A RESEARCH ON DETERMINING SOCIAL MEDIA USE AS A MARKETING TOOL IN HOTEL ENTERPRISES

Although there are many studies in the literature concerning social media use by consumers in the tourism sector, it is seen that there is a limited number of studies concerning social media use by enterprises. The purpose of this study is to determine social media use and awareness of city hotels which carry on business in the three largest districts of the province of Bal？kesir. Within the scope of the study, content analysis and interview technique were used together. In the content analysis, web pages and social media accounts of 16 accommodation facilities which carry on business in the three districts were examined and it was tried to obtain findings concerning the purposes and strategies of the hotels to use social media with the help of interviews conducted with seven hotel managers. As a result of the examinations, it was determined that the social media used by the accommodation facilities most actively was Facebook; whereas, Twitter was not preferred in marketing activities of the facilities. In the study, it was also determined that the facilities were aware of the importance of social media in terms of competitive superiority, but they had some inadequacies in using the media activel