Department of Business Administration
Title: Social media framework for the destination Usedom:
How to create awareness and dialogue by using social media for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre
Author: Susanne Stuebs
15 credits
Thesis
Study programme in
Master of Business Administration in Marketing Management
Master of Business Administration in Marketing Management
HIG – Högskolan i Gävle/ University of Gävle
Degree Programme: Master of Business Administration in Marketing Management.
Title Social media framework for the destination Usedom:
How to create awareness and dialogue by using social media for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre
Level Final Thesis for Master of Business Administration in Marketing Management
Address University of Gävle Department of Business Administration 801 76 Gävle
Sweden
Telephone (+46) 26 64 85 00 Telefax (+46) 26 64 85 89
Web site www.hig.se
Author Susanne Stuebs
Date October 2009
Supervisor Maria Fregidou-Malama Commissioned by
Keywords social media, online marketing, new media, trust-marketing, permission-marketing, holistic marketing, destination marketing
ABSTRACT
Purpose – Target of this study is to develop a social media framework, the essential
“ingredient” for a social media concept for the destination Usedom. The following question is in the centre of this investigations attention: How to create awareness and dialogue by using Social Media for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre that will be open 2011?
Methodology/approach – Mainly, an observational approach as research method is used to answer the research question, collecting empirical data not by questioning respondents, but by observing different forms of activity. Writing about social media, to use the Internet for observational research is natural and can be further enhanced due to the accessibility and retrieval of information and cross-validation of the information available from several sources.
Findings – Social media marketing eliminates the middlemen and provides destinations with the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers. In today’s knowledge-society where
• people want to engage – want to be active – want to create content on their own
• people talk: online and offline - positive or negative – with or without the destination NOT participating is NO option. In case of the isle of Usedom, the Social media concept should be of listening and outreach character. As a holistic marketing approach where
“everything matters” is needed for destinations, online and offline activities need each other.
In addition to social media marketing even search engine optimisation, ad words and target mails are important tools for a successful online strategy.
Research limitations/implications – Most important is the time limitation. The validity period is limited. A Social Media framework of today is not the social media framework of the future. Social media is changing rapidly. New channels appear - others disappear.
Moreover, another limitation is the subjectivity: the author of this study observes the Internet in accordance to the research question and allocates a sample pursuant to her knowledge and experience.
Practical implications – Aside from the destinations’ website being adapted by social media elements, Facebook serves as ideal tool to nurture relationships between the customer and the destination by being creative, honest and assessing competitors as partners. As one of the easiest and most versatile social networks for professionals today, Facebook is a profile and presence aggregator, channelling all online activity through one main hub and combining almost every online social tool that can be used.
Originality/value – Targeting the destination Usedom, but also being applicable for other German tourist destinations, this study provides both: a theoretical and with ideas filled framework to create awareness and dialogue by using social media as complement to traditional marketing activities. Being the first investigation that has been done for the destination Usedom in the field of social media, this study aims to inspire other tourist destinations as well as students to learn about social media and to further investigate in this field.
Keywords - Social media, online marketing, new media, trust-marketing, permission- marketing, holistic marketing, destination marketing
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... III TABLE OF CONTENTS ...V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ... VI LIST OF FIGURES ... VI
1 INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 PRESENTATIONOFTHECASE ... 2
1.2 AIM,STRUCTURE&RESEARCHQUESTIONS ... 3
1.3 BACKGROUNDOFTHEAUTHOR&MOTIVATION ... 4
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & DATA COLLECTION ... 5
2.1 CLASSIFICATION OF RESEARCH METHODS ... 5
2.2 APPLIED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & DATA COLLECTION ... 6
2.3 RELIABILITY & VALIDITY ... 8
3 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK ... 9
3.1 HOLISTIC MARKETING ... 9
3.1.1 Destination Marketing ... 10
3.1.2 Marketing Channels ... 12
3.1.2.1 Offline: Old Media ... 12
3.1.2.2 Online: New (digital) Media ... 13
3.2 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AS PART OF THE HOLISTIC MARKETING CONCEPT ... 13
3.2.1 What is Social media Marketing?... 13
3.2.2 Dialogue – Where? Social Media channels & groupings ... 17
3.2.2.1 Social platforms ... 19
3.2.2.2 Social content ... 21
3.2.2.3 Social interaction ... 24
3.2.3 People, people, people – WHO talks? ... 24
3.2.4 Influence & measurement ... 26
3.2.4.1 Content ... 27
3.2.4.2 Relevance ... 29
3.2.4.3 Impact ... 29
4 EMPIRICAL DATA ... 30
4.1 NUMBERS COUNTS:STATISTICS & TRENDS ... 30
4.1.1 Social Media in Germany ... 33
