Léa Jézéquel Digital marketing   : final exam MBA 2b

1) Best resolution

a) I think the best resolution to take for 2011 would be to tweet or comment on non-promotional information. As important actors of the tourism industry in a whole, hotels should take advantage of their central position to prove that they are not only entirely integrated into the market but also a driving part of it. By promoting local events, touristic spots or activities on social media and by providing broader information than those directly related to their brand, hotels would bring added value to their loyal customers and enlarge their audience. Consequently, it would both result in increasing revenues and loyalty. That resolution seems to be all the more interesting that it is very simple to implement and does not require any financial investment.

Such a strategy would notably serve hotels which are located in attractive places and whose clients are essentially tourists. It would also suit hotels which tend to develop interactive relations with their clients and convey a dynamic image of their brand.

b) That resolution would have a greater impact on hotels’ internet success if some partnerships were established with other companies such as tour operators, cultural centres, tickets selling firms, etc. Links could be created between the websites and pages on social media of hotels and their partners. Thus, hotels would have access to a new panel of customers and generate more traffic on their pages.

Hotels could offer their customers promotions on events, visiting tours or museum tickets to which they are affiliated. They could also invite their clients to give their opinion about events and spots hotels referred to in their reviews. Such actions on social media would create more interactivity between hotels and their customers. Moreover, they would allow hoteliers to learn deeper about their clients’ expectations and habits.

Last, hotels could add some location based tools such as Google Map to make the localisation of events or sites easier and to show their strategic proximity to places of interest.

c) Le General hotelhttp://www.legeneralhotel.com/hotel_situation_marais.htm

Le general hotel dedicates one section in its website to its location in Paris and suggests ideas of interesting places to visit. Le general hotel does not give any description of these places, but provides links to Wikitravel which is a website inspired by Wikipedia and totaly devoted to information related to travels, museums, sightseeings. For example, when you click on « Le louvre » in Le General’s website, you directly go to the Wikitravel page which describes the museum, its history and indicates its location in Paris.

The hotel also suggests some restaurants to discover and provides a Google map where all mentionned places appear.

Unfortunately, Le General hotel does not give such information in its Facebook page. But I consider that the creation of such a section in its website is a good idea that it should extend to social media in order

Le Crillonhttp://www.facebook.com/hoteldecrillon - !/hoteldecrillon?v=app_2309869772

http://crillon.concorde-hotels.fr/fr/destination/destination.aspx

Le Crillon hotel has its page on Facebook and Twitter where it sometimes recommends cultural events such as videos or TV shows related to luxury history or cuisine competition in which its chef is involved. It proves that Le Crillon hotel is not only concerned by its own activities but also tries to connect them with other events. I think this approach helps the hotel to attract people who do not necessarily belong to its clients but could be future customers.However, Le Crillon hotel does not write any articles about places to visit or cultural events happening in Paris in its Facebook or Twitter pages whereas on its website it gives information about outside cultural activities and interesting museums in

2) Technology role

a) In a hotel’s internet strategy, technology helps to :• Maximize reach of customers because social media are used

by many people and so create high visibility• Control its e-reputation because with social media hotels can

have access to customers’ comments and reply to them• Bring more satisfaction to guests because social media are

good platforms to offer special promotions or provide exclusive information to web customers

• Learn more about customers’ habits and expectations and build a user relationship because it is much easier to discuss and ask for opinions through social media

• Segment its target market as different social media are designed for different types of customers

• Learn about and monitor competitors’ marketing strategies to position its own services and goals

• Distinguish from competitors because until now many hotels have not successfully developped their presence on social media and taken advantage of them yet

• Measure its performances as in the Internet many metric tools are available to estimate one’s visibility, reputation…

• Get partnerships, support of influencers or fans to improve its impact on customers and presence on the web

• Increase revenue thanks to the availability of different paltforms where customers can book rooms in the hotel

b) As an independent, limited budget hotel I would :

• Create a page on Facebook and Twitter because they are the two most famous social media in the Internet with : Link to my website so that people can get more information

about my hotel A review section for customers to leave comments and

receive answers Short surveys to learn about my customers’ preferences Quizz or competition games with promotions for winners A wall where fans and followers can leave photos of

themselves in the hotel to enhance their loyalty Links to blogs or websites the hotel is interested in to give

proper brand identity to the hotel and create partnerships Post reviews or videos on upcoming local events or

interesting places to visit around the hotel Periodic newsletters

• Create my own website with :

Link to my Facebook and Twitter pages so that customers can see all the activities created around the hotel / Put likes and tweet buttons

Insertion of keywords related to the hotel concept and brand to appear in first page of Google search

A google map to indicate the location of the hotel and interesting places to see around

Videos to present the hotel (virtual tour) and its staff (posted on you tube)

A music background to liven up the site A simple booking engine available on all pages of the site

and a specific booking section apart providing more options A review section for customers to leave comments and

receive answers Periodic sessions of chat with customers or discussions on

skype Promotions and newsletters sent to customers by emails Links to blogs or websites the hotel is interested in to give

proper brand identity to the hotel and create partnerships Post reviews or videos on upcoming local events or

interesting places to visit around the hotel

• Set up google alerts to control comments / reviews about the hotel and get information about competitors or new marketing trends

• Suscribe to Google analytics or Review pro to estimate my hotel’s performance and customers’ use of my website and pages

• Appear in third parties to increase my presence on the web

All these tools and strategies are free, cheap and easy to use to provide the most accessible, interactive and high quality services to customers.

c) The Five hotel http://www.thefivehotel.com/index.html The Five hotel’s website

has an efficient and creative way to reach customers since it contains:

- A booking engine directly in the homepage

- An engine to capture e-mails

- A virtual tour of the hotel

- A link to the blog which tackles various topics that are not necessarily focused on the hotel

- A section dedicated to guests reviews to allow customers to leave comments

- A section with the location of the

http://www.thefivehotel.com/dotclear/index.php?tag/facebook

On Facebook, the Five hotel has recently organised a competition between its fans to select photos of the most beautiful smile. The reward for the 5 winners will be free nights in the hotel.

