Social Media Marketing in the Hotel Industry
Social media has become a highly essential tool in the modern day business especially in the process of marketing. Since it allows the firms to reach to large numbers of people in a very small amount of time and create a campaign that tends to attract people towards the business. The multiple usages of social media platforms have made it a platform where business can be easily expanded. This provides an excellent opportunity for the small and mediums enterprises to reach to large numbers of people with the limited resources they have (Michaelidou, Siamagka and Christodoulides, 2011). The industry that is chosen in this report is the hotel industry. There are large numbers of SME in this industry which is taking use of the social media platforms so as to conduct their marketing campaigns. The use of social media in the hotel industry by the small and medium enterprises has been elaborated. Along with this, the advantages and disadvantage of using social media platforms in the business has been analysed. In the last section of the report, the recommendation regarding the use of social media in the SME has been analysed.
In the hotel industry, there are many types of operations going on in various parts of the world. It has become essential for the organisations to understand the efficiencies that Social media platforms provide to the small scale enterprises in functions such as marketing. In the era of digital business, it has become very much essential to use different platform for the process such as marketing. In such a competitive environment, it is very difficult for the SMEs to make their name in the market. This is very much crucial for achieving higher growth and success in the market. In Australia there are large numbers of hotels, restaurants, cafes and other types of similar places (Meske and Stieglitz, 2013). With so many social media platforms available with the firm, it has become easier for them to build an innovative marketing campaign. Companies can showcase their advertisements related to their products and services at these platforms. This will help in increasing the visibility of the firms in front of the potential consumers (Fotis, Buhalis and Rossides, 2012). Since there are large numbers of people active on these platforms hence they can easily reach to very wide range of consumers with very little efforts.
Café bars and lounges are some of the places that are highly preferred by the youngsters hence companies can effectively utilise social media sites so as to attract more numbers of customers towards their business. Youngsters love to hang out with their friends and family at the places that provides them with new taste or experience (Durkin, McGowan and McKeown, 2013). This is the reason why small scale enterprises can post the advertisements easily on such platforms. Technology is accessible to both bigger and smaller firms and hence digital media platforms can be an effective tool for product and service market and highlight their Unique selling preposition. Many medium size companies are using it as a platform to collect and gather data from clients and customers. This becomes extremely essential in the case of the customer relationship management as the companies react according to the choice of the customers (Gronum, Verreynne and Kastelle, 2012). Farsk a medium sized restaurant in Sweden used social media sites for communicating with each other so as to enhance collaboration with customers. They were able to resolve the complaints related to customers. They did not hire a professional person in order to save the cost which has resulted for the company in the negative manner as handling the negative comment has become difficult (Yan and Musika, 2018). Farsk also did not pay attention to risk management which they can easily do with the training to employees.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing
In hotel and restaurants industry, companies also use it as a platform where they can communicate with their clients. This also helps in building stronger relationship with each other. The communication can be done with the multimedia options available with both the parties hence making the communication process more attractive.
Small and Mediums Enterprises have lesser amount of technological resources especially internet resources are lesser (Cabiddu, De Carlo and Piccoli, 2014). In the current times when there is huge battle in the digital marketing strategies especially in the internet marketing field, social media marketing can be very effective. Apart from this, it is also the fact that internet marketing has become very much expensive and it is not easier for the small and mediums enterprises to stand in front of the bigger firms in the internet marketing campaigns. In such an environment, the use of Social media platforms can be very effective (Ciravegna, Majano and Zhan, 2014). There are people from different cultural backgrounds and the social media platforms acts as an effective platform where the cultural marketing can be done. This is very useful for the smaller firms. This is due to the fact that most of the smaller firms tend to orient their business on any specific type of culture and present food items relating any cultural background. Since most of the small and medium enterprises tends to follow the culture that is present in that country.
