The history of gkv is rich with experience in the travel/tourism category - including destination marketing for major international, national and regional brands, airlines and hotels for whom we have created award-winning work. gkv has helped many brands navigate their multi-constituent, multi-audience marketplaces to generate success throughout our 28 years.

Digital media initiatives are becoming a vital part of marketing plans, which means marketers need to start to learn what works and what doesn’t. We know it’s not about throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks. It’s meant to be an extension of your brand and an opportunity to connect with your consumer. Like any other marketing effort it requires strategy, a defined set of communication goals, business objectives and proper implementation.

What makes the digital world different — specifically social media — is that it is a direct conversation between your brand and the consumer. And thanks to technology, once it is communicated in the digital world it is tough to ignore. A marketing effort in the digital world does not have a dark period; it is constant and needs to be sustainable in order for it to be effective. Simply stated, social media can either work for you or against you.

Throughout a series of blog posts I will be evaluating hotels that have decided to participate in social media. I’m sure you are wondering which hotels I am going to throw under the bus — sorry to disappoint, but this series isn’t going there. Instead, I am going to applaud the hotels that are successfully utilizing social media and have set a standard to follow. It’s not easy to trek into unknown waters and it’s even tougher to do it and receive applause for your bravery.

But let’s be honest, as an account executive my role is to be a brand partner, so I can only be so polite when I see marketing efforts that are created without the brand message in mind. So unpack your bags, get comfortable and enjoy your stay with us.

Why the Hotel Industry?

First, an article from Hotel Interactive confirmed that hoteliers are shifting marketing dollars from offline to online in their 2009 budgets. This is not new information as many companies are entering the digital marketing world. What is interesting is that with the budget shift, Web 2.0 (also commonly referred to as digital media) initiatives were only slated to receive 4% of the funds for 2009, while the ROI of these initiatives are expected to increase 11% from 2008.

Secondly, the hotel industry is an industry based on franchising. Franchisors constantly work at supporting the entrepreneurial spirit of the franchisees, while still maintaining and protecting the brand. The upside to social media is that it presents an individual voice for franchisees and it is a voice that can spread very quickly. The downside is that if franchisees each speak with an individual message then the overall hotel brand message can be lost and potentially damaged.

Finally, the loyalty of a consumer within the hotel industry is based on an individual experience. Aside from price and location, customer service is a huge component. As Marketing Metrix, a customer service research firm, recently stated, “It used to be said that an unhappy customer would tell 3 others about their poor experience; now they tell 3 million (with less effort).” And people are taking this information into consideration before booking a hotel.

What I Looked For

Social media is new and there is a learning curve. However, the principles of marketing are not new and must be remembered even with all the excitement around social media. Although I was not part of the strategic or goal-setting conversation for any of the hotels I reviewed, when I signed into the various social media avenues, I kept the following criteria in mind:

• Clear Communication Goals: easy to know who the intended audience is
• Digital Standard: consistent message, proper logos and taglines
• Ongoing Dialogue: timely conversation between the brand and its intended audience
• Proper Implementation: hotel has an active audience

What I Found

During my initial research, I found that many hoteliers have been bitten by the social media bug. It’s great to see hotels using new ways to create an emotional connection with their consumer.

I am happy to report that I found hotels that are successful in this new social media world. There are hotel brands that are only implementing social media at the corporate brand level with success. There are also hotel brands that have effectively created a space where the corporate brand and the franchisee can exist following the same brand guidelines. Unfortunately, I also found something in between these two areas, where the franchisee messages did not match hotel brand messaging. This makes it appear that a set strategy, overall goals and objectives are missing in the digital world.

Who is protecting the brand? As a brand partner, I wonder if it is that some franchisees are too far removed from the hotel brand. Or is it that the hotel brand is not proactively monitoring franchisee communications?

Stay tuned for future posts about my further research or sign up for my RSS feed.