The convergence of social, local and mobile (SoLoMo) has added a new dimension to marketers that aspire to ‘catch consumers where they are’.

Hotel and travel marketers increasingly need to understand the behaviour of the hyper-interactive travel consumer who demands immediate local information. EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta looks at the impact it is having on the hotel industry and why SoLoMo is becoming so important.

“This year hotel and travel marketers have been hearing a lot of the buzzword SoLoMo which describes a perfect blend of the three major media platforms,” says Max Starkov, president and CEO, HeBs Digital.

Hotel guests are already avid SoLoMo services users, he says. According to Starkov most social network engagements by travel consumers are done via mobile devices who says that consumers perform more than three billion local searches every month. Moreover one in three mobile searches have local intent versus one in five desktop searches.

“By focusing efforts on social media, local marketing, and mobile marketing, hotel marketers have the ability to deliver more personalised, relevant content and engage existing guests and potential customers like never before,” says Starkov.

“Unlike the desktop web, SoLoMo allows hoteliers to combine real-time customer geo-location with their demographic and psychographic information to offer time- and location-relevant promotions.

Strategy: refine and define  

So what is the best way for hoteliers to utilise SoLoMo to engage their customers and generate revenue? First, travel brands must have a mobile website optimised with fresh, local content and location-based offers.

Companies have to maximise their local content and listing strategy by:

• Optimising property profiles in the main data providers, which feed many local directories and geo-social sites

• Optimising property local search listings on Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local

• Putting a local citation listing programme in place, such as the local online directories and Yellow Pages

Once the local content and listing strategy is in place, Starkov believes that hotels need to enhance their mobile marketing presence by considering the following factors: 

• Automatically pushing specials, promotions and local events from the property desktop website to the mobile site to keep the mobile presence fresh

• Using micro-formats and Schema codes to relay the time- and location-relevant nature of these promotions and events to the search engines

• Taking advantage of coupon promotions through Google

Another important step that marketers should take is to align the official content on the hotel’s mobile website with the unofficial content generated by hotel users on social media, customer-review sites and so on. “The bigger the discrepancy between these two types of content, the less credible the official content on the website is. And the less credible the hotel mobile site is, the lower the conversion rates and the fewer the mobile bookings,” says Starkov.

Remember this is real-time customer service

SoLoMo will provide more customer service solutions to enhance the travel experience. According to HeBS, travel companies also need to prepare for the reality of real-time customer service by assessing the following steps:

• Determine who will take ownership of the strategy.

• If multiple people are managing strategy, they must have a seamless brand voice.

• Delegate responsibility. Who will be involved in monitoring the real-time buzz?

• Hold real-time customer service to the same standards as face-to-face.

These areas are significant considering that guests are socially engaged in real time during their stay. Mobile access to social media and customer review sites results in reviews and feedback during a guest’s stay. Also, beyond real-time customer reviews, guests are making real-time requests for immediate needs via social platforms. Travel companies need to develop online campaigns with SoLoMo in mind, and also prepare their team to oversee real-time strategy.