Social Media Marketing (SMM)-A Strategic Tool for Developing Business for Tourism Companies Dr. Palaniswamy Nalini* *Assistant Professor, Centre for Marketing, KCT Business School, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore, India Online published on 3 May, 2016. Abstract Social media marketing is an emerging marketing technique worldwide. This research concentrates on how effectively social media can be used to promote a product in tourism industry. The efficient use of social media develops a tourism company in terms of sales, branding, reach and relationship management. The study aims to find the best social media platform to promote and develop a tourism company and the customer opinion towards planning a trip through online. It also concentrates on customer response for online offers and discounts in those social media platforms. The study attempts to understand and create suitable model for social media marketing for tourism companies with a sample size of 400. The sampling technique used in this study is purposive sampling method. The purposive sample can also be called as judgemental sample. Normally the sample will be selected based on the knowledge possessed by the respondents on a particular phenomenon. Here, the study is been conducted among the people who use social media. The sampling technique helped the researcher to identify the target sample i.e., the social media users. SMM is an internet based tool used to inform, persuade, attract, and educate the present and potential customers through online. The millennials by enlarge is understood as tech savys they spend most of their time in internet based apps and social communities. They use Social media to interact, share ideas, emotions, experience and so on. The social media also reinvented the word of mouth communication into word of internet and also the viral communication is very fast when compared to other traditional Medias. So as a marketers in today's scenario we have to understand how this medium can be well utilised for business. This study attempts to understand the how SMM can be effectively used for the tourism companies. The study can be tested widely across various tourism companies and it can validated and the study results can be generalised. Top Keywords Social Media Marketing, Tourism companies, Marketing, SMM. Top |