relevant blogs for the hospitality and food industry and then Le Meridien Hotel should go for making comments at least once in a week. |
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ü To improvise brand awareness of Le Meridien Hotel ü To redistribute content to promote the Le Meridien Hotel ü To do market research (what people are saying regarding the food services and products offered by Le Meridien Hotel) ü To enhance website traffic |
ü Joining the conversations ü Tweeting the proper ideas as well as re-tweeting the relevant interesting ideas on a daily basis. ü Monitoring conversations regarding the services, products or brand through search.twitter.com, Google Alerts or any other Twitter tools. |
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ü In order to enhance the number of demos or trails ü To generate customer feedback or reviews ü To create awareness of new services or products |
ü Creation of the exclusive offers to the fans on a monthly basis ü Posting new relevant content on a weekly basis. |
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ü To enhance website traffic ü To improve brand awareness of Le Meridien Hotel ü To enhance the relationships of referrer ü To generate feedback through surveys or polls |
ü Adding customers as well as their prospects to the network on a weekly basis ü Participating or starting in a group on LinkedIn focused on a topic of interest towards the customers as well as the referral sources again on a weekly basis. |
5. Conclusion
After implementing the entire social media marketing plan for the startup business Le Meridien Hotel in Korea, it can be stated as the conclusion of the whole st6udy that the social mediamarketing plan would provide the scope to reach huge number of people before its launching in Korean food industry. Therefore, the situational analysis has helped this startup restaurant to identify the business environmental factors for this restaurant during the pre-launching stage. On the other hand, this report has also helped this restaurant to find out and evaluate its entire target audiences, objectives along with the social media strategies based on which the social media marketing plan has been made for this startup restaurant. Apart from that, the action plan has simply demonstrated the steps through which the promotional activities for launching this business over the social media websites would be done.
References
Ashley, C., &Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 15-27.
Bull, J. W., Jobstvogt, N., Böhnke-Henrichs, A., Mascarenhas, A., Sitas, N., Baulcomb, C., …& Carter-Silk, E. (2016). Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework. Ecosystem services, 17, 99-111.
Charmaz, K. C. (2015). Situational analysis in practice: Mapping research with grounded theory (Vol. 1). A. E. Clarke, C. Friese, & R. Washburn (Eds.).Left Coast Press.
Chen, W. M., Kim, H., & Yamaguchi, H. (2014). Renewable energy in eastern Asia: Renewable energy policy review and comparative SWOT analysis for promoting renewable energy in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Energy Policy, 74, 319-329.
Culp III, K., Eastwood, C., Turner, S., Goodman, M., & Ricketts, K. G. (2016). Using a SWOT Analysis: Taking a Look at Your Organization [2016].
Kumar, V., Bhaskaran, V., Mirchandani, R., & Shah, M. (2013). Practice prize winner—creating a measurable social media marketing strategy: increasing the value and ROI of intangibles and tangibles for hokey pokey. Marketing Science, 32(2), 194-212.
Macarthy, A. (2014). 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and More!.CreateSpace.
Nair, M., Yoshida, S., Lambrechts, T., Boschi-Pinto, C., Bose, K., Mason, E. M., &Mathai, M. (2014). Facilitators and barriers to quality of care in maternal, newborn and child health: a global situational analysis through metareview. BMJ open, 4(5), e004749.
Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.
Solomon, M. R. (2014). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Tiago, M. T. P. M. B., &Veríssimo, J. M. C. (2014). Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), 703-708.
Trainor, K. J., Andzulis, J. M., Rapp, A., &Agnihotri, R. (2014). Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), 1201-1208.
Vinerean, S., Cetina, I., Dumitrescu, L., &Tichindelean, M. (2013).The effects of social media marketing on online consumer behavior. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(14), 66.
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