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Hospitality Sales and Marketing Photo Sharing Trends Report Marlena Schmitt and Jerry He 4/22/2013

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Page 1: Photo sharing final paper

Hospitality Sales and Marketing

Photo Sharing Trends ReportMarlena Schmitt and Jerry He

4/22/2013

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Table of Contents

What is Photo Sharing

Historical Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 3

Reach and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 3

Current Operating Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 3-4

Examples of Photo Sharing

Case example #1 (W Hotel chain) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 4-5

Unrelated business example #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 5

Case example #2 (Neemrana Hotels) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 5-6

Unrelated business example #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 6

Photo Sharing Analysis

Professional Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 6-7

Business Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 7-8

Five points related to course content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 7-9

Maintaining a competitive edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 9

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pg. 10

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What is Photo Sharing

Historic Overview:

Photo sharing is when a user shares his/her photos with others by publishing or transferring digital photos online. Based on the development of internet and digital devices, the process of photo sharing has been moving forward ever since it became a phenomenon. Photo sharing started in the 1980s, at that time people stored their photos on CDs and sent them to others through e-mail (Kissmetrics, 2011). When the 1990s came along, blogs and camera phones started to become popular. People could take photos by using their phones and store them in the memory cards or DVDs and then put the photos on their blog. From 2005, the social network and 3G high speed wireless network came to stage. People were now able to use the smart phones to take and post their photos on their social networks at any time. After that, Photo sharing gradually separated from the social network and developed special websites for people to post their photos and share them to others.

Overall, Photo sharing is not only the sharing of the photos but also the sharing of life, and people have started showing their life preferences online. For the service industry, those preferences are important to us. So more and more hospitality companies are going to use photo sharing websites like Pinterest to do their research and marketing

Reach and Scope

Photo sharing has been embraced by the Hospitality industry because of its ability to portray the desired business without using words and focusing on visual images. Many businesses within the hospitality industry have taken a liking to popular photo sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram. With Pinterest, the user can view photos of whatever topic they desire and they can create “boards” based on what interests they have. When a consumer clicks on a photo it takes them to an article or a website where that picture came from. For example: if you click a picture of a sandy beach on Pinterest you may be taken to a tropical traveling website. Instagram allows its consumers to take photographs and edit them to however they want. After the photographs are edited users can post them to their accounts on Instagram and even post them on Pinterest. It is very affective for these two popular photo-sharing sites to be connected because it leads to easier access for the consumers and easy for businesses to post information. By using Photo Sharing as a marketing technique, businesses are able to show their customers available destinations without having to actually describe the destination. Businesses are also able to keep track of what photographs consumers are viewing certain and what type of “boards” they are making. By observing what types of photos a customer is clicking on businesses can see what that particular customer is looking for. By knowing what customers want, businesses can supply those wants.

Current Operating Impacts

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Businesses have begun to use Pinterest especially by creating boards that show off their company. Norwegian cruise line was the first cruise industry leader to start using Pinterest. Annemarie Matthews (Miller, 2012) stated “We liked Pinterest because cruising is so visual and photo-driven that we thought it would be a good way to showcase our ships and Freestyle Cruising”. Norwegian also has the option where if a Pinterest consumer clicks on one of their images, it takes the consumer to the Norwegian website. Pinterest has not become popular just in hospitality but also in the magazine business. Magazines like, Better Homes and Gardens, and Real Simple use Pinterest for its visually appealing way of capturing customers. They also create boards that relate to topic in their magazines, users are able to view 77 different boards that Better Homes and Gardens have created (Vega, 2012).

Examples of Photo Sharing

Case study #1

The W Hotel chain is a luxury brand that takes pride in keeping an “Independent feel” while still maintaning the reliability of a chain. W Hotels are located in major cities all around the world and every location adopts the style of its surrounding area. Their particular location in Times Square (which has a very modern, swanky, artistic feel) was one of the first hotels to embrace Photo Sharing website Instagram, as a form of interactive advertisement (Chan, 2012). The W Times Square created a Photo Sharing contest, urging Instagram users to take photos and submit them via hash-tag #WDESIGN. The photographs were then used in one of the first Instagram exhibits ever. When the exhibit opened the W Times Square had a launch party that was open to the public so anyone could view the photographs for free. The exhibit was open to the public for an entire week after the launch party. The W Times Square also worked very closely with “Instagram NYC”, a photography community based in New York. A Few famous Instagram photographers from “Instagram NYC” were featured in the exhibit as well (Bridif, 2012). The W Times Square chose a winner at the end of the contest and awarded the recipient with a two night stay at the hotel. Currently the #WDESIGN hash-tag can still be viewed online