Personalised marketing can be easily conducted with the help of social media sites. This is because the small scale firms could reach to each and every user based on the interest they have in the market (Sprout social, 2018). It is to be understood that small companies like Frank have their own target segment which can be easily reached with the help of the social media platform. For instance, use of Whatsapp messengers can be very useful for the communication and promotional campaigns at the local levels. The social media sites can be used by the SME in case they want to promote any new products or services (Wamba and Carter, 2016). This is because it is a very effective platform where the buzz regarding the new products and services can be created easily. The platforms such as Facebook are very much effective in spreading the news like a wild fire.
The biggest challenges for the SME that can be solved by the use of Social Media are the fact that small businesses do not have large numbers of people in their dedicated marketing campaign (Kim, Lim and Brymer, 2015). With the help of such platforms company can easily manage their whole marketing campaigns. Word-of –mouth which is again a big marketing strategy followed by the company can be easily done with the help of the social media platforms. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has become very much essential for the organisation to increase the attractiveness of the business. The eWOM theory suggests that people can easily interact with each other and hence the good and bad points about the firm are discussed among different customers. It is also seen that potential customers are always attracted towards the feedbacks that is shared by the customers towards the services that is provided to them in the past (Dahnil, et. al. 2014). Small and mediums enterprises can gain more numbers of customers by creating fan page or the pages Such as Facebook page. This acts as a platform where the companies can inform their loyal customers about their new releases and offers they have. The coupons and the cards can also be distributed by the small scale firms with the help of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram etc. This reduces their burden in terms of maintaining a huge sales team so as to conduct this function manually. Mat is another small sized restaurant that has made its profile on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn so as to perform different operations (Yan and Musika, 2018). In the implementation process, this firm has not adopted formal metrics so as to measure the business value from the social media. Boss did not have the control on the contents that is posted on social media. This is reason that they were not able to achieve the efficiency that they wanted to.
Recommendations for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
Some of the SME in the industry also uses it for selling their products and services. This is done by the help of sharing their links that gives the direct access to the main online page of the company. Since almost all the small and medium scale enterprises have ties with the food delivery companies’ hence providing link at the social media sites can attract people to order a specific product through online site. It is beneficial for both customers and companies as customer gets easy access to the place from where they can avail food while the companies get to enhance their sale (Schaupp and Bélanger, 2013). It is also to be noted that SME does not have resources to increase their visibility in the international market. With the fast growth of travel and tourism industry, there are many travellers that are looking for the local taste or say at affordable prices. In this the use of social media could be beneficial for these SMEs.
One of the greatest benefits that a company gets from conducting marketing on the social media platforms is that it is extremely cheap and is capable of creating a positive environment for the business of these SMEs (Kwok and Yu, 2013). For example, if a company aims to show the interiors they have and the ambience they provide to the customers, they can easily create a multimedia advertisement showcasing all the attributes of their business. After this they can upload it on the platforms such as Facebook and Instragram so as to check the customer response. It is also seen that SME which do not have access to large data sources and due to lack of data analytical tools, it is very difficult for them to understand the user’s response (Jansen, et. al. 2013). Sometimes, it is known as the like marketing where the companies check the numbers of likes that they have got on the platform and understand products demand in the market. The comments that they receive on their marketing campaigns can be used as a feedback and hence the marketing should be changed accordingly.
The other side of the story is the fact that since this type of marketing enables the company to have an excellent platform to share news hence proper attention need to give on such type of marketing. This is because due to lagging in the monitoring of the social media campaigns, it can be possible that negative marketing about the company or the products and services can start (Yan, 2011). This is extremely dangerous in the case of hotels and hospitality industry as the numbers of players are going to increase in the coming years. In Australia where the digital mediums are accessible to almost all the people, this kind of negative marketing can be dangerous for its growth. Companies can easily make changes in their marketing campaign which they are conducting at the social media platform which was not so easy in the case of the traditional marketing methods. New things can be added and removed from the campaigns very easily without making much change in the original idea of the marketing (Turban, Bolloju and Liang, 2011). This flexibility allows the firms to bring fast changes in the overall marketing strategy which is very much essential for achieving the goals and objectives of the company as smoothly as possible.
