What Happens in Vegas Stays in Social Media

Engaging through Listening

There’s a new way to do “luxury” in Las Vegas. It doesn’t have to be over-the-top all the time or outlandishly theme-focused, and ARIA is that new look at luxury. Red velvet pancakes, world-class shopping, and a corner view in every room distinguish ARIA from the many other hotels and casinos in Vegas.
“We have a thousand individual stories instead of one big one,” Derek Schoen says, and social media allows him to tell all of them. Even more importantly, it keeps him connected with his guests throughout the life of their stay in Las Vegas: from planning and leading up to the trip, all the way through the end.
The ARIA is a 24-hour business, but they don’t have a staff running social media around the clock. “A lot of it is stuff we do from our phones, from home, from wherever we are.” His team tries to respond to guests as quickly as humanly possible, whether the feedback is good or bad. “A lot of people don’t think the businesses are listening,” and really they just want to know that someone hears them.
As far as content goes, the KPIs that Derek’s team focuses on surround telling a story and building engagement. What are the click-through rates? What works to create conversations in the social sphere? Increasingly his team is looking into ROI and investigating the full funnel to find out what’s driving sales.

And, of course, being a hotel, ARIA also has to keep a finger on the pulse of its reputation on TripAdvisor. Derek’s team uses it for research to better understand how they can serve their guests. In the past few years, TripAdvisor has improved in the sense that reviewers are no longer as polarized. Instead of only fanatics (either for or against) writing reviews, now TripAdvisor tends to tell a much more nuanced story. And that’s helpful both for potential guests and for Derek’s team, as long as they’re listening.
Recently, Derek’s team has had success with their #HowWeVegas campaign. ARIA has gotten a lot of social engagement around the hashtag, not only from their own guests but also from guests of competitors and people who are at home and not even in Vegas yet. The hashtag seems to be tapping into that fine line between the natural inclination to share experiences online and the “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” mentality.

Holy Social!

Who says you need to be in the same place to play H-O-R-S-E with someone? Recently, James Harden beat the internet at the classic backyard basketball game. The Footlocker campaign encouraged internet users to challenge Harden this summer, and the world of basketball fanatics didn’t disappoint. From trick shots to absolute feats of athleticism, Harden accepted the challenge.

The barrier to video creation and sharing is so low that we will continue to see an increase in this type of social engagement. In many ways, the Ice Bucket Challenge showed people how easy it is to participate in video creation.

Social Media Number of the Week: 2.5

Facebook creates 2.5 times more customers than Google search ads, according to Facebook’s Vice President of Global Partnerships Blake Chandlee. He shared this stat at the ExactTarget Connections Conference this year.
This isn’t surprising, considering that Facebook has targeting capabilities that nobody else has, even Google. It’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison, but it makes sense that being smart about targeting on Facebook would lead to great gains.

See you next week!