“My Marriott Hotel” – Branding through a Social Media Game

Marriott International Incorporated was the first company to launch a social media game that targets employees and potential candidates. The article “Social media gaming – a recipe for employer brand success” discusses how the company uses its employees to brand their image through the social media game.

Marriott International Incorporated uses employees as their brand. They do not try to just brand a message through their employees, but want them to actually be their brand. “My Marriott Hotel” is a game that is played on Facebook that allows players to run their own kitchen. Players get to make choices on how the kitchen operates, who is on staff, ingredients, main dishes offered, etc.

“My Marriott Hotel” was developed from employee feedback, sending out the message that Marriott International Incorporated, as a company, is essentially its employees. This social media game gives current and future employees a better sense of what it takes to run the hotel. This promotes working for their company, specifically the hospitality department, as a career rather than just a little job.

The game balances having fun, and interacting with the audience, along with educating people about the company. It is internally and externally branding because players develop a certain feeling towards the company after committing to the game and experiencing what it is, or would be, like to work for Marriott International Incorporated. The company is also promoting itself globally by making the game available in 101 countries.

When creating a social media game there are many things your company should consider. The article “26 Elements of a Gamification Marketing Strategy” explains some techniques to make your game a success.

By: Lauren Metz

Hotels actively using Social Media

Being an active user in the world of social media will increase your company’s success, as long as you do it in the right way. Hotels are already figuring out how to maximize the benefits that come with using social media. In the article, “An Investigation of Hoteliers’ Attitudes toward the Use of Social Media as a Branding Tool”  Mohamed A. Nassar explains how hotels are making decisions about what social media platforms to engage in, and what’s working best for them.

Branding a hotel through social media makes the company to refer back to its core values. This forces a hotel to make sure it is grounded in its values, and creates a time to reevaluate what it stands for and wants to present to the public. Just this can make a hotel stronger from the beginning.

The hotel should decide what platforms would work best for their targeted audience, and what type of messages will be sent out through each one. You need to make sure you can integrate each medium into the other platforms to create more traffic. For example, you might use Twitter to post a message that has a link to your facebook page which then takes you to your company website.

If you are an active user in social media, your hotel will have the opportunity to build a stronger relationship with customers. Before social media, the customer would interact with the hotel only until the booking was complete. Now, hotels can communicate with customers even after their stay. They are able to receive higher feedback and work to solve any complaints. Hotels can also customize a guest’s stay by gathering pillow preference, what type of drinks they like, and offering different room designs. This allows for conversation to last longer, ultimately bringing customers back and creating loyalty to your hotel.

You can make your audiences feel privileged by offering discounts and special packages exclusively through social media. This keeps your audience engaged and brings business back to your hotel. Hotels are also using social media to test new services, decide on new locations, and create events by sending the message out and then analyzing the feedback. The two-way communication setup allows for a hotel to send out a message and then receive customer feedback, which eliminates the need for the hotel to keep checking back.

By actively engaging in social media hotels are expanding their customers and improving their reputation. Hotels must take advantage of this if they want to keep loyal guests, because otherwise someone could just find the closest hotel through a search engine, not caring which one it is. Trump Hotels have a presence in many social media platforms and work daily to keep everything updated, and customers engaged. In the article, “How Trump Hotels Use Social Media” Lisa Lavian explains how Trump Hotels are utilizing this new media.

By: Lauren Metz