H&C Social has taken place every year since 2014, where a group of like minded social media practitioners sit down to discuss social media and the hospitality industry.
In the run up to this year’s event, as always, we are building the agenda from social media engagement.
One agenda item being considered is – Are we still early adopters?
H&C News’ first foray in social media was in 2011 when we started with twitter in June closely followed by Facebook in September.
Over the years we have focused on quality of message on both channels rather than quantity and this tactic has served us well. Numbers of followers on both channels are one indicator of reach and influence, but engagement is a far more important metric for us, as this leads to realising our social media objective, readership growth.
Were we early adopters? Facebook emerged in 2004 and Twitter a few years later in 2006, the question of course can only be answered when a product lifecycle can be attributed to the question, and that is part of what we think merits conversation.
A classic product lifecycle graph will show four categories: Introduction – Growth – Maturity – Decline.
Every measurable facet of Facebook shows it is still in it’s growth stage so this view could say new users starting today would still be classified as early adopters, and as such benefits are still there to enjoy before it enters the maturity stage.
We will avoid having the full discussion ahead of the event where we will reflect on a number of subjects as determined by social media engagement from readers.
For now, we will hand over the discussion for now to a social media commentator we find particularly insightful, Gary Vaynerchuk.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian American entrepreneur who transformed his family’s traditional New York wine shop into a $60 million online business.
As an early adopter of online marketing in the late 90’s he successfully applied Google AdWords and email marketing when both were almost unheard of marketing tools. The success of his family’s wine business led him to become an investor in Facebook as well and many other social media businesses. He is best known today as the founder and CEO of VaynerMedia a global media agency with a client roster that includes many of the world’s leading brands.
If you would like to hear Gary Vaynerchuk’s views on early adopters and social media’s product lifecycle you can watch one of his 2018 keynotes below.
He is definitely an acquired taste, a straight talking New Yorker that doesn’t moderate his language or opinions, he is extremely forthright. He is quite the peacock too by his own admission, but, if you want to get an insight of how companies like his family wine business and many others grew their businesses online, it could be the best piece of time you’ve invested in a long while.
If you would like to join the H&C Social discussion it takes place here on Facebook.
Other items being considered for the agenda include – Are there too many associations in hospitality? – The hospitality people and skills shortage will it ever end? We are open to ideas for others.