Netnography in the Travel Industry

 

Netnography, an online research method originating in ethnography, is understanding social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. The application of Netnography to conduct market analysis in the travel & tourism sector is vital. 

Social media has allowed people to share knowledge and reach a wider audience. One of the methodological advantages of netnography first described by Kozinets (2002) was its unobtrusive nature. Pollok et al. commented on netnography being perceived as the “unobtrusive and non-influencing monitoring of the communication and interaction of community members to gain practical insights into their usage behavior.” This perception of observational netnography directly contrasts to more traditional qualitative research methods used to understand behavior such as focus groups, personal interviews, and ethnographies. 

Netnography can take many forms including studying the behavior of communities on bulletin boards or social media networks to gather data about the qualitative aspect of consumers that is hard for an algorithm based on pure statistics to obtain. Big data tends to look at data in a statistical manner, whereas Netnography is gathering intel behind the statistics of general social media. It is more focused on meaning than on precision. Using Netnography in travel can help to study customer behavior and know what patterns and why the customers prefer certain travel expectations.

• Observation over asking: We can observe the customers activity on social media, or their preferences based on their activity on the internet. Instead of asking which a lot of customers might prefer not to due to lack of time or availability they might not give us the accurate information we are looking for. Instead, observing their activity and conducting market research will help travel companies understand their target audience better.

• Competition: Netnographic research helps travel companies evaluate their customers needs and also how much of those needs are being met by the competition and how the companies can innovate and offer better in order to beat the competition or stay above it. Applying Netnography for competitive intelligence is certainly not new but quite important, nonetheless. 

• Passion: You do not want people to just like your content on social media because then people will do just that, they’ll like your post and move on. You want them to love your travel brand, you want them to retweet it or repost it and tell everyone else they like it. The brand should resonate with people, and they should love it. Researching what content people like and what they want to see is where netnography helps. 

• Better insights right now: Technology right now helps get insights not only on the past but also on the current trends and what’s happening right now. This helps travel companies understand the current trends and what ways they can attract new customers.

We have seen how important it is to know if people loved your brand but let’s look at why we need to understand about the ones that did not like your brand. We know that when someone likes your content, they are likely to talk good things about your brand but in the same way if someone does not like your content, they can amplify their voice and spread negative feedback about your brand. So, you can understand the customers and their experiences by;

• Identify audience segments using netnography: Identify who is talking about your brand and then evaluate their experience. You need to know what kind of content drives them, that’s how you can understand their mentality and things that attract them. You see what they like, which locations or attractions or deals or food they like and post about that, posting about what they want to see is how you get to them, they want to feel ‘seen’.

• Recognize the influencers: See what influencers are reviewing your brand as they cause the biggest impression on their followers, so to see whether it’s a good message or bad and what kind will tell you a lot about the impression it creates about your brand. 

• Include emojis in your research: People convey a lot of emotions in emojis these days so keeping a track of that also helps understand them better and it is better to keep all equations on the table when conducting successful research. 

• Analyze your audience in real-time as well as overtime: Historic data is important but what’s been a game-changer is the ability to mine social data in real-time. This helps your brand respond to crisis as it is happening and stay up to date with the competition. Any trends or concerns you identify can also be tracked over time to see if your brand needs to act further. 

Netnography is important to the travel industry as it helps understand consumer behavior and predict trends. Understand and reaching the customers is essential and netnography uses the growth in technology to gather insights that can be favorable for the company. Not just past but present data too to stay up to date with the competition. 

Sagarika Sangram

References:

 https://netbasequid.com/blog/netnography-2017-capturing-consumer-behavior/,2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netnography

tags:

#DigitalMarketing #DataAnalytics #Netnography #Travel #TravelAndTourism #DigitalAnalysis #Research #MarketResearch