Social Media - Coursework Example

Social Media Table of Contents Introduction 3 Challenged tensions social media presents on s and hotels 4 Conclusion 7 Reference list 8 Bibliography 10 Introduction The world has encountered phenomenal growth in social media usage over the few decades. It has become the most important part of every individual’s life. It is observed that, about 400 million users spend an average of six million minutes on the most popular social networking site, Facebook, every day (Chan and Guillet, 2011). They also upload two million pieces of blogs, news and reviews every week. This indicates the fact that the users have changed their way of communication and gathering information from the traditional methods such as electronic mails and newspaper (McCarthy, Stock and Verma, 2010). Presently, they prefer to get information from the social media sites and also share their views regarding particular news. Hence, it can be stated that the introduction of Web 2.0 has allowed unlimited amount of activities that an individual can perform in the internet (Bernoff, 2008). In light of the above discussion, use of social media has increased in every sector however; the hospitality industry is trying to cope up with the latest trend in the internet (Laudon and Traver, 2010). The hospitality industry in the UK are concerned how to overcome the challenges that are imposed by the social media and engage the customers in becoming their guest and share experience at their hotels (McCarthy, Stock and Verma, 2010). The UK hotels have succeeded in acquiring customers through the virtual networks but have failed to establish a good relationship because of a number of issues. There are a number of issues, which appeared to be the challenges that hotels need to overcome so that they can employ the social media successful. This issues pertaining to social media in the UK hospitality industry are critically evaluated in the essay. Challenged tensions social media presents on customers and hotels Neslin et al. (2006) stated that the increased usage of social media in the hospitality industry has developed both opportunities and challenges for the hotels and customer. With the passage of time and advancement in technology, the behavior of the guest had changed to a great extent. Giving emphasis on this, the main focus of the hoteliers was on exceeding the expectations of the guests and satisfy them, this helped the hotels to develop competitive advantage (Sigala, 2012). In a competitive market like the UK, the hospitality industry has undergone changes due to the modifications in the behaviors of the customers and their mode of communications. The new technologies and information systems have helped in empowering the hotels with innovative methods of satisfying the customers. In UK the hospitality industry have succeeded in acquiring customers by using the social media networks extensively; however, the potential of social media is still questionable in this industry as there are several issues, which must be taken into consideration. The issues are discussed henceforth with the help of opinions of different authors regarding the use of social media by the hospitality industry. McGurie (2012) had stated that application of social media in the UK hospitality industry by using networks such as Facebook, in order to interview the respondents, are dangerous for few reasons. Firstly, if few respondents provide negative comments regarding the services and ambience of a hotel, then the customers of that hotels decreases to a great extent as they looses interest after reading the reviews (Turner and Shah, 2011). Secondly, the social media have the ability to build a community, where the customers speak regarding their experience. This community is not controlled by the hotel authority, instead this is individual groups from where a lot of reviews are obtained that gives emphasis on the satisfaction level of the customers. This review thus helps the readers to know about the services, food quality and other facilities at hotel and make their decision accordingly (Palmer, 2005). Wharton (2012) had identified the efficiency of the UK hotels in employing the social media for their business purpose. The author had stated that the hotels should concentrate on the Trip advisors rather than focusing on their competitor’s action. They should aim at acquiring customers through the Trip advisor and thus reduce the effort to minimal by finding them, rather than concentrating on pool of targets (i.e. customers). The trip advisors provide travel and tourism opinions to the online customers and thus the hotels should devise strategies to contact these customers through the advisors. This aims at improving the efficiency of the hotels in attracting customers and satisfies them to the fullest (Wharton, 2012). According to Holt (2012) innovation played an important role with respect to growth of hotel and its profitability. However, it is identified by him that social media has failed to incorporate technology innovation in their plans. This lack in producing innovative plans for the social media coverage, the hotels have not been able to exploit the opportunity. Apart from that, Danaher and Rossiter (2011) had identified that hotels prefer to use