Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

« Older Entries

Video and Your Marketing Strategy

Monday, May 6th, 2013

People love video, right? Who doesn’t like to sit down at the computer and watch something interesting, informative, entertaining, or inspiring? The truth is, video is spreading like wild fire in the marketing world. Millions of online viewers consume billions of videos every month, and across multiple platforms – desktop, mobile, etc.

The latest market research released by the comScore Video Metrix Service shows that 182.5 million Americans consumed 39.3 billion online content videos in March 2013, alone. Perhaps even more shocking than that number is the number of online video ad views, which topped at 13.2 billion in the same month.

So what does this mean for your marketing strategy? Aside from the obvious, lets take a look at the major benefits of video marketing in the hospitality industry -

1. Complete Visual - Video allows for a descriptive and visual experience that words often times cannot provide.

2. People Watch Video - The numbers above are proof enough that video is massively popular among consumers. Data suggests that video will continue to gain in popularity as time goes on.

3. Video Leads to Purchases - According to data collected by comScore in a separate study, website visitors are 64% more likely to purchase a product online after watching a video.

Keep in mind, video is an evolving medium for delivering information to your consumer. The same principles apply to video that do to content – short and sweet. Video, like printed content, is consumed over multiple different platforms. Get your message across clearly, stick to the point, and be flexible to change.

Posted in Mobile Marketing, Social Media, The Internet, Video | No Comments »

Social Media and Bookings

Monday, March 11th, 2013

The prominent rise of social media has had an impact on the way consumers learn about, research, and even buy a good or service. That holds true in the hospitality industry as well. The evolution of bookings, from a primarily search engine based system, to the newly adopted uses of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, have left hotel marketers with plenty to keep them occupied to keep pace with the changing times.

Why Social Media Works

While users may not be entering their online profiles with travel on their mind, it is the advertising power of Facebook and others like it that has the greatest impact. Facebook, for example, allows advertisers to target in 3 primary ways:

1. News Feed Advertising – Usually located in the center of the News Feed page, these advertisements are not only easy to use and simple, they also appear on one of the most widely viewed web-pages in the world. With over 680 Million views per month, the News Feed page also holds the crown of being the only page that is mobile-friendly to advertisements. According to the 2012 Q4 Reports released by Facebook, users are spending 11 hours and 28 minutes (per user) on the mobile app each month.

2. Right Side Advertising – Simple and easy to use, the Right Hand Side advertisement was the first kind of ad to grace the pages of Facebook. While still popular and greatly useful, Right Side advertisements are more limited and restricted in terms of creative potential.

3. Log Out Advertising – More powerful than one might think, the Log Out advertisement on the Facebook desktop site sees 40% of U.S. traffic on a daily basis. In other words, 40% of active Facebook users are logging out of their profile everyday.

Don’t sleep on social media. With its popularity and possibilities growing everyday, the potential for growth and expansion is limitless.

Posted in Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Marketers Budget More For Email, Mobile, and Social in 2013

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

Fire up the cell phones, 2013 is headed in an “on the go” direction according to recent independent research. A study conducted by StrongMail yielded what we all already know to be true: Mobile marketing and social media are on the rise. In fact, of the one-thousand companies surveyed, 56% said they plan to increase the budget for email and mobile-based marketing, while 52% of companies are planning on investing more into the outreach of social media.

(more…)

Posted in Mobile Marketing, Social Media, The Internet | No Comments »

ResortsandLodges.com All New ‘Been Here’ Button and It’s Importance

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Posted in ResortsandLodges Products, Social Media, The Internet | No Comments »

ResortsandLodges.com Ready to Challenge Market for Social Travel Supremacy

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Online travel pioneers set to release major social update to highly utilized travel research and planning site.

Minneapolis, MN., July 10, 2012   ResortsandLodges.com, a leading world Resort and Lodge destination travel website, today announced it will release its first major update of 2012.  Since 2003, more than 50 Million people have utilized the site to plan and book more than an estimated $1 Billion in room nights direct at Resorts, Hotels, Inns, Bed & Breakfasts and Vacation Rentals listed on ResortsandLodges.com, throughout North America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

There are over 200 individual updates being released by ResortsandLodges.com to the 14 year old leading leisure transient and leisure group travel site.  The development started in late November 2011 and has become the largest, most ambitious release in the company’s history.  Most notably, the next generation travel site will offer its millions of travelers new and easy social layers to connect, share, and enhance their shopping experience like never before.

“Being in the travel space for over 10 years we have seen online travelers demand for information grow leaps and bounds.  There are very few sites that offer the consumer the full experience from initial inspiration, to consumption to sharing.  As a leader in our space, we wanted to offer our loyal audience the perfect travel site,” said Charles Bailey, CEO of TravelNet Solutions, owners of ResortsandLodges.com.