4.1.2 Social Media in tourism in Germany... 36
4.2 MARKETINGOFTHEDESTINATIONUSEDOMTODAY ... 39
4.2.1 Offline ... 40
4.2.2 Online ... 42
4.2.2.1 Usedom.de as part of the holistic marketing concept ... 43
4.2.2.2 Online Starfish – web presence of the destination Usedom ... 44
5 ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION ... 48
5.1 STATEMENTOFOPPORTUNITY ... 48
5.2 USEDOMSTARFISH–FRAMEWORK ... 49
5.3 USEDOM STARFISH – FILLED WITH IDEAS ... 52
5.4 NEXT STEPS – PRACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS ... 55
6 CONCLUSION ... 57
6.1 THE ANSWERED QUESTIONS ... 57
6.2 REFLEXION & SUGGESTIONS ... 63 APPENDIX ... VII REFERENCES... XIV BOOKS ... XIV MAGAZINES/ DOCUMENTS ... XV INTERNET SOURCES ... XVI
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CGM Consumer generated media
IAB Interactive Advertising Bureau
Marcom Marketing communication
N/A Not available
SEM Search Engine Marketing
SEO Search Engine Optimisation
UGC User generated content
UTG Usedom Tourismus GmbH
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1: Research techniques related to the study´s research questions FIGURE 2: The social feedback cycle
FIGURE 3: Diversity of the social media landscape stressed by Namechk FIGURE 4: Social Media Groupings
FIGURE 5: Forrester’s Technographic Ladder
FIGURE 6: Metrics in connection to the Social feedback cycle FIGURE 7: Media Evolution
FIGURE 8: Forrester Research Report
FIGURE 9: Google Search “Reisetipps Usedom”
FIGURE 10: Ranking of social media elements for a destinations’ website in Germany FIGURE 11: Ranking of social media elements for a destinations’ web presence in
Germany
FIGURE 12: Specific social media platforms in tourism in Germany FIGURE 13: Social media architecture
FIGURE 14: Framework for Usedom’s web presence
1 INTRODUCTION
"No matter what I hear, read, or find on TV, Radio, or in a magazine or newspaper, I can verify it on the Internet" - a consumer quoted by Forrester Research, an independent technology and market research company.1
This hit the bull’s eye. Marketing has changed: From push to pull – from monolog to dialog. This shift is further underlined by the compilation below comparing traditional marketing and social media marketing. The differences in the sender-receiver relationship:
the dialogue between sender and receiver, the form of advertising: from shouting out loud to listen, and whispering with the aim to create viral effects, but also to pull in people with the company´s message/story highlights these trend-setting changes.
Traditional Marketing
= OLD MEDIA
Social Media Marketing
= NEW MEDIA
Shout Out Loud Listen, and then Whisper
Me, Me, Me Us, Us, Us
PUSH the Product or Service PULL in People with the company’s message/story Advertising Word of Mouth of the Internet, viral
Control Allow
Nurture “Leads” Nurture Relationships
PR1.0: Content is king PR2.0: Dialogue is king
Interruptive Permission/invited guest – the company have to earn it
This shows the change of marketing. However, social media marketing is not a substitute for traditional marketing. Social media marketing has to be seen as a complement. Social media is an accompaniment to existing awareness & point of purchase campaigns. Old Media and New Media need each other. Consequently, when starting a new business or market a (new) product or service social media has to be part of the holistic marketing concept.
Target of this work is to develop a social media framework, the essential “ingredient” for a social media concept for the German island of Usedom as part of the holistic marketing
1 Evans, Dave, Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day, Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008, p.
326.
strategy for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom visitor centre that will be open in 2011. The following question is in the centre of this study´s attention: How to create awareness and dialogue by using social media for the destination Usedom taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre?
1.1 PRESENTATIONOFTHECASE
Usedom is a German Baltic Sea island on the border to Poland. The island is with 42 km long white sandy beaches, five piers and special seaside resort architecture among Germany’s most popular tourist destinations. Moreover, 18 certificated wellness hotels, 150 km hiking trails and with 1,906 sunshine hours, Germany’s sunniest island stress Usedom’s popularity.
However, the destination also has weaknesses such as lacking bad weather alternatives. That is why a feasibility study for the new visitor attraction, the Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre is developed. Initiator is the tourism association of the isle of Usedom. This association is responsible for the long-term strategically development of the destination. Emanating from the association, in the beginning of 2006, the Usedom Tourismus GmbH (UTG), responsible for the marketing of the destination Usedom, was founded. Main goals of the UTG are to increase overnight stays on the island, to improve the image of Usedom as well as to enlarge the tourism network as sustainable development is only possible with a good network, which bundles resources.2To increase overnight stays, the acquisition of “new customers” is in the centre of attention for the UTG. To reach its aim, the UTG derived following sub goals according to the “Attention - Interest - Desire - Action” (AIDA) approach3:
• to rise the awareness for the destination Usedom
• to increase the popularity/the interest for the destination Usedom
• to make contact with specific products
• to enlarge bookings of specific products
One part of the holistic marketing concept of the UTG is its website www.usedom.de. How this website can be augmented social and how Usedom can use social media to reach its goals will be analysed in this work.
