The Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in the Hotel Industry

Abstract

The unprecedented popularity of social media outlets have forced scholars to inquire about their marketing effectiveness, especially in the hotel industry. This study attempted to explore the marketing effectiveness of two different social media sites (Facebook and Twitter) in the hotel industry. Integrating the attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad) model with the concepts of attitude-toward-social-media-page, the study proposed a theoretical model of hotel social media marketing effectiveness. Based on the data collected from an online survey, the goodness of fit of the model implied that the Aad model provides an appropriate theoretical framework to explain the marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry. The results revealed that hotel customers’ social media experiences influence their attitudes-toward-social-media-site, which in turn influences their attitudes-toward-hotel-brand, and that hotel customers’ attitudes-toward-hotel-brand affects their hotel booking intentions and, in turn, intentions to spread electronic word of mouth. The study also indicated that different social media sites demonstrate the same marketing effectiveness, suggesting that hotel managers use the same marketing tactics for Facebook and Twitter marketing.

Consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from small retailers

“…We investigated if there was a relationship between certain days of the week and higher levels of engagement and analysis revealed no significant difference between levels of engagement and the day of the week on which posts were made. This was a surprising finding and one that is contrary to prior research (Dodds & Danforth, ; Leung, Bai & Stahura, ; Spasojevic, Li, Rao, & Bhattacharyya, ) and indeed to the plethora of advice handed out by digital marketing consultants (e.g. York, ).…”

Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-purchase and purchase amongst Millennials

“…The analysis indicates that Facebook advertising has a positive attitudinal influence on intention-topurchase and purchase among Millennials, although at a marginal level, which supports the communications of the effect pyramid model. These findings are in agreement with a number of authors: Leung et al (2015) revealed that a positive experience with Facebook would lead to a favourable attitude towards the Facebook page, which increased the consumers' intention-to-purchase; Yang (2012) reported that advertising messages provided by Facebook enhances consumers' attitudes towards brand and purchase intentions, while advertising messages that were provided by organisations had a greater impact than those sent by friends; and eMarketer (2012) found that consumers who were exposed to both paid and earned media could assist organisations with purchase consideration and brand liking/preference. These results could also be explained by the fact that Facebook has a diverse range of interactive and elements such as walls newsfeeds, albums, blogs, discussion forums and so forth, which enable organisations to generate relations with consumers.…”

Social Media Marketing: A Literature Review and Implications

“…Attitude toward the brand -Messages on social media contribute to improved attitudes toward the brand, increased word of mouth and customer equity -Positioning the brand post on top of the brand fan page enhances brand post popularity -Vivid and interactive brand post characteristics enhance the number of likes -The share of positive comments on a brand post is positively related to the number of likes -People with different levels of trait reactance respond differently toward the same marketing attempt -Twitter and Facebook seem to be the best means to improve consumer attitudes toward the brand --The time and the number of followers of a brand post are determinant in measuring the post's popularity Cambria, Grassi, Hussain, and Havasi (2012), Chen et al (2015), De Vries et al (2012), Kim and Ko (2012), Lee et al (2015), Lee, Xiong, and Hu (2012), Leung, Bai, and Stahura (2015), Rishika et al (2013), Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian (2012), and Zadeh and Sharda (2014) Influence among consumers -It is more reliable to forecast the influence on individuals through their network of effective communications in social media than through their list of friends -The usefulness of an assessment depends on the characteristics of the message but also on the characteristics of the individual making the assessment -The SVM ranking model can help to determine which users recommend to other users Guo et al (2015), Liu and Park (2015), Qazi et al (2014), and Tang et al (2015) SVM = support vector machine.…”