Marketing and Social Media

Marketing is often defined as advertising – a highly visible activity by which organizations try to persuade consumers to buy products and services. However, marketing is much more than advertising and even the most skillful marketing cannot make consumers buy goods and services that they don't want. With a strong focus on the hospitality industry, the student will learn that marketing involves two basic sets of activities. The first set starts with identifying consumer needs and ends with positioning the product or service to satisfy those needs and differentiate it from competition. In between, rigorous analysis of the competition, the customer, the environment, and the company's own capabilities are required. The second set of activities revolves around the "marketing mix" – letting the consumer know about the product or service in an attention-getting, convincing, and motivating way, getting it to the consumer through the best combination of distribution channels, pricing it effectively, and offering incentives to try, purchase, and purchase more.