Whether you call it collaborative consumption, or experience economy, our wired world has led to an unprecedented comfort with sharing what belongs to us with strangers. People feel confident enough to connect with those in need to offer a place to stay, a service, or a skill. The ease of these transactions has connected communities across the world and made these kinds of exchanges second nature.
Community is key in an economy where relationships matter. In the old days, bartering happened between two people on a person-to-person basis. Folks weren’t inclined to do business with someone they didn’t care for. Not much has changed in the adoption of social networks. In fact, maintaining good relationships with customers has never been more important. Customers have the freedom of information that enables them to choose the brand that they feel speaks to their needs to best. The sharing economy depends on a deep understanding of the unique qualities of a customer base.
At the forefront of collaborative consumption, Airbnb and HomeAway have pioneered the home rental space by providing a marketplace for alternative lodging. Both home rental sites claim to market more personal travel experiences–providing travelers the opportunity to experience a new place like a local. Airbnb and HomeAway are responsible for curating an online community that reflects positive offline experiences, and facilitating transactions made between members. As with any community, people join a group because they see others in it as a reflection of themselves. In that sense it is important that the environment be trustworthy and inspire comfort to attract the kinds of community members that others within the group would be happy doing business with.
While Lyft and Uber may take the cake in the world of innovative transportation, Airbnb and HomeAway often go head-to-head in the alternative lodging market. In order for one company to pull ahead of the other, it is imperative that they attract volume and quality consumers.
Both brands are using social media to flesh out the community and engage new and existing members. To understand which hospitality company was best engaging its audience, we pulled some sample data to understand the “who” behind the audience, to see how they stacked up.
In a post by Airbnb Founder Brian Chesky, Chesky describes the company’s recent rebrand as an effort to create an experience that “better reflects the people who make up this community.” A quick look at insights pulled from People Pattern shows us that millennial males make up the majority of Airbnb’s community. Based on their conversations, interests and predicted intentions, 47% of Airbnb’s followers fall within the Driven Professional persona category. Since most members of this audience fall somewhere in their mid-20s, many of these folks are young professionals looking for opportunities to travel without breaking the bank.
To get a better idea of the “Driven Professional” persona in the context of the Airbnb audience, we took an even deeper dive. Pulling clusters of trending topics, interest in technology, travel and festivals surfaced. With words like “live”, “festival”, and “future”, the suggested focus was less on luxury travel and more on experience. These insights reflect a high-value segment within the Airbnb audience that is young, professional and spending significant portions of their income on experiences.
A quick look at Airbnb’s social community shows that they keep the tone fun, and stay up to date on newsworthy events from around the world like the New York Marathon and the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
HomeAway has positioned itself as a family-friendly company that caters to vacationers looking to rent second homes in luxury locations. Taking a look at the most prevalent persona and demographic set, we can see that HomeAway’s driven professional is a little different than Airbnb’s target audience. HomeAway caters to an older set of travelers, with the average age falling between mid-to-late 30’s. The gender ratio is pretty evenly split between men and women, suggesting that most HomeAway travelers venture out with their families.
Reviewing the top words and interests of this audience, the distinction between the Airbnb and HomeAway audiences becomes even more apparent. Words like “visit”, “resort” and “estate” suggest a more mature crowd that may be more inclined to spend on the finer things. The HomeAway driven professional is keen on a full itinerary. HomeAway does a good job in sharing suggested itineraries, like this family-friendly travel series, on its website. That said, a brand’s social presence is key to enticing new visitors. The online community that HomeAway has created typically highlights their own products rather than focusing on the story.
Both Airbnb and HomeAway are hospitality brands representing properties around the world. The trick in gaining market share lies in connecting disparate interests, communities, languages and perspectives in one place and under one code of ethics/rules. The only way to really do that is in essentially creating your own community by which the laws and codes of respect are upheld by buyers and renters, regardless of where they hang their hats. As was reflected in the demographics and persona breakdown between Airbnb and HomeAway, high level demographic information is not enough to accurately reflect the nuances of a unique audience. Community-driven brands need more.
While social media provides a venue for international communities, its up to brand leaders to understand the folks within their communities and create a space that encourages users to engage, contribute, and return. Audience intelligence is essential to effective execution, allowing each brand to keep consistent with its messaging, while also connecting in a personal way with the global client/customer base.
Brands should act like community leaders and craft the stories that customers and clients wish to join. Deep audience intelligence arms brands with the tools they need to curate a community that brings joy and value to keep members coming back for more.
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