TridentHotels Innovative Social Media Campaign – “Social Hotel”

About the Company:

Trident Hotels are five-star hotels which are owned and managed by The Oberoi  Group. The hotels have established a reputation of excellence and are known for offering quality and value. These hotels combine ideal locations with state of art facilities and dependable service in a caring environment, making them a preferred choice for travelers. There are nine Trident Hotels across India located in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Agra, Jaipur and Udaipur. Trident Hotels was also rated the best first class hotel brand in India for four consecutive years at the Gallileo-Express Travel World Awards.

This case study talks about how Trident Hotels conceptualized and ran a unique campaign named “Social Hotel” to increase awareness and engagement on social media.

Objective:

Trident hotels had the following objectives and goals to achieve through the “Social Hotel” campaign:

• To reach out and build a community of like minded people who loved travelling to new places, trying new cuisines and experiences.
• To engage and communicate directly with the community and build affinity and interest.
• To allow the community to generate content and share their experiences as well as expectations.

Strategy and Implementation:

The campaign was conducted at Trident Hotel in Mumbai at BKC. The duration of the campaign was two days starting from 29^th Mar’14 to 30^th Mar’14. Three social media influencers were invited by the hotel to participate in the campaign. They had to spend two days in the hotel using  Twitter and Instagram to avail all the facilities and services provided by the hotel by using the hashtag #TridentSocialHotel” and also by attaching their Twitter Handle.

The campaign had two activities:

• #Tweesurehunt
• #Instachallenge

In the #Tweesurehunt the participants were given clues, the answers to which pointed to a destination within the hotel itself where they had to reach in order to get the next clue. In the #Instachallenge, they had to post pictures of their experiences and of the clues.

On 30th March 2014, they also ran a contest simultaneously on their Twitter handle which was open to all. Participants had to answer 10 questions correctly after decoding the images by using their twitter handle and using the hashtag #TridentSocialHotel. The winner got a chance to win a free night stay at the Trident BKC hotel. This contest increased the level of participation, engagement and number of followers.

Considering the nature of the activities Twitter and Instagram were used as the major channels. Twitter was the main platform used for communicating with audience and Instagram acted as gallery for all user generated picture content.

Results:

• Instead of going with the usual run of mill ideas of just creating a #hashtag contest, Trident Hotels took chance and came with the unique idea of a Social Hotel campaign which was one of its kind. They successfully combined the offline and online activity and created a buzz on Twitter where the acquaintances of the influencers, customers and others tweeted and applauded their efforts.
• The influencers played the major role in taking forward and pushing the entire campaign. Constantly tweeting about their experiences, uploading pictures on Instagram and their active participation in all activities was being seen by others on the social media which led to increased awareness and engagement for the hotel.
• The increased awareness and hashtag trending nationally on Twitter helped them gain more followers on the social media.
• Total tweets with :

           #TridentSocialHotel   :  2153

             Original Tweets          :  315

             Retweets                     :  932

             Reply                            :  906

• 4 million estimated impressions were created from 2153 twitter mention by 100+ users.
• 190 photos were shared on Instagram with hashtag #TridentSocialHotel .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SgFU1DGE_Q

Learning:

• This case represents the power of social media marketing in engaging the target audience and encouraging them to share content.
• The case study shows how digital channels allow companies to engage with the target audience in real time. As seen in this case as soon as the influencers tweeted or posted pictures on Instagram about their experiences, the target audience also shared their thoughts, applauds,views as soon as a new content was shared by the influencers. This real time engagement encourages the masses and improves their overall involvement level.
• Social media has enabled companies to come up with new and unique ideas for their brand promotion. It does not only allow the brands to deliver their message through innovative content but also allow the end users or customers to share their views with the brand as well as the other customers and hence establishing a two way communication mode.
• Running a contest on social media and rewarding the audience can result in positive word of mouth as well as good reputation in the minds of the customer.
• Use of relevant hashtags helps in improving the reach of the campaign.
• The reach of social media and its power to engage and involve more people can help in gratifying the audience by indulging them to be a part of the promotional campaigns. This strengthens the relationship between a brand and users and encourages the audience to be the brand ambassadors which increases the chance of getting more promotion through enhanced shares.

Source : blog.digitalinsights.in, www.tridenthotels.com

Photo Credits : www.tridenthotels.com