Social Media Communication

9 Business Use of Social Media

LEARNING GOALS

This chapter will help you understand:

• How are social media used for business purposes?
• What are the top benefits of integrating social media into business practices?
• How does business create and make use of virtual customer environments?
• How do governments use social media?

KEY CONCEPTS

Social media policy

Social capital

Virtual customer environment

THEORY HIGHLIGHT

Social Network Theory

Overview

Online travel agencies, like Expedia and Priceline, provide guests with all kinds of hotel choices after they input a city’s name and check-in and check-out dates. How travel sites rank the hotels on a guest’s search screen is exactly what the hotel business is concerned with. It is common sense that any hotel with a higher sort order will be more likely to be booked. What data do travel sites use to build the algorithm ranking the hotels? In addition to price and commission hotels offers, travel sites, also a form of social media, rely on guests’ reviews and comments on specific hotels to rank them. Good comments will boost a hotel’s search rank and bad ones lower it (McCartney, 2016).

Some travel sites have incorporated guests’ reviews and comments on hotels that are posted on other social network sites like Facebook into the ranking algorithm. A better ranking system will serve guests, travel agencies, and hotels well as it helps make the business sustainable. It also helps guests get a better hotel room at a better price, and ...