2 UTG, Philosophy and Goals of the Usedom Tourismus GmbH, retrieved on 7 August 2009, http://www.usedom.de.
3 UTG, Strategischer Marketingansatz, -ziele und -controlling, retrieved on 1 September 2009, http://www.usedom.de.
1.2 AIM,STRUCTURE&RESEARCHQUESTIONS
The main aim of this study is to answer the question how Usedom/UTG could use social media to raise the awareness for the destination Usedom and ultimately increase overnight stays in the long run. This goal is reached by analyzing the website Usedom.de as well as Usedom’s web presence to finally develop a theoretical and with ideas filled Social Media framework.
The structure of this investigation consists of three main parts: the theoretical part, the empirical part and the analytical part. The study answers the following research questions:
In the theoretical part (3):
o What characterises a holistic marketing approach and why do the specifics of destination marketing need such an approach?
o What is social media marketing? (Where takes it place? Who is involved?
How could it be measured?)
o Why could social media marketing be classified as part of Holistic Marketing?
In the empirical part (4):
o What impacts does social media have in Germany and especially in tourism?
o How is the destination Usedom presented today – OFFLINE & ONLINE [website/ web presence]?
In the analytical part (5):
o How could Usedom use Social Media to raise the awareness for the destination Usedom and finally increase overnight stays:
Social Media as listening & learning (passive) or active participating tool (listening, learning & outreach)?
Which Social Media architecture is most suitable for Usedom?
Which channels are suitable?
Which concrete suggestions can be made for the destination taking into account the new Usedom Welcome Visitor Centre?
What should Usedom think about when using social media?
1.3 BACKGROUNDOFTHEAUTHOR&MOTIVATION
The author of this investigation working for the German National Tourist Board in Stockholm in the field of Marketing originally comes from the isle of Usedom, Germany’s second largest island. Deeply connected to the home region, the author was highly inspired when reading about the announcement of a feasibility study for a visitor centre on Usedom in the local Newspaper Ostsee-Zeitung on 3rd of June 2009. This feasibility study arises out of the economic stimulus package II of the German confederacy and comprises inclusive realisation a double-digit million Euro sum.4 The winning company for the feasibility study is “Project M”, strategy and marketing capacity in tourism that even earlier worked for the destination Usedom by developing strategically recommendations for Usedom called “Usedom 2015”.
Deadline for the feasibility study is on 31st of October 2009.
Using the new visitor attraction as peg, the writer of this master study being very much interested in new media has in this work therefore the possibility to connect two matter that are near to her heart: the destination Usedom and social media.
4 Rosenow, Ralf, Amt für Wirtschaftsförderung, Tourismus, Kultur und Verkehr Ostvorpommern, Anklam, interview by phone, 16 June 2009.
2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & DATA COLLECTION
This chapter aims to outline how research methodology can be classified to finally present the research methods applied for this investigation. In figure 1, the research techniques used are related to the different research questions. The consideration on reliability and validity rounds this chapter off.
2.1 CLASSIFICATION OF RESEARCH METHODS
One way to classify research methods is to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative research. The quantitative approach to research involves a statistical analysis and relies on numerical evidence to draw conclusions or to test hypotheses. To ensure the reliability of the results it is often necessary to study relatively large numbers of persons and to use computers to analyse the data. In contrast, the qualitative approach is generally not concerned with numbers. The term qualitative is used to describe research methods and techniques which use, and give rise to, qualitative rather than quantitative information. In general, the qualitative approach tends to collect a great deal of rich information about relatively few people rather than more limited information from a large number of people.5 The main difference lies in the form of analysis. The results of the qualitative research are mainly described verbally.
Silverman6 has researched methods for qualitative researches. In his book “Interpreting Qualitative Data; Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction” from 2006, he distinguishes four major methods used by qualitative researchers:
• Observation
• Analysing texts and documents
• Interviews
• Recording and transcribing.
Another way to classify research methodology is by using Churchill’s prominent “Marketing Research: Methodological Foundations”7 defining two main types of data collection
5 Veal, A. J., Research Methods for Leisure and Tourism – A Practical Guide, 2nd ed., London: Pitman, 1997, pp. 34-37.
6 Silverman, David, Interpreting Qualitative Data. Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. 3rd Edition. Sage Publications Ltd., 2006, pp.33.
