Social Media Marketing from Touristology point of view.

The other day I was reading and interesting article about how to become successful in the social media jungle.

The article explained liftopia’s strategies and tactics related to social media. Liftopia is an on-line travel agency focused on skiing. As they explain in their web “The Liftopia platform helps ski resorts generate incremental sales through yield management, segmentation, and centralized distribution.

The core mission of Liftopia is twofold: help skiers and snowboarders get out on the slopes more often, and help alpine resorts generate incremental revenue. The Liftopia platform gives alpine resorts the ability to sell advance-purchase, date-specific tickets, rentals, lessons and more, while still maintaining complete control over both the price and the quantity of items available for any given day”  Hmmm… helping both customers and ski resorts? Sounds like a Super3 to me! What do you think? If you are not familiar with the 1,2,3, theory you can get all the information you will need here.

I extracted some interesting advice from this article, then I mix them with a little bit of Touristology and the final result is this post! Are you still interested in becoming successful using social media? Here you have some advice!

1) Develop an app for Facebook where sharing and showing off is the important thing. It works! People go there and proudly share with their friends how many ski resorts they have visited!

2) Create blogs where content and context are the king and where you get advice from other users, update information and offers (so, the eternal 3 C’s Content, commerce and community!). Be sure that this is not your blog BUT OURS!. As I always said “Help them to help you”

This blog can easily become a SnS (Social Networking Site) check out we love 2 ski to see an example. As I always say Paraphrasing Alan Kay: People (Travel companies) who are really serious about social media should make their own communities.  

3) We are sharing/selling experiences. A visual support can help to do that and also to use pinterest as a meeting place for the chain of value (If you don’t know how to use it… here you have some information!). So, ask for their pictures and offer social recognition and prizes in exchange. People will love to share and they will return to see comments and if they win the prize!

Hmmm! A very interesting article indeed! BUT… As usual, in the article, the importance of building a chain of value (1,2, 3 theory remember?) is not mentioned, nor that this on-line travel agency is focused on generating  volume. So, generic tourism and for that reason facebook makes sense.

What about organizations working for specialized tourism? Can they use the same tricks? Must they appear in the same kind of social networking sites? If you are a Touristologist you perfectly know the answer! You know that generic and specialized tourism use different kinds of chains of value. As we saw here in Touristologist for starters…

What about the tricks? Are you beginning to think “The same but also different”? Well this is becoming a study case!

1) Can you develop chain of values for specialized tourism if I give you some examples? I’m sure you can (to tell the truth, if you are a real Touristologist you can’t help it!!!)

There are some enterprises offering ski related products where the important thing is not skiing BUT what you get practicing it! Ski as a therapy (to overcome a loss, to get a boost of creativity, to get rid of an addiction…).Ski as a team building for family matters or organizational ones (enterprises, sports…). These are several websites I recommend you to visit:

Ski Therapy ; TheCorporate ski company ; skilakeridge...

2) Do you think that you can use the same social media strategies and tactics for generic and specialized tourism?

2-1) Which kind of SnS (Social Networking Sites) will you choose? Which kind of application?

        2-2) What about the blog? Will it be useful as well?

Maybe, web 2.0 business model’s matrix can help you to define your actions!

     2-3) What about the visual support? Still useful? Something different?

3) Can you use the short vision of a Revenue Manager and choose To Whom?, With What? When? and Where?

4) Do you believe that first specialized then generic can be a successful strategy for a ski resort or travel agency?

AGAIN, I’m not talking about NOT to offer generic tourism I’m just proposing to change the order, in order to become more profitable and get more leadership over the chain of value.
Wow! This is a study case! Social media strategy, Chains of value for specialized and generic tourism, a little bit of Revenue Management… This can be overwhelming for any scientist...
BUT YOU ARE SPECIAL! You are the best minds working for the best sector!