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Social Network Marketing
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There are several ways in which the social networking application Twitter is being currently used by companies from the travel sector.
This usage can be for engagement, news and information, sales and customer service. Twitter is described as an instant, efficient and modern way of interacting with a customer.
From a hotel’s perspective, Michael Perhaes, Assistant VP Marketing, MGM Grand, says every travel organisation needs a presence on Twitter, and a strategy built on both customer engagement and RoI via tactical offers.
“Social media is eating into the efficacy of email marketing and will soon supplant email as a primary communication device; we are already seeing evidence of this on Facebook and our hotel is preparing accordingly. We have dedicated social media staff; we include Facebook and Twitter URLs in all of our marketing communications, and actively enlist followers and fans,” said Perhaes, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference.
He added, “This is the first, true two-way marketing communication channel. While we can still “push” offers in a manner similar to email (Twitter Thursdays), the social media channels allow customer feedback and content contribution.”
Special campaigns
Hotels, too, have come up with special campaigns to use Twitter. For instance, last year in September, Travelodge became the first British budget hotel brand to begin communicating with its customers through the social messaging service Twitter. The hotel chain decided to use the online portal to interact with its customers and inform them of new offers, hotel openings and job opportunities. Since over 85 percent of Travelodge reservations are conducted via the web and with such a strong online following, the company felt it makes sense to interact with its customers via Twitter.
Travelodge identified that this move enable the company to instantly tell its followers about the latest offers, new Travelodge openings and keep them updated on general company news.
Perhaes says his company views Twitter as both an adjunct to email marketing efforts and a useful customer communication tool.
“Our Twitter followers recently reached 15k, allowing us to expect reasonable response rates when we push exclusive offers to our followers. Like most hotels, we extract information by listening to our followers and fans, respond directly when appropriate, or indirectly via the respective department impacted by a comment or thread, positive and negative (food & beverage, reservations, housekeeping, etc.), he said.
The company also sees customers tweeting about the property. “It provides us with another angle on customer feedback, a fly-on-the-wall observation, if you will. This runs straight into the space carved out by sites like TripAdvisor but with a lot more credibility.”
Attractive deals
Late last year, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) chose to “tweet” nearly one million Priority Club points redeemable for hotel nights, retail gift cards, electronics and more during the hotel group’s December Tweet Away promotion. It was done for 31 days that led up to the new year 2010. IHG invited consumers to follow its hotel deals via its Twitter account.
One of the main reasons behind IHG’s decision for this initiative was the fact that travellers have been on look-out for hotel deals and value-added packages.
And by following IHG_Deals on Twitter, the company gave travellers a chance to be among the first to hear about the deals in a fun and engaging way.
In another development, Inoqo (in-OH-ko) introduced its Twitter-based hotel booking engine, targeting travellers who are seeking urgent hotel accommodation. For travellers with last-moment accommodation requirements, Inoqo only publishes hotel packages available within the next 48 hours. All offers are for check-in within 48 hours.
Responsibility
On how should companies go about setting up a team or structure for usage of Twitter, Perhaes said it depends on the complexity of the organisation.
“We have a one full time specialist overseeing our social media ecosphere, who works closely with Hotel Operations, F&B and Marketing teams to craft offers, Tweet relevant, engaging information and keep our channels properly aligned,” shared Perhaes.
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Viral marketing is a low cost marketing technique used to produce impressive results such as improving brand visibility and building public awareness regarding one’s product or company. Due to its many advantages, viral advertising has become an extremely powerful and popular method of advertising.
Use Viral Content to Market Your Business
Viral marketing is an ethical Internet marketing strategy by which a marketer creates a campaign to spread your business message. Usually, a viral campaign consists of passive as well as interactive components including video clips, images, music tracks, podcasts, interactive Flash games and text messages.
Market your online business through viral channels. As part of the viral campaign, create viral content that is easy to understand, spread and share. Utilize the most popular existing social networks including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Dig, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Technorati and other online resources for spreading viral content among a targeted audience.
