Online marketing given a jump start as Twitter jumps to top 5 positions in social network list

Jul 17, 09 | 1:55 am

The social networking website Twitter has been reported by the internet analyst Hitwise to have grown by 22 times in the past 12 months. The popularity of the site in the media, and usage by celebrities such as Aston Kutcher and Paris Hilton has propelled Twitter from its position last year as the 969th most visited website in the UK to the 38th most visited today. It also jumped from the 84th most popular search engine into the top five. The site itself has seen an exceptional increase in users in the past 6 months alone, catapulting from 6 million users in January 2009, just 2 years after launching in 2007, to a staggering 25 million in June of this year.

The instant messaging service made from status updates of no more than 140 characters, providing bite-sized portions of information on what your friends and peers are up to, may be a strange fascination for personal users - however it's not just the general public who are showing such an interest.

Local companies, agencies and even the media in Dubai have also been taking advantage of the social phenomenon, as a means of both direct and interactive technology that engages with people on a new and previously unimagined personal level. If companies now want to learn more about their clients they can just ask them, or encourage feedback. Rather than pester people with direct emails, they collect legions of followers who hang on their every word.

One such company who has been successful in harnessing the potential of such an online community of followers is InterContinental Dubai Festival City. Now standing at over 4,000 followers, the hotel has attracted attention from Dubai residents and international web surfers through a series of giveaways - in the form of an online treasure hunt.

Here's how it works. Once every second Thursday, the secret location of a distinctly dressed concierge has been revealed through the hotel's Twitter profile, along with a time that he would be there. Quite simply, the first Twitter users to find him and say the password have won various attractive prizes, such as stays in the Presidential Suite with dinner in the hotel's fine dining restaurant ‘Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire', to shopping vouchers for the Festival Centre worth AED 5,000 along with spa treatments - the value of each prize ranging from AED 8,000 to AED 12,000.

Commenting on why the hotel has run such a promotion, the PR & Marketing representative at InterContinental Dubai Festival City responsible for online marketing, Robert Singleton, said,

"The hotel sees these giveaways as pure investments. The out-of-the-box approach to their marketing creates a valuable presence within the online Dubai community, and a centre from which to gain brand recognition and loyalty. Rather than broadcasting the usual blitz of promotional messages, InterContinental Dubai Festival City has chosen to instead involve their audience in the promotion itself, and in the process highlight their assets to their target audience in the form of prizes. The treasure hunt therefore instead of being an attention grabbing gimmick, becomes a platform for discussion of what ‘the latest prize and clue for the hunt' may be."

The next Twitter giveaway will take place this Thursday 16th July, and as it is the 6th in the series, will feature a voucher for 6 Spa InterContinental signature massages, a dinner for 6 at the new Italian restaurant MezzaLuna and 2 nights stay in a 3 bedroom suite (sleeping up to 6 people) at the newly opened InterContinental Residence Suites Dubai Festival City. The competition will culminate with the grand finale giveaway to take place on Thursday 13^th August, where a golden voucher worth AED 10,000 to be spent on anything at the hotel will be given out to one lucky follower. For more information and your chance to take part in the hunt, follow the hotel by visiting www.twitter.com/InterConDFC.

To all those who said Twitter was a flash in the pan fad, the numbers are speaking for themselves; as more and more people succumb to the instant messaging service to find out exactly what all this tweeting is about.


About InterContinental Hotels Group

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) [LON:IHG, NYSE:IHG (ADRs)] is the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms. IHG owns, manages, leases or franchises, through various subsidiaries, more than 4,200 hotels and over 620,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. The Group owns a portfolio of well recognised and respected hotel brands including InterContinental® Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo®, Crowne Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn® Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express®, Staybridge Suites® and Candlewood Suites®, and also manages the world's largest hotel loyalty programme, Priority Club® Rewards with 43 million members worldwide.

IHG's portfolio within the UAE numbered 12 properties as of 31 March 2009, comprising three InterContinental, three Crowne Plaza, three Holiday Inn and three Express by Holiday Inn hotels

IHG has nearly 1,700 hotels in its development pipeline, which will create 140,000 jobs worldwide over the next few years.

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC is the Group's holding company and is incorporated in Great Britain and registered in England and Wales.

IHG offers information and online reservations for all its hotel brands at www.ihg.com and information for the Priority Club Rewards programme at www.priorityclub.com.