Term Paper on "Use of Social Media"

Term Paper 13 pages (4339 words) Sources: 15 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Social Media

Travel and tourism, a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, with the UK being one of the premier tourist destinations, has constantly relied greatly on endorsement and advertising as platforms for the enormous number of destinations, spots, and vacation selections; hotels, resorts, areas, and countries; challenging for travel business, not to bring up the crowd of carriers, airlines, trains, cruise liners, buses, and other transport vehicles for travellers to those destinations. So imperative is the business that there are whole venues (together with smaller nations) whose financial systems are just about wholly reliant on tourism.

Travel PR in a Digital Age

Just like most other industries, the social media revolution has had a deep impact on the travel and tourism markets; both in terms of advertising (Kayak, LastMinute, Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline) and promotion (holiday websites, online travel media, blogs, chat rooms/forums, YouTube, travel-optimized search engines, social networks, mobile media sharing, e-mail blasts). Viral is the key word. The importance of social media on the advertising of travel is on the whole powerful and rising exponentially. In reality, word-of-mouth in the travel industry is prized as much as conventional advertising or yet editorial coverage.

Social media sites make certain that everybody can be an influencer with an autonomous voice, involved what is now termed as "citizen journalism." every person can send and receive suggestions and travel approvals inside a social media group that contributes to common interests and likes. As soon as social media methods and applications are applied to travel/tourism public relations drives, messages are spread to a bigger and more varied audience. With the help of digital media, customers are given the chance to take a great deal more dynamic approach to devising their upcoming travel decisions (Rusbridger, 2010).

Strong word-of-mouth decisions facilitates by social media underline the task of engaging in discussions with those online communities in addition to conventional media, for the reason that you want to be in the game of recreating critical word-of-mouth. Web 2.0 or social media data signifies that people are paying attention to people like me instead of the third-party authority people. Business and holiday travellers can directly hook up with tourism opportunities straightforwardly by driving into the wide spectrum of social networks on the Web. They can take part in personal conversations online that manipulate decisions (via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter). They can be driven by tourism messages or public relations campaigns additionally, and by advertising employing visually arresting still photographs or films (via YouTube, Flickr). Dedicated search engines such as Kayak and Bing Travel in addition enthusiastically identify competitive products and services from a vast universe of travel and tourism websites. Social networks or micro blogging sites like Twitter allows travellers to self-partition into compatible clusters, just like they do in real life (Davidson, 2009). By talking and appreciating the verbal communication of the online community, travel marketers and advertisers can recognize those areas of particular interest and demographic importance that share individual tourism inclinations, and grow their business practices consequently.

Literature Review

In the pre-social media era, the travel PR expert first and foremost focused on travel writers working for major newspapers, magazines, and wire companies, in addition to the television channels. In the present day, on the other hand, as dailies are vanishing across the UK, the online community has become very important. Travel editors and writers at dozens of daily newspapers in the UK have been discarded, to be reinstated by wire companies and syndicate reports. Several of these correspondents, whose hard work once appeared in the newspapers, are now working for their own web-based travel sites or have joined the blogging community.

Does this signify that conversing public relations promotions through the Internet is more successful than via long-established print publications? The correct response is that they are poles apart. Varied audiences evaluate and scrutinize communications methods in separate ways. Their viewpoints are dissimilar, and there may even be a generation-gap split in their inclinations as well. Whereas print periodicals offer the observations of objective, impartial journalists, a lot of the online communications channels are the views of classic consumers and people like you who are looking to learn more before they purchase their holiday (Seymour et al., 2011). A few travellers have a preference for editorial write-ups that are critiqued by powers that be in the industry; others have a preference the common man reporting of online bloggers and chatting websites. All offer diverse content on dissimilar terms. Readers of print publications furthermore transfer to the online sites of those exact same journals that may have the same, or additional, perspective content and editorial writers. No matter what their working platform, innumerable journalists carry on to write about and report on travel; and that shows that they want to be well-versed and knowledgeable about accessible tourism promotions (Davidson, 2009). One typical, respected method uses press adaptation visits and tours, where journalists are brought over to the destinations as guests to visit a locations or property; either independently or in groups. A rising section of big, well-regarded newspapers and journals have forbidden their writers from taking such free trips in order to protect editorial veracity, and this development continues. In the meantime, the ferocious rivalry among holiday locations asks for marketing and advertising methods that are more imaginative and specific than ever before. However, the augmentation of the Internet and the phasing out of the travel agent's power means clients have higher control over the travel range and booking procedure. Looking for travel packages on the Internet has grown considerably; producing a chance for much larger direct-to-client social media promotions and campaigns.

Social media

Godes & Mayzlin, (2004) contend that many internal communicators still resist using social media networks such as Facebook for collaborative projects, because of a lack of a demonstrable business case. He identifies four possible 'gateways' which practitioners can consider: staff directories, user group forums, video library and project wikis. Davidson, (2009) suggests that employee profiles and resumes uploaded on Facebook, for example, may be used by colleagues setting up a virtual team, identifying who to interview in another location, or looking for a mentor. User group forums, on the other hand, allow companies to listen and receive customer and client feedback immediately. The difference with customer hotlines is that user group forum members can 'defend' the company from unjustified complaints from other members. Video libraries are compilations of all corporate videos, stored on the company server. Wright predicts that internal communicators might end up running their own company web TV channels (Seymour et al., 2011). Wikis are ideal for collaborative projects because team members can contribute and edit work via the web. Curran, (2011) however, thinks that the biggest challenge is encouraging staff to use them.

Establishing connections with clients, customers or consumers to promote positive word of mouth in the vast, invisible networks that exist between all of us can seem a complicated business. But it doesn't have to be. Just as with any marketing campaign, it begins with product or brand differentiation. You then research the word of mouth that's already taking place. Next, decide if you need to use a tactical approach (such as a campaign that uses contagious communication), or a more strategic plan that will manage the relationship with the most influential buyers in your market. Better yet, go holistic and integrate both.

Either way, remember to set objectives so your efforts are measurable, and make sure you have the right people with the right skills to implement your connected marketing strategy. And that's it. Of course, there is a little more to it in reality (Trusov, et. al, 2009).

Methodology

In January 2011, Informative conducted a study designed to answer these questions. One thousand people who had flown on a named group of UK domestic airlines - EasyJet, British Airways, RyanAir, BMI, Flybe, Manx2 and Hebridean Air Services - during the previous year were surveyed on their flying habits and their recommendation activities. Data was collected on their elite flying status, standard demographics, online check-in and boarding pass experience, and recommendation behaviour. Respondents were first asked whether negative or positive comments have a bigger impact on their purchase decisions.

Which of these would have the greater impact on your decision to fly or not to fly with an airline?

* a positive comment from a friend or acquaintance on Facebook or Twitter about their flying experience with that airline

* a negative comment for a friend or acquaintance on Facebook or Twitter about their flying experience with that airline

People were roughly split on their perception of the impact on their flying choices of positive and negative comments.

54% reported that positive comments on Facebook or Twitter by an acquaintance had a greater impact on their decision to fly with a particular airline, and 46% believed that negative comments had greater impact. In general, the social media marketing community tends to focus on the value of positive buzz as a potential driver of customer acquisition… READ MORE

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