Have you checked out the best and brightest in marketing? The recent Global Markie Awards honored excellence in marketing across a whole range of marketing categories. We are so happy that Marriott Rewards, an Oracle Social Cloud customer, won the Markie award for Best Social Campaign. The category was based on: 1) Effective use of social marketing as a strategy to build brand awareness or turn customers and prospects into advocates; 2) Social media used in new and interesting ways or as the centerpiece of a successful new program; and 3) Seized social media opportunities and generated proven results.
So we connected with Michelle Lapierre, Senior Director, Customer Experience and Social Media at Marriott Rewards, to hear about this award-winning campaign and what Marriott Rewards is doing next on social.
Oracle Social: Congratulations on recently winning a Markie Award for Best Social
Campaign! Before we dive into the
campaign specifics, can
you describe your organization’s overall social media strategy? How has that strategy evolved?
Michelle: Marriott Rewards joined Facebook in December
2011 and quickly grew to be the largest and most engaged hotel loyalty brand on
Facebook (www.facebook.com/marriottrewards).
The continuing mission of Marriott Rewards is to engage target audiences around
the world through social media channels in a consistent, authentic and
meaningful way. The Marriott Rewards social media philosophy is to keep life at
the center of the story, not hotels or programs or deals. We believe that our
Facebook fans are not only our fans, but they are a diverse community of
travelers, dreamers and storytellers. We see our social media channels as an
outlet for their stories, not just
our own.
Through an emphasis on compassionate and authentic
community management and content development, we seek to engage, inspire and
keep our Facebook friends coming back to the page on a regular basis. As such,
we engage in extended conversations with our Facebook friends and listen to
what they have to say, not just when they’re angry with us, but for all the
reasons friends speak with each other.
Oracle Social: Can you tell us more about your award-winning campaign?
Michelle: The “30 Beds In 30 Days” sweepstakeswas
the second Facebook promotion in which Marriott Rewards gave away 30 Marriott
Beds to 30 Facebook fans in 30 days. It’s great how much people love these
beds! The sweepstakes was hosted on a Facebook enabled microsite, which was
responsively designed for desktop, mobile and tablet users. It also lived on
the Marriott Rewards Facebook page as a tab. As with the 2012 sweepstakes, it
was co-sponsored by partners ShopMarriott.com and the Marriott Rewards Credit
Card by Chase.
Oracle Social: What were your goals for this campaign?
Michelle: Our
primary goal was to increase fan acquisition and engagement on Facebook and
also to drive traffic to partner sites like Chase Marriott Rewards Credit Card
and ShopMarriott.com. Secondarily, we
hoped to drive enrollments into the Marriott Rewards program.
Oracle Social: Clearly, this campaign was successful – not just for the award you won,
but for the connections you strengthened with your Fans and Rewards numbers.
Can you tell us about the results of this campaign?
Michelle: The 2013 “30 Beds in 30 Days”
sweepstakes surpassed the results of the 2012 campaign in virtually every way,
including Facebook fan acquisition, Rewards program enrollments, and traffic to
our partners websites (shopmarriott.com and the Marriott Rewards Credit Card by
Chase).
The “30 Beds in 30 Days” sweepstakes increased our Share of Voice compared
to our competitors during the campaign. It also generated more positive
sentiment around the program in general outside of the contest. According to
Oracle Social Cloud’s sentiment analysis, mentions of the Marriott Rewards
program and the campaign outside of Marriott channels with a clearly defined
sentiment ran 90% positive during the 30 Beds campaign.
Oracle
Social: It
was great to follow along with this campaign on your Marriott Rewards Facebook
page. How did the campaign get started?
Michelle: The original idea actually came from a
fan raving about our beds on the Marriott Rewards Facebook page. Our Marriott Rewards Facebook community is an
extremely engaged group of fans. Since the idea for the “30 Beds in 30 Days”
sweepstakes came from a Facebook fan, we decided to host the sweepstakes
through Facebook. It was a perfect opportunity to thank the fans for their
engagement, and give them the opportunity to engage with the brand every day on
Facebook during the promotion, since fans could enter every day.
Oracle Social: That campaign was a great success. We’re
happy for everyone who won a bed, and everyone who was more exposed to Marriott
Rewards through this campaign. So what’s next for Marriott Rewards on social?
We are followers of Marriott Rewards’ new Twitter handle: @MarriottRewards.
What are your plans for that?
Michelle: It’s true – we are on Twitter now! We hope everyone reading this starts following us on Twitter, too. We know that Twitter is another great way for us to connect with our customers and hear their stories. We have also used it as a great way to get out news – like did you check out #SayHiToWifi? One of our first tweets from the new handle announced the news that Marriott Rewards members will receive free in-room WiFi. And, my best advice is to stay connected – something very fun is coming soon!
Michelle Lapierre
Senior Director, Customer
Experience and Social Media
Marriott Rewards, Marriott
International