7 Churchill, G.A. Jr and Iacobucci, D., Marketing Research: Methodological Foundations, Southwestern Publications, Cincinnati, OH, 2004, cited in Lee, Nick and Broderick, Amanda J., The past, present and future of observational research in marketing, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, p. 124., retrieved 20 September 2009,
www.emeraldinsight.com.webproxy.student.hig.se:2048/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=
html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/2160100201.pdf.
methodology: communication and observation. Communication is defined as any data collection method where one must ask the research participants to give the data one need, such as interviews or surveys. On the other hand, observational methods do not require participants to do so. Unlike Silverman who classifies observational methods as qualitative, Churchill states that observation is not necessarily qualitative in nature. Moreover, other authors such as Lee, Baker and Easterby-Smith et al. are of the opinion that even though observation is most often used as a qualitative technique, it has some potential for quantitative application.8
To conclude, the author follows the opinion of Lee et al9: “observational research […] is any research which collects empirical data not by questioning respondents, but by observing behaviour and/or other forms of activity.” In this context, the importance of the Internet for observational research has to be highlighted. Writing about Social Media requiring the Internet, to use the Internet is natural and can be further enhanced due to the accessibility and retrieval of information and cross-validation of the information available from several sources.
2.2 APPLIED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & DATA COLLECTION
Based on these findings and recommendations from the literature, this study is mainly using an observational approach as research method with the Internet as main source of information.
By this, often the Pareto principle10 (also known as the 80-20 rule - the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) is used, stating that, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.
Even though the Internet as research tool and the observational approach as method are paramount, there are differences. To highlight the different methods used, as follows, the research techniques are related to the different research questions. Moreover, figure 1 even highlights the necessity of the different chapters as the theoretical part acts as the backbone for the empirical part and the analysis.
8 Lee, Nick and Broderick, Amanda J., The past, present and future of observational research in marketing, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, Vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, pp. 121-129., retrieved on 20 September 2009,
www.emeraldinsight.com.webproxy.student.hig.se:2048/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?contentType=Article&Filename=
html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/2160100201.pdf.
9 ibid., p. 125.
10 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Pareto Principle, retrieved on 21 July 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle.
FIGURE 1: Research techniques related to the study´s research questions
2.3 RELIABILITY & VALIDITY
Regarding reliability and validity, it has to be mentioned that there are limitations. In addition that Internet sources can run off, most important is the time limitation. The validity period is limited. A Social Media framework of today is not the Social Media framework of the future.
Social Media is changing rapidly. New channels appear - others disappear. People using Social Media more and more: the time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall Internet rate.11 Moreover, another limitation is the subjectivity: the author of this work observes the Internet in accordance to the research questions and allocates a sample pursuant to her knowledge and experience that is finally used to answer the research questions. Also, no statements are possible to assess the exact rise in overnight stays in the long run. But the assumption is close-by that the more positive talk occurs online (and offline) the merrier are interested to travel to Usedom. However, despite these limitations, this work, mainly targeting the destination Usedom, but also being applicable for other German tourist destinations, the report provides both: a theoretical and with ideas filled framework to create awareness and dialogue by using social media as complement to traditional marketing activities.
Furthermore, this investigation is an appealing source of inspiration for all those interested in social media.
11 Nielsen Wire, Social Networking’s New Global Footprint, retrieved on 18 August 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-networking-new-global-footprint/.
3 ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The analytical framework acts as backbone for the Social Media framework that will be developed in chapter 4. First of all the term holistic marketing has to be defined as social media marketing can be seen as part of it and as service encounters such as destination marketing are complex interactions.
3.1 HOLISTIC MARKETING
As mentioned, the customer is the centre of attention of today’s world. Customers are harder to please. They are smarter, more prices conscious, more demanding, less forgiving.12 Approaches such as one-to-one marketing and sense-and-response-marketing try to adapt to these changes. One-to-one or even called micro marketing is an approach that concentrates on providing services or products to one customer at a time by identifying and then meeting their individual needs. It then aims to repeat this many times with each customer, such that powerful lifelong relationships are forged.13 Identifying the needs of the customers is also the starting point of sense-and-response marketing. Enterprises adapting this strategy examine customer preferences first and react to them with the corresponding products and services.14 But to meet customer needs profitable, marketers of today, thinking inside-out, need a comprehensive and cohesive approach to adapt current challenges in technology, globalisation, deregulation and new values. Holistic Marketing based on the development, design and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities can be seen as such a comprehensive and cohesive approach, recognising a broad and integrated perspective of marketing: “everything matters”.15 Holistic Marketing can be grouped into four components16:
• Relationship marketing (customers, channel, partner): building strong economic, technical, and social ties among the parties - external
• Integrated marketing (communications, products & services, channels) is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion,
12 Kotler, Philip, and Keller, Kevin Lane, Marketing Management, 12th edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2006, p.154.
13 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Mircomarketing, retrieved on 1 September 2009, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-to-One-Marketing.