I think that the W Times Square hotel really did an excellent job embracing this trend so that consumers would actually use it and become excited about it. The W Times Square was able to get consumers at their hotel for an event, and they were able to give to their community by providing a place for photographers to showcase their work. This event opened the door to let amateur artists express themselves for free and provided them with an accomplishment they may have not gotten elsewhere. By creating this exhibit the W Times Square had provided a charity that came to no cost to the hotel. The W Times Square also made a connection to the artistic community by providing this exhibit. By creating this connection there are many more opportunities for both the artistic community and the hotel to look forward to. The W Times Square hotel now has a permanent connection to Instagram and many of its users. If I were to do anything differently about this event, I would make sure that the exhibit became a permanent

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fixture in the hotel. I would make sure that some of the photographs were permanently a part of the hotel so customers could stay excited about it for a long time afterwards.

Unrelated business example #1

Burberry is an iconic fashion brand that has been around for almost 154 years and still is financially successful today. Although Burberry is financially successful the company had recently been impacted by the economic downturns in the United States of America. Burberry went from having a profit margin of 15 per cent to 9.8 per cent in the year 2009 (Grieve, 2013) . Burberry found that social media was their savior and a necessity for continuing in their success. They first started their journey on the social media train by joining Facebook but Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey insisted that there was more that needed to be done to effectively use the social media available. It was then that Burberry decided to partner with Scott Schuman, who is known as the Sartorialist. Working with Scott Schuman, Burberry created “The Art of Trench”. The Art of Trench is a blog that customers can upload photos of themselves wearing the famous Burberry Trench coat. Photos posted on the blog are able to be shared on Facebook and Twitter along with other social media sites.

I believe that Burberry mad a wise decision when choosing to create The Art of Trench. It was a way to launch photo sharing while still keeping a strong company image. Burberry was able to use photo sharing successfully without using a website that was specifically meant for photo sharing, which is difficult to do. The Art of Trench is still a very popular blog and has proved it’s success with numbers. Burberry had successfully raised it’s profit up 50 per cent the year after The Art of Trench was released. Clearly The Art of Trench was a success for Burberry.

Case Study #2

The Neemrana Hotels is an Indian organization which restores ruins and turns them into heritage hotels which are called non-hotels. Neemrana Hotels started the modifications by adding the basic amenities such as plumbing and air-conditioning hidden from view (Arindam , 2012). After that, they designed the rooms in a more traditional colonial style. The company created a Pinterest page with 19 Boards that reflect the different historical ruins near the hotel (Rajagopalan, 2012). The company allows the customers to Pin their travel photos on these boards, they also use these boards to let customers post comments of their stay.

From their Pinterest page, customers can learn about “non-hotels” (considering they are not a popular form of accommodation). They can learn what a “non-hotel” looks like through photo-sharing and also read short paragraphs on the history of how the Neemrana hotels came to be. What is great about using the Neemrana Hotels Pinterest page is, not only do customers get a photographic introduction to what these hotels are, but they get an extensive customer review at the same time.

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There are still problems for Neemrana Hotels using Pinterest. They currently have only 54 followers, 154 Pins and 98 likes which indicates that even though they are successful in business, they have been unable to attract a lot of Pinterest users to their page. We can see from the Neemrana Pinterest page that 3 boards are very popular compared to the other sixteen boards. The 3 most popular Neemrana boards have an abundance of pictures, many views from their Pinterest followers and extensive comments from their followers. For the other sixteen unpopular boards there are minimal photographs (only 1 or 2 per board) as well as little user comment and interaction. Although the Pinterest is a good stage for the company to show itself, there is a lacking of organized management of the page. If Neemrana Hotels can manage all of their boards as successfully as their most popular 3 boards, they could use Pinterest as a more organized and presentable form of advertisement gaining a better marketing result.

