As discussed in both the webinar and the book, social media is becoming all the craze and is extremely important in promoting company products, events, contests, etc… Brian Solis goes into depth on how the media tools fit in with the organization and the chapter focuses on how the organization can connect the customers. In the case of the Vail resorts, the webinar nails the topics covered by Solis. This should be the way many businesses continue to do advertising and marketing.
For Vail Resorts, their key elements with the marketing campaign were to help their members and potential customers share stories with everybody. The other key element was for Vail to incorporate social influence marketing. Just as Solis laid out, the brand needs to be out there and people need to know what it is you offer. Vail did this in a great way. The way they helped customers share stories with friends, family, and potential customers helped people understand what it was like to be there without having visited before. People then turned these stories into status updates on Facebook and tweeted on Twitter. This was revolutionary in the Engaging process which is Solis main argument with the whole book. Vail took advantage quickly which we found to be their best move. They sought a way to position there brand and use these posts to their advantage by showing customer appreciation. The process of following their beloved customers and others became a company wide effort and they could differentiate their brand (the resorts) from all the rest.
If that already wasn’t enough, Vail resorts took more initiative and went beyond Facebook and Twitter and created new conversations with the customers. This is where the public relations part of the promotional mix comes in. Vail began to listen and engage on new levels with the consumers. The website they created allowed them to view all comments and funnel them into the site so they could follow and comment on the consumers complaints or compliments. This section is what they labeled as the aggregate and encourage section. Solis talked about constantly staying informed and knowing what the consumer wants/ adapt to change. The Vail team lead conversations, posted pictures, and published their stuff everywhere to get the best results from all over. The consumers became the advertisers and advocated became lovers. Consumers trust each other and Vail utilized this strategy perfectly. Although this is not directly personal selling, Vail resorts made that step a personal+consumer selling process and let it take off.
Vail resorts was really successful in socializing digitally and could be reached all over the world. They posted pictures and comments about other resorts to help cause loyalty. Although people see this as a negative strategy; consumers will weed out what they see as bad and ultimately pick the best choice (very similar to the dominoes pizza campaign). The main take away from the webinar was that the engagement of consumers must be constant and everywhere! Always converse with everybody and keep updating for the most fun. The best way to reach consumers these days is through mobile applications and websites. Sending texts, multimedia messages, and videos allows consumers to experience what your product can fully offer. This will allow consumers to see what they want and read on others opinions who ultimately dictate the decisions we make as buyers.
As far as changing the way Vail did their social media campaign, I don’t think they need to do much work. The one thing that I would involve in my personal campaign if I ran Vail resorts would be off season deals and promote other activities throughout the year. Although the main part of the resorts is skiing, I think Vail can go into depth for other product offerings. Solis says, ENGAGE… So do it and do it all the time.