14 Vogt, Hannelore, Putting the Customer First! retrieved on 1 September 2009,
http://www.liasa.org.za/conferences/conference2004/papers/LIASA_Conference_2004_Customer_First_Lecture.
pdf.
15 Kotler et al, op. cit., p.17.
16 ibid., pp. 18.
public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.
• Internal marketing (marketing department, senior management, and other departments) – ensuring that everyone in the organisation embraces appropriate marketing principles, especially senior management: Marketing activities within the company are as important as marketing activities directed outside the company.
• Social responsibility marketing (ethics, environment, legal, community): determining the needs, wants and interests of target markets and to deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that preserves or enhances the consumer’s and the society’s well-being.
Before drawing the bow to Social Media as part of New Media combining these four components, the distinctiveness of destination marketing as it is part of service marketing characterised by the extended marketing mix is outlined.
3.1.1 DESTINATION MARKETING
As service industry, destinations have numerous tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other components of a hospitality industry. Major intangible elements relate to the purpose or motivation for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, the opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure. The point of production is suitable to the point of consumption. Because of this inseparability but also because of the intangibility as mentioned and the perishability (the service can not be stored), the augmented marketing mix developed by Booms and Bitner 1981 and including seven p’s: product, price, place, promotion, people, process & physical evidence is often used for destination marketing.17
To stress the complexity of destination marketing – its inseparability, intangibility and perishability, to outline the numerous interactions in the augmented marketing mix and finally to emphasise the need for a holistic marketing approach, a fictive example acts as support.
The potential guest “A” visits a tourism exhibition and strolls around. The destination (e.g.
Usedom) is presented on this fair. [PRODUCT/PLACE/PROMOTION] “A” is alerted by the
17 Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Gilbert, D., Shepherd, R., & Wanhill, S., Tourism Principles and Practice, 2nd edition, Longman, Harlow, 1998, p. 410.
destination because a friend has visited the place and recommended it to him. [PEOPLE] “A”
visits the counter, talks with the friendly service personal, employees of the destinations marketing agency as well as students hired [PEOPLE], and receives a destination brochure including an image and an offerings part. [PLACE/PROMOTION] Weeks pass off and because of the daily information overload resulting in stimulus satiation, “A” has not yet been active. “A” works as a Public Relation manager for the German federal ministry of transport, building and urban affairs, even reading transport related press releases of the destination (e.g.
about that Air Berlin flies to Usedom from may 2010) [PROMOTION], listening radio on the way to and from work and TV in the evening. First after having listening to a destination spot on the radio and having seen a TV spot the same day in the evening [PLACE/PROMOTION],
“A” remembers the visit on the tourism fair and the received brochure. Looking inside the brochure, diverse offers are interesting [PLACE/PRICE] and are therefore compared online by “A” – verifying what “A” has just been read about. “A” searches via Google finding UGC, videos, cards, pictures, blogs, ads, communities as well as the destinations website.
[PLACE/PROMOTION], “A” watches the destination video on YouTube.com and some pictures on flickr.com and rates them. [PLACE/PROMOTION], One offer (e.g. weekend at the Travel Charme Hotel Zinnowitz) especially creates “A’s” interest. [PRODUCT/PRICE]
Wanting to know what the opinion of other users is, “A” searches specific UGC and visits Facebook.com and Twitter.com. [PEOPLE] “A” finds an interesting user comment that “A”
bookmark for “A’s” partner. Some days later “A” books the offer and some weeks later, ”A”
+ partner visit the destination – relaxing, enjoying the service encounter, talking to the locally tourist information, booking arrangements, testing regional specialities…
[PEOPLE/PHYSICAL EVIDENCE/PROCESS], “A” + partner are highly satisfied with their weekend trip and recommend the destination both offline to friends and online via their networks they are a member of. [PEOPLE],
Underlining the interactions of the augmented marketing mix, the fictive example even emphasises the importance of a holistic marketing approach where “everything matters” - internal and external. In adapting a holistic marketing approach, competitive advantage ultimately derives from how well the destination has fitted its core competencies (USP) and distinctive capabilities into a tightly interlocking activity system. A core competency/USP has three characteristics18:
18 Kotler et al, op. cit., p. 39.
• it is a source of competitive advantage in that it makes a significant contribution to perceived customer benefits
• it has applications in a wide variety of markets
• it is difficult for competitors to imitate
The result is a strong brand image of the destination. Which marketing channels are mainly used by destinations to fit its core competencies (USP) and distinctive capabilities into a tightly interlocking activity system and to create a strong brand image, are outlined in the following chapter.