Unrelated business example #2

Drake University uses Pinterest as a way to show their items/activities to students who may be interested in them (Sorenson, 2012). On Pinterest, Drake University has boards that are classified as: School events (Celebrate Drake, bulldogs without borders), Campus culture (Ultimate fan, Wear Blue), Campus geographic information (campus beauty, Photo of the day), etc. They also post study information on their Pinterest boards and other exciting things for students, like the boards study inspiration.

By using Pinterest, Drake University can give more information to potential students who are going to apply for the University as well as students already attending the University. By using Pinterest this information is presented in a more attractive way, along with reaching students through social media. Compared with traditional advertising methods, Pinterest can dive future students into the campus culture and life. With just one glance, you can learn information that you may have wanted to know you need to know about school. And it can really touch what students want. For the enrolled students, Pinterest is more like a news board to them; they can know what happens in school and the things that really attached to their campus life.

Photo Sharing Analysis

Professional Insight:

Practical use of a marketing strategy is necessary in order to confirm whether or not it is successful. We talked to the manager of the Log Jam (a local Menomonie bar and restaurant) Kristin Schenck to see if this trend was actually being put to use or not. Kristin is from the small town of Pardeeville Wisconsin and this is her first management position. Kristin graduated from the University of Wisconsin Stout. She has been managing Log Jam for about 3 years now. Kristin does all of Log Jam’s marketing and deals with the customer service aspect of the business.

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Kristin had crinkled her face in confusion when we had asked her whether or not Photo sharing was an important part of Log Jam’s marketing. She didn’t really have any idea what Photo sharing actually was. Once we explained to her that Photo sharing entailed using social media sites to display photographs of the business and other things that would advertise to customers, she understood. She claimed “Our employees take pictures of food or drink specials that they have made and post them to Instagram sometimes.” She also went on to talk about how the Log Jam relied heavily on “word of mouth” marketing and the only other things that they did were coupon advertising. “A lot of local restaurants blow up social media sites and it almost is too much.” She also claimed “We like to provide good service and know that our customers will come back because of that”. After being asked if she saw the Log Jam using Photo sharing in the future, she showed great interest and said “It is something I would definitely consider just don’t know if I have the time for right now.”

Business Landscape

Currently the most popular way to share photos is by posting the photos on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter (although these websites are not used specifically for businesses to share photos). After that, specific websites like Pinterest and Instagram can be segmented from those social networks. Almost every business can be found on Facebook or Twitter because it has become a necessity for businesses to have. Unfortunately businesses are still figuring out a way to successfully advertise on Facebook and Twitter therefore Photo sharing sites have been put on the back burner. As stated previously in the interview, businesses sometimes just don’t have the time to deal with social media sites, not to mention some businesses are beginning to think they have too much Social Media going on already. If businesses can find a way to successfully manage their Photo sharing social media sites, they could reach potential target markets that would not have been reached before. It will also provide current consumers with a new way to view the business and what it offers.

Photo sharing provides the consumers with a new way to make decisions. In the past, the marketer would use the illusion of their words to persuade consumers. Now there is the option of a visual image to aid marketers, and it all can be accessed easily online. There is also the option for consumers to not be required to read about their desired destination, but simply view it. Photo Sharing is an extremely useful tool and with photo sharing becoming popular, consumers will now have more of a demand to see visual images of destinations before making their decision.

Successful communication with consumers is what creates successful businesses. Photo sharing is considered a type of social networking site (which is how the world communicates) but it has a different way of communicating than traditional social network sites. In the past, lots of businesses used their Facebook or Twitter pages as a way of speaking about their business. However, Photo sharing can interact with customers without actually having to type/speak a complete thought. By simply putting an image on a Photo Sharing site, a business can show

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consumers what they want them to see. Not only can Photo Sharing communicate with consumers through visual images, but their consumers can communicate back with visual images as well. Companies cannot post every interesting and attractive photo by themselves so having their consumer’s post Photos as well is a great form of interaction and also a great form of consumer feedback.

5 points related to the book:

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is extremely important to any business. Without it a business would not thrive. Creating outstanding customer satisfaction depends on a product’s perceived performance and delivering value relative to a buyer’s expectations. The customer’s expectations are based on past experiences, the opinions of friends, and market information. Marketers must be careful to set the right level of expectations. Photo sharing is a good way to provide the customers with the right expectations. With shared photos, customers can have a direct view of what they are potentially going to experience. Compared to the traditional way of giving the preview for the customers, photo sharing can provide a better and more realistic expectation for customers. Therefore, we can gain successful customer satisfaction.

