Airbnb is a US based company that operates an online marketplace that allows people to lease or rent short term lodging place at an affordable price. The dwellings range from holiday cottages, hotel rooms and hostel beds to home stays and apartments. The company doesn’t own any real estate, rather it earns by charging a service fee in return for providing this online platform where customers can connect with the hosts. The company has nearly 5 million lodging listings in 81,000 cities and 191+ countries and has 300 million+ guest arrivals at all time.[1] Airbnb had a difficult end to year 2013 because of a trademark infringement lawsuit from a competitor. However, they came back with another marketing campaign that embedded the concept of user generated content within a contest to create excitement about the brand.

Accor Hotels  is a world leader in hotel management, with more than 3500 hotels in the world, their well-known brands include Sofitel, Fairmont, Novotel, Ibis Hotel, Pullman, and more. When it comes to customer engagement, Accor is strongly committed to providing individualized, memorable customer experiences that fully integrate the use of social media to engage the customer. Accor understands that through heightened customer engagement comes heighted customer loyalty and ultimately, heightened corporate revenues.  Accor is continuously looking for innovative ways to further engage their customers in order to provide the  ultimate customer experience that will have them returning again and again. Given the ever increasing competition for customer attention, Accor has embraced social media and has become a global leader in digital presence focusing on multi device engagement with emphasis towards the management of its on-line reputation.      

Conversations, leads, engagement, reach, impressions, bounce rate, time on site, audience growth rate, response rate….. which social media metrics are meaningful to a campaign? After reading about 20 articles, I found that the more I study on this topic, the guiltier I feel. Because it makes me realize that I have been following some “vanity metrics” of my previous social media campaigns. People follow us, read our posts, and get our emails….. But can any of these metrics say that our audience will go further with us?