IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA:
HIRING YOUR ONLINE SALESPERSONS FOR FREE
ZONGQING ZHOU, PHD
PROFESSOR
COLLEGE OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, USA
PRESENTED AT
ISTTE CONFERENCE
OCT, 2010
WHO IS THIS GUY?
The author of the first textbook on Internet
Marketing specifically for Hospitality and Tourism
industry, a book widely adopted worldwide.
 Create the first Internet Marketing course for
tourism major in the world.
 Can be reached by email: zhou@niagara.edu

Or find me at facebook
 Lindedin
 Twitter
 Or simply google “zongqing zhou” or “周宗清” if you
know Chinese.

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA?

A category of sites that is based on user
participation and user-generated content.
 social
networking sites: facebook, LinkedIn
 Messaging sharing site: twitter
 Video sharing site: youtube
 Photo sharing site: flickr, picasa
 User rating/opinion site: yelp
 Personal publishing: blogging (eg. Google’s
blogger)
SOCIAL MEDIA
Why
social
media?
Are you convinced?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INTERNET EVOLUTION
INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGIES
Web 1.0
Web 2.0
Web. 3.0
Emails
Word-of-mouth Marketing
Mobile Marketing (24/7)
banners
Virtual communities
Collective individualism
Yahoo (directories)
Google (dynamic links/SEM)
One-click communication
Web portals
blogging
What I click is what I want
HTML/Meta Tags
SEO
Media Integration
contents
Social networking
And only God knows …
Push marketing
Pull marketing
Customized marketing
IS IT A FAD?
Who knows?
You judge for
yourselves
FACEBOOK & TOURISM: AN EXAMPLE
WHAT’S NEW

Google partnership with social media
THE FUTURE IS HERE: FOURSQUARE

Social site FourSquare is gaining incredible
popularity. The basis of this site is for users to use
their mobile devices to check-in to places they
visit. For example, if Joe smith goes to Starbucks,
he would ‘check-in’ to Starbucks on his phone.
This would automatically update Joe’s Facebook,
Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. Joe would also
accrue points for his check-ins. Eventually, when
he has the most points per place he would then
become the’Mayor’ of that destination..
THE FUTURE IS HERE (CONT.)

This is still in the web 2.0 phase. However,
where it is beginning to cross over is it’s impact
on real life. Companies can run promotions at
their store and give away a gift to their ‘Mayor’.
For example, Starbucks could give Joe a free
cup of coffee each week just for being the
Mayor. Joe promotes Starbucks to hundreds of
his friends and followers on social media sites
and Starbucks encourages sales through the
point accruals.
INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGIES: AN
INTEGRATED APPROACH
Website as a marketing tool (contents)
 SEO and SEM
 Social Media Marketing
 Customized/user-generated social network
marketing

THE NEW AGE OF INTERNET MARKETING
社交化（人气化）(social buying)
 顾客至上化 (customer is the king of all kings)
 个性化 (individualization and personalization)
 （商家和顾客）互动化 （Interaction)
 透明化 （transparency）
 产品换代加速化 （short product life cycle)
 竞争加速化 （increasing competition）

THE HUB OF YOUR BUSINESS
ISSUES
Privacy
 Ethics
 Legality

QUESTIONS??