Social Media Marketing
Question:
Select any Tourism or Hospitality marketspaces to find an organization or enterprise that is engaging in significantly by interactive marketing activities over the web, conduct an audit of the site. Students are required to present a report on their analysis.
Digital marketing includes strategies of marketing conducted by various organizations using digital platforms. Digital mediums are gaining prominence in the world of marketing for their high reach and filtered segmentation of consumers (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2016). Digital media marketing involve Search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing as well as Email marketing (Ryan, 2016). This report throws light on digital marketing strategies by Hilton hotels. Hilton hotels are a leading name in the hospitality industry that have successfully managed to target a wide audience, deliver impeccable service and gained a set of sternly loyal customers.
In this era of increasing competition, it is imperative that organizations work upon their marketing strategies and gain a competitive edge in order to survive the red ocean market. Hilton has adopted various innovative strategies in order to target its premium customers. Discussed below are few of the strategies adopted by the Hilton.
Social media marketing involves the process of promoting the offerings of a particular brand on social networking channels. Social media platforms are no more solutions to socializing with friends and peers across the globe, it has rather become an active platform where marketers can enhance brand awareness and improve brand image (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). Most effective platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter.
It has been noticed, that most customers make use of social media in their buying patterns. Only different between these customers is that 38% of people use this channel in the beginning of their process, 46% of the people use it in the middle of their process while 16% use it at the end of their process. Therefore, it is essential for marketers to mark their presence on these social media platforms.
Hilton hotels is an undisputed leader on social media when it comes to engagement and number of followers. Currently Hilton hotels have over 1700k followers on Facebook, 202k followers on Instagram and 278k followers on Twitter.
Search engine optimization and marketing
Search engine marketing and optimization is a tool used by marketers to ensure that consumers can search for their offering easily. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing etc. also put advertisements to attract customers (Ledford, 2015). Most of the websites are reached via the use of these search engines. Therefore it is imperative that organizations put sufficient efforts in ensuring that their brand is easy to search for and advertised well on search engines (Berman & Katona, 2013). Search engines use various ad words to advertise for products. Hilton has worked hard on its search engine optimization and marketing. Every time a user wishes to make a booking with Hilton hotels, search engines will do the needful and show the relevant links to the users to achieve the same.
Search Engine Marketing and Optimization
User generated content
One of the most important feedbacks as well as genuine sources of marketing are the user generated contents. These includes all the marketing strategies where the users of the brand promote the brand owing to excellent service (Tang, Fang & Wang, 2014). Hilton consumers very often post about the hotel and its service in their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter post. This generates further views and encourages other people to visit the hotel. Such a content which is not directly given out by the organization are call user generated contents (Goes, Lin & Yeung, 2014).
This has helped Hilton build an engaged community of loyal consumers who not only ensure repeated buying but also do their bit in spreading the word across to others. User generated content is most reliable and often leads to increased sales. This can be easily trusted as it is not a paid form of marketing but rather it is a form of an honest feedback provided by consumers.
Strategic use of celebrities
Celebrity marketing involves marketing the products or services of a business with the help of celebrities. This is also known as influencer marketing. This includes a process of hiring celebrities to promote the products or services of a particular brand via social media platforms, television advertisements, billboard posters and other such tools (Davies & Slater, 2017). These celebrities becomes the ambassadors of the brand and hence it is very important that brands select these ambassadors wisely whose personality attributes go well the values of the brand.
Hilton hotels has effectively utilized celebrities to amplify its message and nurture consumer engagement. The brand has collaborated with Derek Hough and has made effective use of his grand status as a celebrity endorser on both Facebook as well as Instagram. Derek also speaks openly and proudly about this partnership with Hilton hotels in various interviews and has clearly established his love and loyalty towards the brand.
Social media contests
Running social media contests is a great strategy to engage customers. This consumer engagement plays a vital role in increasing brand awareness and brand loyalty. Contests are also a superb way to source out user generated contests. Such contests keep users engaged and provide for a perfect platform of marketing across different social media tools (Hollebeek, Glynn & Brodie, 2014).
Hilton organizes various such contests on YouTube, Instagram as well as Twitter. They have encouraged many customers across the globe to participate in these contests and win stays at Hilton. These customers in turn have shared their experience with a wider audience. This has surely generated immense goodwill as well brand equity about Hilton Hotels.
