Social Media Strategy for Hilton Hotels: Analysis and Suggestions

Introduction
The advancement in technology and the popularity of the Internet has forced the
organizations world over to carry out a transformation in terms of how they interact
with people and how they carry out their marketing initiatives. Social media platforms
constitute of a large proportion of time that people spend on the internet and therefore
the organizations are targeting the online consumers by developing interactive and
innovative social media strategies and understanding the consumption pattern and the
demand trends with the help of it.
The social media platforms can although be very helpful for the organizations by
helping them in reaching out to millions of people with a single click and a single
post, it is a highly volatile medium and a double-edged sword since unhappy
customers can damage the reputation of the organizations instantly and can impact the
word of mouth popularity by sharing their opinion with all the people that they are
connected with and can also impact the decision making of the potential customers for
the organization. Despite all this, social media has become the most popular medium
for the organizations operating in the hospitality industry to communicate with people
and reach out to the organizations and individual customers at the same time by
effectively marketing their services. The traditional mediums that were used for
marketing earlier have gone obsolete very fast with the advent of the Internet and
mobile telephony. This report is compiled to analyse the social media strategy
currently implemented by the Hilton hotels and its effectiveness. After the detailed
evaluation a new social media strategy is suggested for the organization to help them

and tapping the potential and attracting more customers by utilizing social media
platforms and their immense potential.
Literature review
Social media and digital marketing
Social media can be defined as the mode of communication which is established by
making use of information technology and the networks by the interactive production
of user oriented content for establishing and maintaining the relations between the
users. The social media technology was originated somewhere around the year 2005
with blogging being the first form. It allows people to maintain an online journal by
making use of information technology tools through a web based service. The
introduction and popularization of social media has forced the organizations to
develop new ways of communicating with their current and potential customers and
create the brand image by having conversations around it. The advancement in the
social media features has made it mandatory for all the organizations operating in any
industry to establish credibility and follow the trends off the social media portals if
they have a desire to develop an excel in their field. The 1990s witnessed the
breakthrough of the internet technology with the popularity of the web based services.
This also gave rise to e-commerce and led to the development of technology and
brought about digitisation of the marketing processes(Accenture, 2015). The customer
relationship management and tools that the organizations implemented before the
1990s were suddenly overtaken by the new opportunities and the technology channels
which were introduced to innovate the customer relationship and to remove the
boundations of time and place while doing it. There are numerous different forms of
social media platforms and different mediums are used for the different forms of

communication. The most common form of social media platforms used by the
organizations include blogs, social networks, video sharing platforms, gaming
platforms, photo sharing applications and the enterprise networks. A rough
classification of the various social media channels can be done by dividing them into
three types(Leung, Bai, & Stahura, 2015). These are the short text communication
channels, the long text communication channels, and the photo communication
channels.
Short text communication channels - LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
Long text communication channels - blogs, forums
Photo communication channels - Instagram, Pinterest
Not all the social media platforms are suitable for every organization and therefore a
thorough assessment needs to be carried out by the decision makers of the
organization regarding the relevance and the choice of the platforms that they choose
to connect with their present and potential customers. The image included below
provides a measure of the degree of relevance that the social media channels hold for
the corporate organizations.

The above image indicates that social networks and video sharing platforms are the
most effective channels for social media communication and for carrying out
marketing activities. The photo sharing platforms also have great reach and can help
the organization in connecting with a large number of customers in a convenient way.
Social media in hospitality
The global hospitality industry is facing a tough competition and this has resulted in
forcing the organizations to develop innovative marketing strategies but not only
provide them a competitive advantage but also help them in growing in a sustainable
manner. In the hospitality industry, the social media tools are implemented to achieve
two objectives(Pindoriya, 2015).
The first objective or the business strategy of the organizations by embracing the
social media platforms is that of content creation. The deployment of this business

strategy can help the organization in targeting the market segment and creating
content that allows the organization to communicate if the values and vision of the
company. In addition to communicating the business goals of the organization, the
content creation strategy also allows the firms operating in the hospitality industry to
understand the needs of the customers and serve them better. The social media
channels provide these organizations and interesting platform to communicate and
engage with their customers by reaching out to them(Hiton, 2017).
The primary objective of content creation through the social media platforms is to
provide the customers extra value in terms of knowledge and emotions. When the
organizations share useful information regarding their operations and organizational
decisions, they are able to create knowledge based content for their target market.
Providing additional information to the customers can help in influencing their
decision making process when making a purchase and availing services from any
organization in the hospitality industry. The emotional value through content creation
is achieved by connecting with the customers through feelings and emotions in a
simpler way. This may include creating advertising campaigns that have the
customers relate themselves to the brand or sharing images that generate a positive
sentiment and motivates the customers(Perkins, 2014).
The content marketing strategy for the organization makes use of social media as a
channel for indirect marketing by helping the customer in making the choice and
build the brand image. Content marketing is the process that generates results in the
long-term and does not immediately impact the marketing strategies of the

organization. Most of the top organizations operating in the hospitality industry
integrating social media marketing for the development of strategy that incorporates
this platform and impacts the performance and the growth of the organization.
Although it is a new trend, it is gaining massive popularity as it allows the
organizations to communicate with the large audience at a relatively lower cost and at
a much faster rate. It is predicted that this integration of social media in the marketing
strategies of the organizations will only increase in the hospitality sector with most of
the customers becoming tech savvy and looking at these sources to not only make the
decision related to purchase but also gather information which may influence the
future decision making for them(Gehrels, Wienen, & Mendes, 2016).
Discussion
Current situation in social media marketing for Hilton Hotels
The organization does not only create and publish the content of their own but also
solicits pictures and posts from their users which ensures a higher degree of
engagement and also motivates the people to constantly stay connected and share the
content that is worthy in the wish to get feature on their page. In addition to this, the
organization also connect with other organizations which helps in mutual promotion
and exposes both of them to new people who can turn into potential customers for
them. The image below comprises of an analysis of the engagement level of people on
the various social media platforms for the page of Hilton hotels(Cognizant, 2015).