Social Media strategy and monitoring for one of New Zealand's premier ski resorts
In June 2009, just prior to the NZ winter season, we worked closely with Cardrona Marketing to establish and implement a Social Media monitoring and recording system, and create Cardrona's first Twitter and Facebook marketing strategy.
Cardrona Alpine Resort is a well-known ski area found in New Zealand's Southern Alps, halfway between Wanaka and Queenstown. Cardrona's target markets range from local families through to international pro skiers and riders; their audience is vast and wide. Their new Marketing Department showed concern for plunging into the Social Media game without first consulting professionals or conducting any prior research.
Monitoring the buzz
One of Cardrona's most valid interests was finding out what was being said about their brand and that of their competitors on the various Social Media channels. Cardrona's progressive approach to customer service and their desire to interact with customers online gave us huge scope to implement a unique monitoring and recording system, incorporating all aspects of the Social Media realm.
Utilising RSS and various web applications we created a monitoring and recording system that allows Cardrona to not only see what is being said when, but to respond to concerns quickly and engage customers in online conversation almost instantaneously.
But that wasn't all... the monitoring system we implemented gave Cardrona opportunity to assess other marketing performance criteria such as circulation and response of press releases, and the publishing of related articles in traditional newspapers (that also publish online). The recording system we implemented provided Cardrona with a method for capturing information around their Social Media interactions, to use in the future for purposes such as marketing reports and customer response case studies.
Success with Social Media
Cardrona already knew they wanted to experiment with at least one Social Media channel, the question was which one. Whilst watching the implmented monitoring system produce good results, we continued to perform research around international ski resorts with successful web marketing campaigns. This led us to Twitter - a channel that we as consultants were already intimately familiar with - as the solution for Cardrona's initial Social Media endeavour.
Cardrona Marketing's swift learning and excellent communication skills, along with our guidance and training, made Twitter an immediate success for Cardrona. This achievement led to the creation of a new Facebook page, for which we were contracted to set up and help kickoff.
Overall, our approach involved the following methods:
- Mind mapping the project variables and deliverables.
- Creating an automated Social Media monitoring and recording system.
- Researching and selecting the most suitable Social Media channel to utilise.
- Designing a Twitter theme, including 'Follow us' banner adverts for their normal web site.
- Formulating and implementing a Social Media strategy, including a publishing schedule.
- Setting up and kicking off a Facebook page.
- Selecting and installing the necessary tools to make the communication process simple and time effective.
- Training the staff for all the tools and systems implemented.
As with many of our projects, we will revisit Cardrona's Social Media campaign to ensure it's running smoothly and as effectively as possible.
“Cardrona Alpine Resort engaged the services of Tactic Group at the beginning of the 2009 Winter Season. Since that time Cardrona has become a market leader in the use of Social Media in the New Zealand Ski Industry with Twitter being an integral part of our communications strategy. Tactic Group was able to provide expert advice succinctly and deliver results promptly – this was extremely valuable given Cardrona’s intensely short operating season. Their extensive knowledge and ability to translate techie talk to language that mortals can understand was fabulous.”
“Tactic Group just ‘get it’; they understand our customers, the business environment and our product. As a result they’ve produced exceptional results for Cardrona. At the end of the day Tactic Group are also great to work with, when the pressure is on personality counts for a lot.”
- Nadia Ellis, Marketing Manager, Cardrona Alpine Resort.