3.1.2 MARKETING CHANNELS
According to Kotler et al19, marketing channels are sets of independent organisations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption. To reach the target market - a distinct group of buyers that the marketer has defined by examining demographic, psychographic, or behavioural segmentation - three groups of marketing channels can be distinguished:
o communication channels delivering to and receiving messages from target buyers
o distribution channels are used to distribute, sell or deliver the physical product/the service (holiday at the destination) to the buyer/user (guest) o service channels carrying out transactions with potential buyers/users (guests) Another way to distinguish marketing channels and that is used in the following is by temporal delimitation: OLD and NEW.20
3.1.2.1 Offline: Old Media
Taking up the three groups of marketing channels, old media can be classed as follows:
Communication channels including:
o newspapers, magazines, radio, television, mail, telephone, billboards, posters, CDs, audio & videotapes but even the facial expressions and clothing, the look of tourist information/ counter on travel exhibitions/ travel shows.
19 Kotler et al, op. cit., p. 26.
20 Solis, Brian & Breakenridge, Deidre, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations – How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR, FT Press, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2009, p. 23.
Distribution channels including:
o travel agencies, tour operators, retailers such as food stores selling trips but also directly via Mail
Service channels including:
o the physical encounter in general: transportation, hotel, restaurant, tourist information/destination welcome centre
3.1.2.2 Online: New (digital) Media
Digital Media can be ranged as both communication and distribution channel. New media can be used to deliver to and receive messages from target buyers but also to distribute, sell or deliver the service (holiday at the destination) to the guest. New media has changed the balance of power since the Internet revolution started in the 1990´s: consumers gaining the upper hand driven by three factors: more options, more information, and simpler transactions21. As new media changed marketing from push to pull – from monolog to dialog, in the following, social media marketing as it is part of a trust marketing internet strategy is examined in detail. More information about the Internet background, Internet advantages in general and types of Internet marketing can be found in appendix 1 “Digression Internet”.
3.2 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AS PART OF THE HOLISTIC MARKETING CONCEPT
3.2.1 WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
To put it simple, one could break down the phrase into Social Media comprising online platforms where people connect and communicate - and marketing: the promotion of a product or a service in order to increase sales. However according to Wikipedia, a reference platform and a Social Media Component, as of 17 August 2009, “Social Media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to
21 Urban, Glen, Digital Marketing Strategy. Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2004, p. 2.
social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).”22 Moreover, Wikipedia defines social media marketing also known as social influence marketing as the act of using social influencers, social media platforms, online communities for marketing, publication relations and customer service.23 These two currently available definitions are the result of collective expertise that arrives in an acceptable conclusion. These definitions have pursuant to Dave Evans changed permanently since the intense discussion
“what Social Media might or might not be” started late in 2006.24 Despite the fact that in Wikipedia, one can write whatever one want, because of the collective knowledge that arise by UGC, often within a few minutes, the content is rewritten or validated. Therefore, these definitions could be seen as the currently most valid and actual explanations.
Social media marketing is a trust based marketing strategy and can be seen as the result of Web 2.0 techniques (cf. appendix 1). From the author’s point of view, social media marketing is much more complex than described above. As mentioned in the beginning, following characteristics describe social media marketing and simultaneously symbolise the opposite of Old Media:
• Listen, and then Whisper
• Us, Us, Us
• PULL in People with the company’s message/story
• Word of Mouth of the Internet/ viral
• Allow
• Nurture Relationships
• PR2.0: Dialogue is king
• Permission/invited guest – the company have to earn it
Social media marketing is the word-of-mouth of the Internet. “Word-of-Mouth is considered to be the most trusted source of information, a fact affirmed in a Zenith Optimedia study 2007.”25 Conversations/ Dialogue are king. Just like an offline conversation, firstly, one has to listen, learn and understand to then being able to whisper/talk. By shifting the mindset from thinking one-sighted & interruptive: “shouting”/promoting the message without asking the customer for permission, towards a two-sighted communication: listening and
22 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Social Media, retrieved on 17 August 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media.
23 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Social Media Marketing, retrieved on 17 August 2009, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing.
24 Evans, op. cit., p. 33.
25 Ibid., p. 43.
“whispering”/talking – an honest conversation, neither wanting to being interruptive nor wanting to control the communication – influence by inspiration: Stop thinking campaigns – start thinking conversations. Moving from talker spreading messages towards a listener is the key insight from social media. Social media can help to develop next generations’ products and services.
Dialogue occurs with/without the company. “Recent studies have shown that of the estimated 3.5 billion word-of-mouth conversations that occur around the world online and offline each day, about 2.3 billion of them – roughly two out of three – make a reference to a brand, product, or services.”26 With social media as the word-of-mouth of the Internet, conversations spread both farther and faster. That is why the PR Company Brand infiltration goes as long as stating: “Social Media is like word-of-mouth on steroids”27. Not participating is therefore not an option.28
There are two possibilities of participating: Social media can be used passive by listening and learning or as outreach tool.29 As outreach tool, social media is applicable as both, prompt awareness, actually the role of traditional media, and/or validation. However, social media do not compensate traditional media’s role of creating awareness. Social media’s strength is its strength to simultaneously tackle awareness and consideration. Regarding social media’s role as a purchase validation tool one has to consider the purchase funnel:
26 Evans, op. cit., p. 41.
27 Kagan, Marta, What the f**k is Social Media? retrieved on 12 August 2009, http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later.