social media not only to give information pertaining to their services and food quality but also for the exciting packages. These packages are meant for the customers, who chose to stay at their hotels for a period of time. They are tempted by the exciting offers that the hotels post on the social media sites. This influences the online customers to make a decision regarding the stay. The main issues, which are encountered by the customers after they book to stay in the hotels, related to the services and facilities. Both of them are vital for satisfying the customer. Hence, if the customers do not get the facilities, which the hotels have promised, then they are discontent (Holt, 2012). They feel that the advertisements have duped them with scintillating offers and packages. This highlights the fact that social media can leave negative impact on the customers. This is a vital challenge for the hotels in the UK and they need to work on them in order to improve the facilities and service (Miller, Fabian and Lin, 2009). One of the major issues of using social media is that it is a very time consuming process. The hoteliers have to maintain the Facebook page regularly so as to update the new exciting offers and link the needs of the customers so as to keep them interested in the page. They have to monitor the comments and reviews that are given by the customers regarding their services (Lee and Kozar, 2006; Huang, Lurie and Mitra, 2009). If they do not reply to the comments, the customers develop the conception that the hotels are guilty for the issues. This has negative impact on the reputation of the hotel, which may influence the number of customers not to select the hotels. The time consuming process not only needs additional employees to answer back the response but also a supervisor, who will review the responses that are given by the employees. This adds up to the cost of the hotel and has the ability to affect the business negatively (Danaher and Rossiter, 2011; Inversini and Buhalis, 2009; Xiang and Gretzel, 2009). Steinman and Hawkins (2010) had indentified that companies should have the ability to protect their copyrights and trademarks while employing social media in order to promote the brands. In light of this, it can be stated that the hotels should protect their trademark while advertising in the social media regarding their facilities and services. According to the authors, the trademark is as valuable as the products and services that are served by the companies (Riegner, 2007). The social media has helped the hotels to communicate with the population in the UK on real time basis but it has the ability to generated third party abuse, which is related to their copyrights and trademarks. When the hotels use social media either through third party outlet or its own platform, they should maintain and monitor these networks in order to assure that content posted through their sites are not mishandling the intellectual property of the hotels. Social media have the ability to harm the reputation of the hotels if the posts and reviews are remained unchecked, it does not provide a positive indicator for success of the hotels (Miller, Fabian and Lin, 2009). Conclusion Social media have provided a wide opportunity to the global industries to educate the population regarding their products and services. It has also helped the industries in attracting customers and to increase the revenue. The same behaviour is noticed in the hospitality industry in the UK. The industry had grown remarkably over the years and has employed social media as the mode of communication with the customers. However, it is noticed there are many disadvantages in using social media in the hospitality industry. The first and the foremost reason is that it can provide negative feedback to the customers and can affect the reputation before the world. The hoteliers have to maintain and monitor the pages regularly so as to reply to the queries and responses that are provided by the customers; hence it is a time consuming process. It also adds up to the cost of the hotels as it needs additional employees to supervise the whole conservation between the hotel and customers. Hence, it can be concluded that social media has not only brought new channel for communication to the hotels but it has also presented many challenges. Reference list Andrlic, B. and Ruzic, I., 2010. Effect of e-marketing on consumer behavior in hospitality. Zbornik Radova Tourism & Hospitality Industry, pp. 292-706. Bernoff, J., 2008. Will corporate clients be the real winners in web 2.0? Marketing News, 42(12), p. 14. Chan, N. L. and Guillet, B.D., 2011. Investigation of Social Media Marketing: How Does the Hotel Industry in Hong Kong Perform in Marketing on Social Media Websites? Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 28, pp. 345–368. Danaher, P.J and Rossiter, J.R., 2011. Comparing Perceptions of Marketing communication Channels. European Journal of Marketing, 45(1/2), pp. 6 - 42. Holt, K., 2012. Innovation Strategy Key For Future Success. [online] Available at: < http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Article/8894/Innovation-strategy-key-for-future-success > [Accessed 19 January 2015]. 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