Conclusion
There is a big disadvantage with the social media sites is the fact that companies privacy goes at stake. If all the stakeholders gets access to the important information of the company at the social media sites then it may lead to information leak. In the lack of the high standards security system, it is a chance that SME can get vulnerable to huge cyber-attacks (Castronovo and Huang, 2012). It is issue for the SME whose business is highly dependent on the data. For example if the data related to the SME gets leaked then the chances of their business failure becomes very high. At the same time, it is also crucial that company manages their social media marketing with the help of talented and skilled employees. Skilled employees can help in building innovative marketing campaign for their promotions but the problem is the fact that talent management is a serious challenge for the SMEs. Usually the SMEs generally do not have highly skilled technologically trained employees as it can be seen in the Mat and Franks case study. In order to remove this problem, it is also seen that SMEs have given the operations to other marketing companies so as to organise their social media campaign. This kind of outsourcing may sometimes become an issue for the SMEs as it leads to loss of cultural aspect while doing marketing. Recruitment which has been a major issue for the smaller firms in different parts of the world can be easily done with the help of platforms such as LinkedIn (Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014). This will also help the firm in finding talents that may be present in the local region. This is very much essential for the talent management of the company.
For a SME that wants to grow in the market or say wants to increase their brand presence, social media sites can be an excellent tool. This can again be understood by the benefits that are provided by the social media platforms. Some of the uses of social media sites are:
- SME believes that Social media sites can be helpful in boosting the brand as clear and useful message can be reflected on the pages and can help in changing the minds of the customers (Pentina, Koh and Le, 2012). This is also essential for competing with multinational and national level firms.
- SME is able to encourage dialogues with the help of social media sites. This helps the firm in making close and direct bonds with the clients which helps them in knowing the needs and feedbacks of the customers (Preuss and Perschke, 2010). The strong network at the local level can be made with the help of social media platforms.
- SME are able to increase their sales and create an alliance of interest with the consumers which helps them in retaining the loyal customers and attracting new set of consumers (Schaeffer and Olson, 2014). This also acts as a platform where the SME can promote their local campaigns or the events they have organised at their restaurants or café. This will help in spreading the news related to the companies’ plans for the local customers.
- A social media site not only reduces the cost of marketing but also reduces the cost of recruitment and selection with the use of platforms such as LinkedIn.
SME should also check the type of social media platforms they are using for their business. Geo targeting and social media marketing if used in collaboration can help the company in increasing their brand visibility which is very much essential for increasing their growth (Nguyen, 2015). It is very much essential that companies understand the type of social media marketing they are using for which function. SME must utilise the Social Media like LinkendIn for enhancing their reach to the talented employees. For taking the feedbacks from the customers, it is crucial that there must be optimum utilisation of platform such as Facebook. But at the same time it must be checked that company receives only the genuine comments as there are many competitors who just for degrading the image of the company does such kind of negative marketing (Chan and Guillet, 2011). Companies should also check that there are no leak routes through which data can be going to some other hands. The replies of the customers must be given in a manner that it eliminates all the doubts of the customers. At the same time, only the responsible persons should reply on the queries raised by the consumers.
It has been seen that numbers of SME on these platforms are increasing day by day so as to perform different types of tasks through social media platforms. It is essential that company chooses the best social media platform that suites their nature of the market. SME should ensure the data privacy by making sure that best of privacy and security software are installed in the organisation. SME should recruit one or two employees who have the role just to maintain the social media image of the company (Leung, et. al. 2013). It is also recommended that company should make the marketing in a more innovative manner. Use of multimedia can make the marketing useful and can make the whole marketing very much attractive. For the target market that this industry focuses on needs innovative marketing campaign to be done.
Conclusion
From the above based report, it can be concluded that SME does not have enough amount of resources for maintaining the quality of their marketing campaign. Use of social media campaigns can be beneficial for increasing the brand visibility of the company. At the same time, it will help in boosting the image of the firm in front of the potential and regular consumers. The greatest benefit that Social media provides to the SME is that it decreases the cost of operations such as marketing, recruitment and cost of communication. The disadvantage is that any negative marketing about the company can be done very easily which is highly dangerous for the firm. Representation of essential aspects of the business needs to be ensured while doing the social media marketing. Any failure in the marketing can lead to huge image loss to the firm.
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