The Five hotel regularly organises many other events of this type via Facebook and its blog to create interactivity with its customers and make its profile attractive.

3) Key elements to online branding

a) According to Loïc Lemeur, key elements to online branding are :• To subscribe to social media : Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…• To link our website, blog and social pages• To post regular and personalized comments, videos, photos…• To post different things in our different pages to target

different people• To get feedback on our product• To be quick at answering, retweeting, liking…• To talk about our product, but also about our environnement,

friends/fans/followers, topics we are interested in… • To share a lot with our community• To meet our community via events

b) L’Occitane en Provencehttp://www.facebook.com/loccitane.fr?v=app_4949752878 - !/loccitane.fr?v=wall

http://twitter.com/LOCCITANE

I think the cosmetic brand L’Occitane quite respects the key elements presented above as :

- L’Occitane has pages on Facebook and Twitter linked to its website

- Articles are posted almost every day

- L’Occitane speaks to its fans

- Videos are made on original subjects. Ex : how foreigners pronounce « L’Occitane »

- There are links with other blogs which refer to L’Occitane products Ex : metro boulot dodo

- Events and games are organised with fans. Ex : worldwide competition between fans’ videos on nature

4) Online tools

Gowalla

By becoming a partner of Gowalla, a hotel could appear on the site which would allow a fantastic number of customers to check in at its location. This could be a good mean to spread the brandname of the hotel since, thanks to this tool, people can see where their friends have been and which places they like. This way, people can recommend their favourite places to their friends without any required marketing campaign from part of the hotel. The hotel could take complete advantage of this tool by offering promotions or gifts to customers who check in most at the hotel. Thus, customers would be incited to speak more about the hotel around them.A hotel could also promote itself by organizing events which would appear in Gowalla and where would be invited customers who regularly check in at the hotel. This would enhance its presence on Gowalla website and so its visibility among customers. Invited customers would then act as representatives of the brand to their friends.At last, a hotel could be integrated to trips featured by Gowalla which would represent a tremendous advertisement for the hotel.

To be represented on Gowalla, a hotel only need to buy a custom stamp for its spot on which customers would click to check in and indicate their presence in the hotel.

Gowalla is all the more an interesting tool for hotels that it can be related to other social accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, Gowalla is a primarily mobile web application which allows customers to check in via their mobile phones. Mobile channel is very important nowadays as it is used by more and more customers to share and interact with their friends.

Such a location based tool, if it is properly used, could limit expenses dedicated to advertising campaigns on a hotel, its amenities (restaurant, spa…) and events. It also enables to reach many new customers through different networks (Facebook, Twitter) and channels (website, mobile phone).Gowalla could have as a pervert effect to lead to an increasing communication on the hotel brandname among customers without any real impact on their consumption. Customers could only consider Gowalla as a game to earn gifts and promotions and could not become real clients of the hotel. Such a consequence does not seem dramatic since it allows to create a buzz around the brand anyway.

Formspring

By creating a formspring profile, a hotel allows customers to ask questions to which it commit to answer. Questions and answers are then published on the users’ profile page. To do it in a more interactive way, a hotel could answer on videos to create trust and personalized the message. Hotels can also add a smile button which acts as a « like » button in Facebook.

The formspring profile can be connected to Facebook, Twitter and Blogger.

To be efficient, such a tool requires quick and honest reactions from part of the hotel. It is completely free.

Formspring is primarily a good mean for customers to enter into contact with a hotel and get answers to their questions. But it is also a good way for a hotel to learn about what people want to know on its brand and to be able to anticipate customers’ expectations on services or offers.

However, Formspring has recently caused controversy because questions can be asked anonymously. Consequently, hotels can have difficulties to identify their potential customers and set up targeted strategies to make them loyal. Moreover, customers can feel suspicious towards the honest use of such a tool since users can choose to disallow anonymous questions and have the ability to block selected people from asking further questions. Hotels should use Formspring carefully and ensure their customers that they handle it honestly in order to effectively improve their services without escaping any controversial question.

I have chosen these two tools because I deem that it is very important for hotels to both spread their brandname and control their reputation on the web in very limited costs.

5) Definitions

• Location based services are websites or mobile applications that allow customers to search for places, find where their friends are or have been, indicate to their friends where they are themselves and look for an event. Ex : Foursquare, Gowalla, Google latitude…

• A white label product is a product without any brandname which is sold to companies that can label the product with their own brandname as if they had produced it on their own.

Products sold by Whotel are made by yoox which plays the role of white label.

• An aggregator site is a site which gather in its platform information provided by many other different sites.

• Tweets are comments you post on your Twitter profile.

• Social media are web or mobile based sites that allow people to communicate and interact between each other.