Marketing research

Managers cannot always wait for information to arrive on how well their business is doing. They need specific research to uncover useful information. Photo sharing is providing a new tool for marketers to do their marketing research. Marketing research is a process that identifies and defines marketing opportunities and problems, monitors and evaluates marketing actions and performance, and communicates the findings and implications to management. Websites like Pinterest and Instagram are outstanding information provider for the marketers.

Consumer buying behavior

Consumer purchases are strongly influenced by cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics. By being able to observe what sort of photos customers are viewing, marketers can track their behaviors. Marketers can use the information they find from Photo sharing websites and analyze what photographs match customer behaviors. By doing the analysis, marketers can advertise effectively to customers who display the same behaviors.

Marketing segmentation

When creating successful marketing the seller needs to identify market segments, select one or more, and develops products and services tailored to each selected segment. There are many traditional ways to segment, for example: segmenting markets by using age, geographical location or zip code. Those segmentations are based basic information and don’t really describe how a person is. However, with Photo sharing websites, we can know

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more about consumers’ behavior so that we can use a new and pertinence way to do our segmentation which can work better than the traditional natural segmentation.

Internal Marketing

Often, the most effective way of communicating with customers is through a businesses’ employees. An employee can effectively tell a customer what the business offers and answer any questions right away. Photo sharing provides an effective way for employees to get involved in the marketing aspect. Log Jam restaurant, as an example, uses photos that their staff uploads to Instagram and Facebook as a form of marketing. By adding employee Photo sharing to already existing marketing techniques, businesses can create an effective way to market to their customers.

Maintaining a competitive advantage

Photo sharing is indispensable in the future business. With the development of the new social networks, new demands of consumers are brought out. The demand is having a visual experience before making a decision. As future business owners and Professionals of Hospitality, we cannot ignore this demand. If a company lacks this kind of service, it will bring consumers the feeling of discomfort or dissatisfaction when they are considering whether to purchase with that company or not. Of course, a company doesn’t have to provide this kind of service, but if by choosing not to partake in the Photo Sharing trend they will lose their competitive edge. So to successfully achieve and keep up with the demand of the consumers companies must use some form of Photo Sharing.

Overall, Photo Sharing websites bring us a new target market. The users of Instagram grew from 1 million in 2010 to over 30 million users in 2012; over 150 million photos have been uploaded with Instagram. Pinterest can also provide us with the huge amount of consumers. If a company chooses not to partake in using websites like these, they can lose a huge amount of their target market.

Although Photo sharing is necessary in the future, the knowledge of how to manage it is still lacking in the business world. Lots of businesses have no clear idea about how to manage their web page successfully, how to gain followers, and how to become famous through those websites. Once a company can successfully use this tool for marketing, it will become a great success to the business world.

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References

Arindam , C. (2012, Sept. 18). Non-hotels [Online forum comment]. Retrieved from http://www.linkedin.com/company/neemrana-hotels/non-hotels-739683/product

Chan, A. (2012, May 1). Instagram spotlight: First ever instagram exhibition at the w times square hotel. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/instagram-spotlight_n_1464457.html

Grieve, J. (2013, February 3). How burberry capitalised social media. Business Today. Retrieved from http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/burberry-social-media-initiative/1/191422.htm

KISSmetrics. (2011) (Chart). “The History of Photo Sharing” blog.kissmetrics.com Retrieved from http://blog.kissmetrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photo-sharing.pdf

Miller, T. (2012, Aug 15). Norwegian cruise line launches cruise giveaway contest on pinterest. Breaking Travel News. Retrieved from http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/norwegian-cruise-line-launches-cruise-giveaway-contest-on-pinterest/

Rajagopalan. (2012, April 27). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://inboundmantra.com/five-pinterest-india-examples-of-social-media-for-hotels/

Sorenson, L. (2012, February 2nd) (n.d.). “Hubspot.com” Retrieved from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31199/7-Examples-of-Brands-That-Pop-on-Pinterest.aspx

Vega, T. (2012, April 17). Marketers find a friend in pinterest. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/business/media/marketers-find-a-friend-in-pinterest.html?_r=0

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