The Developments of Social Media and Mobile Technology on Hospitality Business

There are various social media channels and mobile technologies that offer a platform for businesses in the hospitality industry to market their products and services. These channels offer technologies that facilitate online functionality that businesses can use to develop services for customer satisfaction (Kaplan, 2012). Thus, businesses in the hospitality industry can use social media channels and mobile technologies to engage with customers directly and recognize their needs hence build stronger relationships with them. They can interact with the customers before, during, and after they have used one or more of their products or services (Kaplan, 2012). Though it is a relatively new thing as compared to other media, there are many advantages of social media to businesses (Evans, 2012). It is affordable and has many users thus has the potential of spreading brand awareness quickly. Additionally, it can develop link baits and provide massive amounts of traffic. Therefore, social media and mobile technologies provide businesses in the hospitality industry with an opportunity of promoting their brands, engage with customers, and improve customer satisfaction that results in overall improvement of their business processes.

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The increased popularity of the internet and mobile phones has resulted in the tremendous growth of social media over the past few years. The growth has, in turn, led to many organizations using social media channels for their public relations and marketing campaigns and interactions with customers (Evans, 2012). They proactively use social media as a means of reaching millions of repeat and prospective customers. Many companies nowadays consider social media an inexpensive marketing tool that allows efficient communication between the business and the clients thus giving the latter the freedom that they have so much desired (Zarrella, 2009). Clients now have the ability to reach and express their views about a particular product or service offered by a company. Thus, social media has become a channel that encourages interaction between the company and the consumers (Evans, 2010). Apart from being a marketing tool, it is an essential platform that allows companies to address the problems and concerns of customers more effectively hence allows them to build their brand.

Other than social media, mobile technologies have also become one of the most popular ways for companies to reach target markets. Though mobile technology is relatively young, it has evolved rapidly thus becoming inseparable from how people go about their daily routines (Martin, 2011). Business and marketers have seen the tremendous opportunities offered by this technology and have done everything to come up with marketing strategies tailored to utilize the mobile technology efficiently. Some of these marketing strategies involve responsive web design, integration of payment systems such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet to their terminals, location-based advertising, and building mobile applications to provide certain services to customers (Fritz et al., 2017). Whatever the strategy, mobile technologies have allowed businesses to generate a higher return on investment on their marketing strategies and better communication and engagement with their customers.

Literature Review

Introduction

Many organizations have integrated social media into their marketing plans. Such a move has resulted in these organizations infusing a mix of public relations, sales promotion, and advertisement to come up with a customer focused image aimed at meeting the demands of the customers (Tuten and Solomon, 2014). The evolution of platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube has given businesses in the hospitality industry exceptional access to the client. Since anyone with Internet connectivity can access social media, it is a platform that is particularly useful for businesses in the hospitality industry to increase their brand awareness as well as facilitate direct engagement with the customers. Businesses that understand the advantages of social media know that these platforms have become essential in improving business operations in a marketplace that has become very competitive and majorly online driven (Tuten and Solomon, 2014). Mobile technology, on the other hand, has also been an effective tool for businesses to interact with their customers. It offers businesses and marketers a wide range of options for reaching millions of customers and provide them with the right message at the right time. As people continue to spend more time on mobile devices, creative marketers get an opportunity to reach a wider audience thus leading to the success of various businesses (Fritz et al., 2017). Therefore, just like social media platforms, mobile technologies offers businesses an opportunity to engage with their customers and provide services that would result in customer satisfaction.

Social Media

Social media is a combination of several internet tools that allow users to generate, modify, and exchange content continuously. As of the third quarter of 2016, the online social networking site Facebook had approximately 1.79 billion active users (Statista, 2016). At the same period, users uploaded about 300 hours of video per minute on YouTube (Donchev, 2017). Apart from an increase in the number of users and time spent on Facebook and YouTube, there was also an increase in the number of users and tweets sent on Twitter. According to (Internetlivestats.com, n.d.), users send an average of 6000 tweets per second. These figures show that social media has become a popular method of interaction and that it is here to stay.