Social listening
Social listening involves the ability of a brand to ensure that they are aware of everything that is happening across all social media channels. Social listening includes being aware of and responding all mentions on social media platforms (Stewart, Atilano & Arnold, 2017). Hilton has successfully managed to keep its eyes and ears open. The brand is extremely quick to respond to messages on Facebook and often retweets positive feedbacks from the consumers on twitter. They also like pictures of instagram users when they use relevant hashtags.
User-generated Content
Social media is not just a platform for marketing but rather it helps brands in connecting a two way communication with its consumers. Hilton hotels understand that social media provides for a perfect opportunity to establish a direct communication with its consumers. The brand makes sure that it is listening to social media consistently for what the users are sharing. Hilton hotels have been using social media effectively to meet their marketing objectives. They work diligently to enhance customer reach, engagement and awareness.
Website Audit
Like every other website, the purpose of the Hilton hotels website is to enhance brand awareness and let people about the services offered by the business. The website has a provision for making bookings across all Hilton Hotels in the world. The brand advertises its offers and discounts on the website.
The website is aimed at targeting premium customers. The brand has positioned itself as a premium brand. However, the website has a provision of making an account with the Hilton group so that the company can preserve details of customers.
The major consumer behavior issue faced by the website are that firstly, very often people enter fake details, create an account and make reservations for a future date. At the time of arrival, no one shows up and this largely disrupts the supply chain of the hotel. Secondly, there is no provision on the website to show a particular ad to a specific customer. Which means they cannot customize the website differently for different customers.
The organization functions in a highly competitive industry and it is important that the website is consistently up to date as more often than not, that is the first thing that people see about the brand.
Recommended marketing strategies
- The brand could further the use of Snapchat to reach out to a different set of consumers. Snapchat has been gaining ground over the last couple of years and it is important that Hilton Hotels could create a common ID and share images, videos and stories of brilliant user experience from across the globe.
- While Hilton hotels has been effectively using social media contests to engage customers, the winner of these contests and their experiences could be shared via going live on Facebook and Instagram. This would help in sharing the excitement and liveliness with everyone.
- Hilton hotels could also tie up with various travel agents as well as online hotel managers to ensure a higher footfall. These brokers could also explain their clients about the current offers and discounts offered by Hilton hotels
Conclusion
Digital marketing is the process of marketing the offering of a firm using digital platforms. Marketers have understood the importance of using digital platforms to enhance brand awareness and increase brand value. Therefore, they are now switching from traditional mediums of marketing to digital mediums of marketing. Social media marketing, Search engine optimization and marketing, mobile marketing as well as email marketing are various digital marketing strategies used by the brands.
Content of marketing and timing of the marketing are the most crucial aspects of digital marketing. Hilton hotels have effectively utilized various marketing strategies to increase the reach of their audience as well as enhance their consumer digitally. They have built solid relationships with their consumers solely on the basis of their excellent social listening skills as well as the many contests they keep publishing online.
Right marketing strategies adopted by brand lead to new consumers and enhances the level of brand awareness among people in general. Excellent marketing also makes the current consumers of the brand more proud of using the brand. Which then leads to user generated content which in turn attracts more people.
References
Berman, R., & Katona, Z. (2013). The role of search engine optimization in search marketing. Marketing Science, 32(4), 644-651.
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2016). Digital marketing. Pearson.
Davies, F., & Slater, S. (2017, January). Exploring the Power of Sporting Celebrity Endorsements: A Comparison of Contrasting Sports. In The Customer is NOT Always Right? Marketing Orientations in a Dynamic Business World: Proceedings of the 2011 World Marketing Congress (p. 317). Springer.
Goes, P. B., Lin, M., & Au Yeung, C. M. (2014). “Popularity effect” in user-generated content: evidence from online product reviews. Information Systems Research, 25(2), 222-238.
Hollebeek, L. D., Glynn, M. S., & Brodie, R. J. (2014). Consumer brand engagement in social media: Conceptualization, scale development and validation. Journal of interactive marketing, 28(2), 149-165.
Ledford, J. L. (2015). Search engine optimization bible (Vol. 584). John Wiley & Sons.
Ryan, D. (2016). Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Stewart, M. C., Atilano, M., & Arnold, C. L. (2017). Improving customer relations with social listening: A case study of an American academic library.
Tang, T., Fang, E., & Wang, F. (2014). Is neutral really neutral? The effects of neutral user-generated content on product sales. Journal of Marketing, 78(4), 41-58.
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social media marketing. Sage
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