Facebook created an ecosystem around the concept of the “like button”.  ResortsandLodges.com is creating an ecosystem around two primary buttons that span all content across the site.

“We feel “Been Here” and “Wanna Go” are going to be key drivers in our travel planning ecosystem; discover, research, plan, view sharing, book, and finally sharing their own memorable experiences. When someone shares their past travel experiences or future travel plans with their friends and family via the “been here” and “want to go” buttons, coupled with reviews and photos, it will help provide a cleaner, more streamlined, and relatable experience for today’s demanding online traveler,” said Ryan Bailey, President of TravelNet Solutions and ResortsandLodges.com.

Some of the more visible updates include:

Site wide search capability
Customized Location Based Navigation
Dynamic, Filterable Map View
‘Been Here’ and ‘Want To Go’ Button Integration
15 Listings per Accommodation Page (Up from 10 Previously)
Social Recommendations
MySpot Profiles
Badge and Traveler Ranking system
Top 10 Editorial Re-design
Personalized Travel Guides
Re-engineered Travel Inquiry Forms
New property Landing Pages
Social News Feeds in Property Pages
More Visible Direct Website Buttons
Retooled Destination Guides
11 Million New Restaurant Listings
5 Million New Attraction Listings
Dedicated Meeting Lodging Directory
Dedicated Wedding Lodging Directory
Dedicated Family Reunion Lodging Directory
Travel QA
Travel Forums
New Photo Property Photo Galleries
New Filterable Search Options
Trip Planner
Social Recommendation Engine
New Review Engine
Group, Wedding and Meeting Spec Guides
New Landing Page Mapping
Full Site Re-design

“We have an A+ leadership team.  Our vision has always been to build the perfect travel site and the people in our company continue to strive and reach for this goal.  We’ve really transformed our company over the last 12 months and are genuinely excited about the new technology.  It’s a remarkable time to be at ResortsandLodges.com,” continued Charles Bailey.

About ResortsandLodges.com

ResortsandLodges.com® is the most comprehensive online resource for resort and lodge vacations worldwide, serving more than ten million leisure, group and corporate travelers each year. The site provides travelers direct access to original content, colorful photography and high-quality video for resorts, lodges, hotels, motels, inns, bed and breakfasts, ranches, vacation rentals and more. Our easy to use visual maps and filters allow Users to quickly find the information they are looking for when researching, planning and booking their resort and lodge vacations. Founded in 1998, we were one of the first major leisure travel directories established on the Internet. Over the years we have received many awards and accolades for our Web design, outstanding usability, fast page loading speeds, and skillful information display.

Most recently, ResortsandLodges.com® won the WebAward for excellence in Web site design and development from the Web Marketing Association (WMA). We were chosen from among 2,400 entries from more than 40 countries during the WMA’s annual WebAward competition.

Posted in Press Releases, ResortsandLodges Products, Social Media | No Comments »

Social Media Marketing: The Basics

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

What is social media?

Social media is aptly named: it’s any form of online media, in which people can be social. This includes sharing links and photos, discussing opinions and news or just connecting with other people on a social level. In an online article, Ron Jones divides social media into four of the most popular categories:

Social news: These websites offer news articles and the opportunity to vote and/or comment on them. The articles with the highest votes gain more visibility. Examples include Newsvine and Digg.

Social sharing: On these websites, you can create, upload and share photos and videos. Examples include YouTube, Flickr and Snapfish.

Click here to read the rest of this article at the VEM Global™ blog!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Social Media, The Internet, Video | No Comments »

The Social Media Revolution

Monday, September 27th, 2010

If you have read, “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” (I highly recommend this book) then you would know just how instrumental the internet has been for civilization. The author, Thomas Friedman, delves into how globalization impacts practically every aspect of our lives. His book was published in 2005 shortly before the onslaught of social media sites, but I think that this video does an excellent job showing the revolutionary impact they have had in our lives.  Click here to watch this amazing video!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Hoo is Hootsuite?

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, oh my! Who can keep up with it all? We’ve all heard about social media marketing and how it’s free marketing- monetarily, that is. Where you pay the big bucks though, is with your time. The good news is that there are ways to manage multiple social media applications at once and save you sanity and hours. The bad news is that even among these solutions, there are a lot of options. So, I’m going to start with the most popular ones and let you know what my thoughts are from playing around with them. Right now we’ll start with Hootsuite.

Click here to learn more about how Hootsuite can save your sanity!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Mobile Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

« Older Entries