Social Skiing
At the summer MSAA meetings, I gave presentation that took a look at how the resorts are doing on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Since a few months have gone by, I thought it would be good to revisit this and see what has changed.
Let’s start with Facebook, the chart below shows the top 12 Midwest resorts with their “Likes” as of August, 2011. For a little perspective, Mammoth is the nation’s leader with 83,609 Likes.
Many were surprised to see who was number 1 in the Midwest and where others ranked. In this popularity contest, content is king. As the season draws closer, so should your updates; snowmaking photos, new equipment, completed projects. Even ski patrol doing practice lift evacuations, the customer is curious, show them what is going on.
Once the season is under way, you should be making minimum of a post a day, 3-4 is ideal, and that same snow report of 100% open, packed powder doesn’t count. Get your staff involved, have an instructor shoot a cute kid at a lesson (with parent permission of course). Shoot a video from inside a snow cat, show who won Nastar or the rail jam…got a good chili? Tell them about it. What employee has been there the longest? Who has had a season pass for the most years? Do a day in the life of an instructor, snowmaker, patrol, ticket scanner…social is the one place where the more you talk, the more people listen!
Now let’s check-in with Twitter. The chart below really shows where resorts focus is. Many resorts just don’t know what do to with Twitter, they either ignore it, or just put a link back to their Facebook post.
If you compare both charts, you’ll see EVERY resort has gained both Likes and Followers since August…even those Twitter accounts that haven’t been updated since last season have gained followers…you know who you are. Need a simple solution for Twitter? Post a picture a day. It’s easy and with any smart phone and an app, takes seconds.
Now if you think you have this social thing figured out, you can add Google+ to your to-do list. As of a couple weeks ago, businesses can now have their own Google+ page!