I wanted to give Mt. Snow a few more props (hey, they don’t get it often) to build on what I said about them in today’s SEW Article, 5 Tips for Travel Search Marketing in a Down Economy, with kudos to their creativity for  a pretty solid Mount Snow YouTube channel. They’ve created a series of two ongoing shows – “Right Arm” and “Mount Snow Minute”. Check out this sample video:

I’d actually seen Mount Snow’s channel a couple months ago (before ski season started), and shared a video of my friends who raced at the 2008 mountain bike championships there, but hadn’t really taken the time to look around at what else they’d done. Another action sports marketing blog I’ve been checking out lately though, recently commented about why these viral videos work for Mount Snow.

For the most part, I agree with doubleb’s comments about it helping to creating the affinity for the brand, attracting the right audience, and ducttape marketing through YouTube–in traditional New England style, leaving out just enough bro-brah to make it appeal to an older audience as well. I would just disagree with the statement that Mount Snow took a chance on younger employees, because traditionally their Marketing/PR people have been really young and hip. But that’s just because I’ve probably had more exposure to the crew over there than doubleb has.

Mt. Snow’s young faces likely have a lot to do with why the resort homepage prominently features the videos and encourages visitors to check out their branded company pages on social networking sites like mySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.  Twitter should be their next stop for social marketing. I follow one of the places I ski – @skisolitude – and they’re doing a pretty decent job using the platform. @PCski is now doing the same.

Room For Improvement

• Spread the word. While their 2300+ impressions are nothing to sneeze at right now, it’s not exactly stellar either. They still could benefit from a lot more promotion. I’d definitely start with the UMass & UVM college ski clubs, but also send it out to the core base of users on their email list.
• Channel Upgrades. One of the coolest things about creating a YouTube channel for your brand is that you can customize it and create a somewhat branded experience. Even if it’s just slapping your logo up, it would go a long way. I spent maybe 10 minutes creating and customizing the Downhill Divas YouTube channel with the same color scheme and header banner as the primary site. And I linked to the main site in the channel info on the upper left. Mount Snow or anyone else creating a channel shouldn’t leave off these two important steps.

Post from: Adventures In Search & Social Marketing

I’d Give My Right Arm to Ride at Mount Snow

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