What Las Vegas Can Teach You About 360° Branding On Social Media

5 Tips to Make Your Branding on Social Media More Effective

Greetings from Las Vegas!

Las Vegas can teach you a lot about extending your brand to social media platforms and creating a true 360° experience. I’ve discovered this on my first visit to this unique American city. I’m here this week to present and teach at DMA 2012. 

Every major hotel along the strip is like its own enclosed social media network. Each has its own unique theme and personality that’s well integrated into the entire experience of the location. Further, once checked into a hotel, your every need can be met without ever stepping outside again until you’re ready to go back to the airport.

Here are five tips that I’m betting will help you leverage your brand’s DNA on social media platforms.

1. Select your name with care. In Las Vegas, each hotel’s name epitomizes its experience and offering. Your moniker is a critical element of your brand that should be well integrated with other aspects of your personality. Actionable Marketing Tip: Staking your claim to your name across social media platforms is important for building awareness. This also holds for the use of targeted outposts of your brand such as separate Twitter handles or Facebook pages. When choosing your social media identity, look for a name that resonates with your customers. Don’t just use an abbreviation or acronym of your name because it makes sense to your marketing department. If you’re not sure, ask some of your clients.
2. Assess your location. Location is one of traditional marketing’s four Ps (Place). In Las Vegas, the physical location of your establishment matters. Is it near other upmarket brands or is it off by itself? Traditionally, location can be important in terms of what type of foot traffic you receive.  Actionable Marketing Tip: Understand that location in context is a critical element in how your brand is perceived. Where you choose to engage with the public and place your content is as important as how you present yourself. Consider the reputation of other brands that are active in the neighborhood where you’re going to hang out. 
3. Extend your brand into an experience. In Las Vegas, each hotel takes its name and theme seriously. For example the Luxor is in the shape of a glass pyramid. Throughout there are symbols of ancient Egypt. Or at the other end of the strip there is The Venetian. Like the city of Venice, The Venetian has a canal running through the center of its property, complete with working gondolas. Actionable Marketing Tip: Determine the elements of your brand that can be amplified to provide an enriched experience. To this end, answer what can my brand do for its target audience that’s unique and sets us apart from our peer set?
4. Provide consistent content. Las Vegas is known for its shows and its concerts. Three of the major hotels provide regular a schedule of entertainment for free to attract an audience including people who aren’t staying at the hotel. There’s a waterworks show at the Bellagio, a fire show at Caesar’s Palace and a pirate show at Treasure Island. Each show attracts lots of people who stand and wait for the show. Like regularly publishing content marketing to share across social media venues, these shows are shared through photographs and videos. Actionable Marketing Tip: Create content that attracts a consistent audience willing to share your content with their followers. Develop a regular offering. Like these Las Vegas venues, what’s important is being consistent and making it easy for visitors to share it. Don’t forget to ask your visitors to share your content.
5. Market your brand by association. Las Vegas is a foodie’s delight. Every well known chef has carved out their footprint in at least one of the hotels. This branding works well for both the restaurant and the hotel since they support each other. Actionable Marketing Tip: Consider how you can extend your brand on social media platforms by co-branding. It may require rethinking your approach. Among the more obvious options are guest blog posting where you borrow an established blogger’s audience, being the guest speaker on a Twitter chat, commenting on other people’s blogs and other social networks, and sharing other people’s content across social media sites.

Regardless of whether you’ve ever visited Las Vegas or not, you can use these take-aways to improve your brand’s social media execution.  Just as the time you spend on any social media network, regardless of whether it’s Facebook or Pinterest, can pass without you’re being aware of it, enter any establishment along the Las Vegas strip and time will seem to stand still.

If you’ve been to Las Vegas what have you learned that could be applied to your social media branding and why?

Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen

Here are some related articles you may find of interest.

• Content Marketing: Social Media, Search & Purchase Process 
• 30 Branding definitions
• Branding –More than a logo
• How to do branding without a budget.

Photo credit:

• Welcome to Las Vegas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eguidetravel/6497108973/ (Linkhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/eguidetravel/)
• Venice in Las Vegas http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_baxendale/7120943507/
• Paris in Las Vegas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/opalsson/4121443098/sizes/m/in/photostream/