Social Media Marketing in Hospitality Industry

The Kraft Heinz Company, Canada

The Kraft Heinz Company is known for its production and distribution of delicious and nutritious food materials in Canada and other parts of the world. It is a global company, thus serving a broad customer base. The company provides high quality, great taste, and nutrition for all eating occasions, whether at home, in restaurants, or on the go. The company resulted in a merger between Kraft Foods and the Heinz branches in early 2015 (Heinz, 2015). The company’s headquarters are in Chicago at the Aon Centre and in Pittsburgh at PPG Place. Its large size and contribution to the industry make it the third-largest food and beverages company in North America and the world’s fifth-largest food and beverages company. Different factors have influenced its business success. Among them is the strategic social media marketing strategy that the company has been employing (Heinz, 2015).

Social media platforms are very effective in marketing a business. It can reach many people within seconds of posting a message. It is cost-effective, as one message cuts across to all members without incurring the unnecessary cost of producing printouts and flares. The business opportunity grows with social media marketing as customers spend a large chunk of their time online all day and night. This makes them receive notifications instantly upon being sent, they make their orders online, and delivery is initiated immediately. Quick sales are meted as a result. These platforms also help business people target the best customers for the business, pass across the correct information to these clients and help them showcase their product and brand to potential customers at the right time (Minazzi & Lagrosen, 2013).

Social media platforms have been found to help businesses grow their clientele with a small budget, as it calls for liking and subscribing to the different handles for updates. It also helps the business learn about its competitors, ensuring they apply the best strategies to stay on par. Businesses can build custom audiences, learn the buying and consumption patterns of the customers, and increase the overall return on investment as the cost of advertisement on social media platforms is less than the return, giving the business more revenue. Social media is an effective tool for building relationships with target customers, increasing awareness, and ensuring the motion of products and services (Leung et al., 2015).

The Kraft Heinz Company has applied Instagram, Facebook pages, Twitter handles, and YouTube channels to stay ahead of the marketing game to beat their competitors. The primary use of the company’s social media platforms in marketing has been to facilitate purchases, raise awareness and create loyalty among clients all over the globe. The brand broke its engagement benchmark when it called on its Twitter audience to vote for its new product ‘Mayochup’ a combination of mayonnaise and ketchup. This is evident in how the company has been loading its Instagram and Facebook pages with many fun recipes to watch and learn from (Choi et al., 2016).

When the company produces new recipes or intends to introduce a new product, these handles become the best tools to reach the clients. The step-by-step steps outlined for the recipes and the new products launched to increase awareness of the products. When there is regular communication and recipe updates, the clients feel appreciated and therefore get to stick to the company. Due to its’ higher customer service ratio, the company has to keep up with its marketing to ensure they satisfy all its clients and are at par with its competitors (Choi et al., 2016).

Even though these platforms have been used to serve the company’s growing numbers and product promotion and awareness, they have limitations. These limitations include decreased face-to-face communication skills, security, and privacy-related issues, conveying inauthentic messages, being vulnerable to exposing the company’s secrets and invading the company’s privacy, and causing face-to-face interactions to feel disconnected (Lepkowska-White, 2017). The negative energy drawn from social media platforms can tarnish the brand and cause customer disloyalty. Regarding security and privacy-related issues, the business needs to surrender its crucial and personal information online, where everyone accesses it. Competitors and hackers utilize such an opportunity to beat the business or blackmail them, thereby leading to losses. The company has many clients; thus, face-to-face communication needs to be improved. This may harm the loyalty between the company and the customers (Lepkowska-White, 2017).

As a consultant consulted to assist the business’s future social media plan, the first point is to recommend the business for its application of social media platforms as a marketing strategy. It uses clear non-repetitive language and does not copy from other companies. However, to boost information security, the business should ensure that all the handles they use are adequately protected and cannot be hacked. For customer loyalty and face-to-face communication, the company should hire and train more people to run the platforms and ensure they get the personal touch with the clients as much as possible.

References

Choi, E. K., Fowler, D., Goh, B., & Yuan, J. (2016). Social media marketing: applying the uses and gratifications theory in the hotel industry. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 25(7), 771–796.

H.J. Heinz, Kraft Foods to merge”. Institute of Food Technologists. March 25, 2015. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015. Retrieved March 28, 2015

Lepkowska-White, E. (2017). Exploring the challenges of incorporating social media marketing strategies in the restaurant business. Journal of Internet Commerce, 16(3), 323-342.

Leung, X. Y., Bai, B., & Stahura, K. A. (2015). The marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), 147-169.

Minazzi, R., & Lagrosen, S. (2013). Investigating social media marketing in the hospitality industry: Facebook and European hotels. Information and communication technologies in tourism 2014 (pp. 145-157). Springer, Cham.