http://www.resortinsiders.com Providing innovative marketing consulting services to the vacation ownership and timeshare industry. en-us http://www.resortinsiders.com/article_read.php?article=3 When targeting specific demographic segments with social media, thinking outside the "company box" is a useful strategy being employed by a growing number of marketers. Most social media platforms allow the creation of profiles for non-company-based entities, communities, or interest groups, which gives the marketer the ability to create a wide range of location-based, interest-based, or lifestyle-segmented platforms. http://www.resortinsiders.com/article_read.php?article=2 Over the past few years social media has become a vital tool in the vacation ownership industry, providing developers with a low-cost communication platform that allows for greatly improved member communication, enhanced publicity administration, and promotion of brand identity. While widely used throughout the industry, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are only now being used by resort developers worldwide for their unique engagement abilities in refining the traditional persuasion process, and in sourcing potential customers. http://www.resortinsiders.com/article_read.php?article=1 The field of Online Reputation Management (ORM) is emerging as a crucial business process in many industries, but in none is it as critically important as in vacation ownership, a business where sales interactions rarely conform to the traditional "research before buying" consumer model. The rise of blogs, social media, consumer opinion sites, and the coinciding increase in visibility of individual online consumer complaints have created a unique problem for an industry that relies heavily on post-sale retention and minimal cancellation rates.