A huge contributing factor to the increased popularity of social media is the tremendous growth of the number of people who own cell phones hence resulting in easy access to the internet (Cader and Al Tenaiji, 2013). Therefore, it is apparent that businesses today cannot ignore the tremendous potential of social media and how it can improve their brand as well as their relationships with clients. In the past, consumers used to rely on the publicized information of a company to make decisions. Usually, this meant that consumers did not receive all the necessary information about a company since the marketing and public relations managers of these companies used to selectively convey the information that portrayed positive characteristics of the company (Evans, 2010). However, with the advent of social media, more people take into consideration the opinions of other customers of a particular business. According to Tuten and Solomon (2014), people nowadays rely heavily on social media reviews made by others rather than blindly trusting the information provided by commercially driven institutions such as advertisers and news broadcasting agencies. Therefore, social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube can greatly help a business to build and maintain a huge base of loyal customers.

Difference between Social Media and Traditional Media

The main difference between social media and traditional media is on the basis of user participation. Just like traditional media, companies use social media to reach out to consumers and provide them with necessary information. However, it is only in social media that consumers have the freedom of expressing their views about a particular product or service that a company offers (Hollensen, 2015). Therefore, while traditional media ensures that customers are well informed of a companys products and services, social media goes a step further as it keeps customers engaged in the whole process. The engagement and involvement of customers eventually result in lasting working relationships with businesses. As compared to traditional media, it has become clear that social media leads to increased customer support since it is very personal and interactive.

The differences between social media and traditional media can be considered in terms of cost, accuracy, trust, and feedback. When it comes to cost, social media marketing is the affordable option (Hollensen, 2015). A company can pay only a fraction of the price it would have paid when using traditional media to reach the same number of people or even more. The next aspect is accuracy of which social media surpasses traditional media by far. Unlike traditional media, companies can use social media to target specific audiences hence giving them an idea of how specific they can do their marketing (Evans, 2012). When it comes to trust, customers have a higher likelihood of trusting social media than traditional media. The reason for this is that traditional marketing usually forces an opinion on customers while social media marketing cultivates trust over time by providing customers with all the information they need before they can purchase a particular product or service. Finally, social media marketing allows companies to obtain feedback from their customers and make the necessary adjustment to meet their needs (Evans, 2012). Switching from traditional marketing techniques to social media marketing will, therefore, have significant positive impacts on most businesses.

Social Media and Marketing

Today, social media plays an important part in any aspect of a business that has to communicate with clients directly. Whether it is marketing, public relations, branding or customer service, social media plays a critical role. However, before venturing into this area, many businesses ask themselves whether the returns on investment will be worth the effort. According to Leung et al. (2015), approximately 90 percent of businesses in the hospitality industry are using social media as a marketing tool. The main goal of this venture is to increase brand awareness and promote direct interaction with customers. Social media marketing concepts consist of five aspects (Tuten and Solomon, 2014). These are increasing brand awareness of products and services, increasing sales, improving customer service, educating and informing customers, and monitoring brand reputation. Social media marketing provides great visibility and awareness for a particular brand which is essential in converting potential customers into loyal customers. The main thing that businesses need to do is to create thematic content that will result in an effective marketing campaign.

Social Media and Hospitality Industry

The features of social networking sites possess unique implications for business in the hospitality industry. The sites offer a platform for a system that customers can use to rate various products and services of a particular company. In turn, this will allow the company to generate, monitor, and evaluate their image and reputation. Online consumer reviews are one of the key determinants of the choice of a consumer in selecting the appropriate hotel or travel destination (Leung et al., 2015). This has resulted in most businesses in the hospitality industry to perceive online consumer-generated content as highly credible hence doing everything they can to improve their products or services to meet the needs of the customer.

When businesses participate in social networking, then they have direct contact with active users. Furthermore, the accessibility and appealing platforms of most social media sites strengthen the interaction and engagement between the businesses and the clients. It is therefore not surprising to see many businesses in the hospitality industry proactively interacting with customers through the use of innovative and customized social media solutions that meet the needs of the client (Leung et al., 2015). The clients, on the other hand, benefit since they are a...