Social media in Hotel AVA's marketing communications
Hartonen, Laura (2013)
Hartonen, Laura
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2013
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2013052410603
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2013052410603
Tiivistelmä
Social media sites and applications have become extensively popular all over the world especially in the past decade. Social networking sites, creating and sharing content as well as reviewing products and services online are all based on the concept of web 2.0 and user generated content that enable the interactive communication online.
Social media has been gaining a crucial position also in marketing communications. Its popularity is based on consumers’ changed views in the aspect of marketing; a lot of information can easily be reached online at any time and by anyone. The fierce product-oriented push-marketing has been somewhat bypassed by consumer concentrated pull-marketing, often referred to as inbound marketing. The most crucial change is that the marketing message should not always be sent out to everyone despite the place and timing, but instead companies should take advantage of the social networking online and assure to be easily reachable when the customer wants to find them in order to get a solution to his/her problem.
The purpose of this thesis is to find out how Hotel AVA, an independent hotel in Helsinki, should be present in social media as a channel of marketing communications. In the beginning of the thesis process the hotel is not present or active in social media. A qualitative research was carried out in order to find out features of the hotel’s customers’ behaviour in social media and to study what could be interesting content to create in social media marketing.
The results suggest that Hotel AVA should create a social media marketing plan in order to be actively present in the online conversation and for gaining a better position in the aspect of inbound marketing. This claim is based on the data analysed about e.g. the popular platforms of social media, hotel guests’ frequency in using social media, reasons to be present in social media and what is perceived as interesting content. Furthermore, it was found out that high appreciation, especially concerning hospitality insdustry, is given to friends’, acquaintances’ and other users’ experiences of products and services, that is discussed in social media platforms.
Social media has been gaining a crucial position also in marketing communications. Its popularity is based on consumers’ changed views in the aspect of marketing; a lot of information can easily be reached online at any time and by anyone. The fierce product-oriented push-marketing has been somewhat bypassed by consumer concentrated pull-marketing, often referred to as inbound marketing. The most crucial change is that the marketing message should not always be sent out to everyone despite the place and timing, but instead companies should take advantage of the social networking online and assure to be easily reachable when the customer wants to find them in order to get a solution to his/her problem.
The purpose of this thesis is to find out how Hotel AVA, an independent hotel in Helsinki, should be present in social media as a channel of marketing communications. In the beginning of the thesis process the hotel is not present or active in social media. A qualitative research was carried out in order to find out features of the hotel’s customers’ behaviour in social media and to study what could be interesting content to create in social media marketing.
The results suggest that Hotel AVA should create a social media marketing plan in order to be actively present in the online conversation and for gaining a better position in the aspect of inbound marketing. This claim is based on the data analysed about e.g. the popular platforms of social media, hotel guests’ frequency in using social media, reasons to be present in social media and what is perceived as interesting content. Furthermore, it was found out that high appreciation, especially concerning hospitality insdustry, is given to friends’, acquaintances’ and other users’ experiences of products and services, that is discussed in social media platforms.