28 Hofstetter, Sarah, 360i Publishes Social Marketing Playbook (June 9, 2009), retrieved on 6 August 2009, http://blog.360i.com/social-media/playbook.
29 Evans, op. cit., pp. 329.
FIGURE 2: The social feedback cycle
Source: Evans, Dave, Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day, Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008, p. 42.
Right between awareness and point-of-purchase is the consideration phase where word-of- mouth – offline and online - takes place. In this phase, the awareness of a product or a service gets through recommendations a more substantive validation that supports the purchase decision. The customer-driven social media, the word-of-mouth of the Web connects “post- purchase” experiences back to the purchase process. This is called the Social Feedback Cycle.
Moreover, a social media strategy combines:
• PR
• customer service
• loyalty building
• collaboration
• networking
• leadership
• costumer acquisition
Because social media is a great combination of PR, marketing communication, advertising and customer service, in can be classified as part of holistic marketing. As mentioned, not participating is therefore not an option. In the following, the following questions should be answered:
• Where takes the dialogue place?
• Who is talking?
• How could it be measured?
3.2.2 DIALOGUE – WHERE? SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS &
GROUPINGS
With help of web 2.0 techniques, as continuously advanced and improved, there are hundreds if not thousands of platforms where consumers interact every day. The website Namechk.com30 designed by David Gosse and Andy Edinborough instantly show the user if one’s desired or branded username is available at the majority of the top 72 social networking websites. Namechk stresses consequently the diversity of the social media landscape:
FIGURE 3: Diversity of the social media landscape stressed by Namechk
Source: Namechk, Main Page, retrieved on 2 September 2009, http://namechk.com/.
Regarding the different tools people using when going online – PC/laptop or mobile - mobile platforms used to generate content online is on the rise. According the 360i Social Media
30 Namechk, Main Page, retrieved on 2 September 2009, http://namechk.com/.
Playbook: “more than one billion iPhone applications have been downloaded (Apple, May 2009); 45% of iPhone owners have downloaded 16 or more applications (Compete, April 2009) [and] eMarketer projects mobile social network users worldwide will climb from 243 million in 2009 to 803 million in 2012.”31
According to Dave Evans, the diversity of the social media landscape can be split into three functional groups:
• social platforms
• social content
• social interactions
FIGURE 4: Social Media Groupings
Source: Evans, Dave, Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day, Wiley Publishing, Inc, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2008, p.204.
In the following three subchapters, these three functional groups are contrasted by using the Pareto principle as mentioned in chapter 2. That is why only the largest and most used are highlighted.
31 Hofstetter, Sarah, 360i Publishes Social Marketing Playbook (June 9, 2009), retrieved on 6 August 2009, http://blog.360i.com/social-media/playbook.
3.2.2.1 SOCIAL PLATFORMS
Social platforms or even called social networks provide multiple ways to properly extend the brand onto the social web. One can distinguish three subgroups:
• Personal social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo etc
• White-label social networks that are developed by respective companies such as CommunityofSweden.com (Visit Sweden’s own social network aiming to listening, learning and inspire Sweden travellers and potential travellers.)
• Wikis such as Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Wikitravel or Wikivoyage
Wikis are collaborative platforms that drive consensus around ideas between users through participation: writing – reading – rewriting. Aim is a collective knowledge that arises by UGC. Wiki, meaning “quick” in the Hawaiian language, is technical based on a simple content management system (CMS). The best known and biggest Wiki is the free encyclopedia Wikipedia with 13,000,000 available articles worldwide.32
Wikitravel.org and Wikivoyage.org try to create a complete, free-of-charge, actual and reliable worldwide guidebook with help of travellers. All information round the topic travelling - from general information (geography, culture) to arrival, security and insider tips – can be found. While the English Wikitravel site contains round about 50,000 articles, the German Wikitravel-site which was launched in 2004 contains 4,870 articles33 and the German Wikivoyage-site which was launched in 2006 contains 9,244 articles34.
