Social media possess numerous number of implications for the hospitality industry including guests, staff and management. Bearing in mind audience that “Facebook reached of 1 billion users worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012, and by the middle of 2013 are over 1.1 billion what includes just personal and brand/ business members”(Jordan Mills, 2013).
This is just first page and introduction to the benefits that social media can give to organization, if organization “wake up’ and get understand it like the most “powerful weapons” that can help to attract own customers and reach more than positive results. When it comes to connecting with Hospitality organization, ‘80 % of the prospective guests prefer to connect through social media platforms what to Hospitality organization would be of great benefit if there are plenty of “Likes” and good reports on its Facebook or other social media network, fan Page’. (Ann Jordan-Mills, 2013) “Hospitality company participation in online social networking has been shown to be a cost-effective means for interaction and engagement with potential clients. Participation in these websites provides businesses with direct access to active users without the need to adding any additional hardware, or software”(Seth, Gaurav 2012). Hospitality businesses are proactively interacting with their customers by coming up with innovative customized solutions and much responsive and prompt customer service (Kasavana, Nusair, & Teodosic, 2010). With a development of different social media platforms such as Trip Advisor, Facebook, My Space customers are having great opportunity to look up reviews and opinions perceived by other customers and make own decision to which hospitality organization will dedicate own stays. Making a unique social network that allows guests to create a profile and share opinions, feelings, stories, photos, etc. can be a source of competitive advantage or disadvantage. If a guest decides to participate in an online network, shares a testimonial or recounts an experience or downloads content, others in the network are likely to be affected by the opinion of the postings. Any individual can upload content in the form of images, audio or video for others to respond and comment, which forms the basis of Web 2.0. It gives opportunity to the audience to share own opinions and based on it make own decision what create two way connections in hospitality organization.
In order to reach customers and show care and respect of their opinions and past experience in hospitality organizations, each organization should reviewing their comments and respond rapidly to their comment either positive or negative comments that are related to hospitality business. This can be opportunity to get benefits in hospitality industry as most organizations still do not follow this trend, do not care about customers reviews and in that way loosing opportunity to have that customers back in the future. Research has proven that hotels that engage their customers via social media get their customers to spend more, have higher repeat clientele, and get more referrals from their guests. However good, bad, or ugly, it is vital that no comment goes unnoticed because for every benefit a hotel rakes in with positive feedback, suggestions and tracking consumers it can be on the receiving end of unfair criticism and negative publicity if it leaves important issues unaddressed (Kasavana, 2008). Social media should be part of the overall marketing efforts no matter which kind of organization is presented. “It should be viewed as an additional element of an integrated marketing campaign, which can provide a great opportunity to increase awareness, generate buzz, customer loyalty and acquire potential new customers”.
Social media is the most common way of communication nowadays and for sure, will be more presented way of the communication in the future. Based on that, it is very important to understand that, powerful way of communication from the side of employees and its organization. Simply, to reach desire position in the certain organization, employee need to be social and make place of working social.
Internal social media is one of the very strong tools that can strengthen employee confidence, commitment and engagement. Social media can be observed from two points of view. First at all, it can be an opportunity and secondly, it can be a challenge depending how company, organization working on its implementation and approach it through own marketing strategy. Internal communication is about connecting with colleagues and sharing mostly informal information while social media were created in order to connect individuals, share their preferences, introduce it to other individuals and make them more familiar about each other’s. For companies, it is two ways possibility and an opportunity to get in touch with own customers, meet them and their preferences and adopt own business according to their preferences.
By raising awareness through social media and its possibilities compared to traditional way of communication and advertisement, organizations are becoming more and more familiar about its benefits compared to traditional way of communication. Less money, more benefits has “opened eyes” even of very traditional organizations. Once did it, they turned out completely to this phenomenon known as a social media marketing and its possibilities. Traditional advertisement reaches less people then in former times because the user behavior changes and shifts to the internet. The Digital era has changed communication, including the internal communication of companies. Organizations today can access various communication tools for reaching and engaging employees, ranging from traditional print publications. Although some companies now use social media for internal communication, many others do not recognize the benefits of using social media tools. Without doubt, social media are essential elements of employee engagement that increases productivity and are the driving forces of community building within the company. Mostly, Social Media is used to enable social interaction and get know more information about others from shared environment. However, that is the way how social media is observed daily, but it can be proceed more further when it comes to personal usage and reach next level, level of professional realization through own, personal marketing strategy.
Sources:
Jordan-Mills A. 7 Big Benefits Of Social Media For Hospitality And Tourism. 1st ed. Social Sites and Written Words Copyright and Consulting, p. 165, 2013. Print.
Seth, Gaurav. Analyzing The Effects Of Social Media On The Hospitality Industry p. 8. 1st ed. Las Vegas: University of Nevada, 2012. Web. 28 Dec. 2017
Kietzmann, Jan H. et al. "Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding The Functional Building Blocks Of Social Media". Business Horizons 54.3 (2011): 243. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.
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