Key Advantages of Viral Marketing
Viral content has great marketing potential and will help you achieve exponential business growth. When using this powerful tool to your advantage, you can achieve various marketing objectives:
• Announce your website’s existence
• Improve your rankings on search engines
• Generate a steady flow of traffic
• Increase awareness of your brand or business
• Increase sales
• Increase advertising revenues
• Improve customer retention
• Earn a positive reputation
• Generate inbound links
Take Advantage of Viral Marketing Opportunities for Your Online Business
If you wish to improve brand visibility with viral marketing, just get in touch with an online advertising solution provider, who can offer smart and appealing viral solutions to enhance your brand recognition. These providers offer excellent online marketing services including consultation services for strategic viral marketing, planning, designing and development of marketing plans, content development and lots more to achieve positive long term results.
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Need another sign that social games are big business? A new report suggests that Zynga, the publisher of games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars could be worth more than $3 billion — more than half that of Electronic Arts ($5.4 billion).
With a monthly active user audience of about 230 million just on Facebook, Zynga is “one of the largest developers of social entertainment widgets and games,” says the report from Next Up! Research and SharesPost, an online service for trading shares of private companies.
Thanks to expected compound annual growth of 35% until 2014, the analysts estimated Zynga’s value at $2.8 billion to $3.3 billion with a projected share price of $14.97 to $17.68. (There has been rumblings that Zynga is poised to go public.)
The report notes that five Zynga games — FarmVille, Café World, Texas HoldEm Poker, FishVille and Mafia Wars — rank among the top 10 Facebook apps. And Zynga has a “significant presence” on sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Tagged, Yahoo and iPhone.
Analyst Michael Pachter with Wedbush Morgan Securities says that even though “nobody but Zynga knows enough about the company’s revenue, margins and growth trajectory to have an informed opinion about what the company is worth” he considers it “reasonable to believe a high value for the company.”
A $3.3 billion valuation, he says, “would suggest sustainable cash flow of $200 million or more. Clearly, Zynga isn’t there yet, as their revenues are probably only a tad above that level, and they incur costs to generate those revenues. Yet, it’s possible to come up with that value if the company can show a path to $200 million in annual cash flow, or higher. If we accept that Zynga will have much higher revenues in a few years (highly likely), and assume that the incremental margin on revenue growth is very high (also highly likely), it’s easy to see how they could get to $200 million in free cash flow at a realistic $500 million revenue level, and how they could get there in a few years.”
The report projects revenue of $460 million this year, increasing to $1.1 billion in 2014.
Other notes from the report:
Zynga’s user base has increased from 30 million in April 2009 to 228 million in January 2010.
Only 2% or 3% of users spend money on Zynga games and less than 1% consistently purchase virtual goods. Zynga makes nearly 40% of its revenue from those sales. Other revenue sources include in-game advertisements and marketing offers.
Upcoming Facebook changes could affect Zynga’s apps. Next month, Facebook is expected to adjust its notification policy for games, something that could “affect Zynga in unintended ways.” The report notes a Facebook change in July 2008 that turned off viral components for the Super Wall application. As a result, average daily users fell from 2.4 million to 0.6 million in a month. Currently, Super Wall users number 0.3 million average daily users.
Next Up! Research made news in November with its evaluation of Twitter, estimating it at perhaps half that of its popularly held $1.1 billion valuation. Next Up! also estimated Facebook at roughly $5 billion-to-$6.5 billion, compared to some estimates of up to $14 billion.
Source:http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/02/value-of-social-game-company-zynga-perhaps-more-than-3-billion/1
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Microsoft has recently enhanced its Office suite by adding new social media features. It has announced the availability of Outlook Social Connector on LinkedIn.
The Outlook Social Connector is a set of new features that bring together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook.
With the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector, users would be able to connect colleagues network and get updates through email.
In his blog, Dev Balasubramanian, product manager, Microsoft Outlook said, “ What we think users will appreciate is that the Outlook Social Connector doesn’t add another professional or social network into the mix.”
“The Outlook Social Connector does offer busy people, who are already a part of one or several networks, convenience – not confusion,” he added.
Microsoft is also planning to extend this platform over Facebook and MySpace.
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