Personal social networks or even called online communities are internet platforms where people/users with similar interests, goals or activities, professional experiences or offline social relationships meet virtually, communicate and share content.35 At most networks, people can create their own profile and generate content (UGC). Social platforms are hereby the “engines” of the conversations that power the social feedback cycle. The social media landscape has hundreds if not thousands of platforms where consumers interact every day. In Germany the largest private social platforms are the VZ-group with StudiVZ, MeinVZ and SchülerVZ and Facebook. However, to use the VZ-group sites as company is highly expensive. The annual costs for a brand profile are without support 10,000 Euro, with support 53,000 Euro. To convert 53,000 Euro in Ad impressions, a company could book TKP 200 –
32 Anon, THEwikiStics; retrieved on 20 August 2009, http://wikistics.falsikon.de/latest/.
33 Wikitravel, Hauptseite, retrieved on 1 September 2009, http://wikitravel.org/de/Hauptseite.
34 Wikivoyage, Hauptseite, retrieved on 22 October 2009, http://www.wikivoyage.org/de/Hauptseite.
35 Alby, Tom, Web 2.0 – Konzepte, Anwendungen, Technologien, Carl Hanser Verlag, München, 2008, p.91.
500 millions Facebook Ad Impressions.36 The largest business communities where people network with others and present themselves out of the business perspective are XING and LinkedIn in Germany. Specific numbers of the German market are listed in chapter 4.1.1.
For companies, best possibilities to engage with users – to listening, learning and than whisper – offers Facebook, the world’s biggest network and fourth biggest website worldwide i terms of global traffic after Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.37 According to a YouTube presentation about Social Media, 1,000,000,000 is the amount of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week on Facebook and if Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th most populated country in the world – just ahead of Japan38. Its growth can be directly attributed to the attention Facebook received during the 2007 F8 Facebook developer conference in San Francisco, where CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg opened its application programming interface (API) to third parties to build applications that run on the network.39 By that, these third-party applications help centralise disparate online profiles and activity. With Facebook, users can customise their profiles with specific content, applications, and correspondence that further enhance their online aggregated presence.
Facebook users can choose from roughly a dozen social sites to include in their profile feeds, including Google Reader, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr and Delicious. Separately, users can also share other accounts such as Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, MySpace on Facebook.
However, there are also limitations such as there are no mashups with the German based social platforms XING and the Studi VZ group. Despite this fact, Facebook finally acts as online social hub for a company. Facebook as one of the easiest and most versatile social networks for professionals today, is a profile and presence aggregator, channelling all online activity through one main hub and combining almost every online social tool that can be used.
Apart from the biggest online communities there are many special interest communities. In regard of travelling, some community sites are considered more detailed in chapter 4.2.2.2 highlighting how Usedom is presented as well as those are listed in appendix 2.
To summarise, of the mentioned personal online communities, Facebook offers the best possibilities for companies to engage with their (potential) customers.
36 Roth, Philipp, Facebook VS. StudiVZ, MeinVZ, SchülerVZ – Was die Konkurrenz so tut, und wieviel mehr sie dafür verlangt.(August 12, 2009) retrieved on 13 October 2009, http://tinyurl.com/mydt66.
37 Cherecwich, Rich, Facebook climbs the ranks of world's largest websites (August 05, 2009), retrieved on 1 September 2009, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24015.asp.
38 Mark Zuckerberg, cited in Kagan, Marta, What the f**k is Social Media? retrieved on 12 August 2009, http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-the-fk-is-social-media-one-year-later.
39 Solis, op. cit., p.166.
Moreover, the third subgroups of social platforms are white-label social networks that are developed by respective companies. One example is CommunityofSweden.com (Visit Sweden’s own social network aiming to listening, learning and inspire Sweden travellers and potential travellers.) Advantage is that the brand/company/service is in the centre of attention.
However, disadvantages are that a white-label social network is expensive in development and that there often are no mashups with other networks. Furthermore, it is much more time intensive than using existing social networks.40
3.2.2.2 SOCIAL CONTENT
The content that people create and share on the Social Web today is the main focus of this subchapter. According to Evans41, social content can be distinguished in:
• multimedia:
o blogs42 (short for weblog, a type of web site used by individuals/groups or business entities to publish opinions and commentary on various topics) o microblogs (short burst conversations of max 140 token) – e.g. twitter.com o audio - e.g. podster.de, postcast.de
o video - e.g. YouTube.com
o photo – e.g. flickr.com, photobucket.com
• ratings, reviews & recommendations - e.g. digg.com
Quoting the author and marketing specialist Seth Godin: “The word blog is irrelevant. What's important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.” That stresses the authors opinion that blogs as part of media platforms such as Facebook linking social content (among others blogs, videos and photos) are the future.
Today according Technorati, the leading blog searching tool, the number of blogs increases every six months. Technorati indexes more than 1.5 million posts daily.43 The numbers of blogs talking about Usedom are presented in chapter 4.2.2.2.
40 Evans, op. cit., pp. 195.
41 ibid., pp. 209.
42 IAB, Social Media Ad Metrics, retrieved on 13 October 2009, http://www.iab.net/socialmetrics, p. 4.
43 Technorati Media, Why join the Technorati network?, retrieved on 1 September 2009, http://technoratimedia.com/technorati_media/bloggers-p.html.
