“There is no hotter topic in resort marketing, if not all of marketing, than social media. The results of this ongoing study will provide a tool and benchmarks to ski resorts everywhere. They will be able to better understand who they’re talking to and who they’re overlooking through this medium,” stated Corey Ryan, Principal at Ryan Solutions. “We anticipate many clients will use this data to re-align marketing budgets and re-allocate marketing resources. Social Media is a tremendous marketing tool, but with only 22% of ski resort guests following your content, it’s not the magic bullet quite yet.”

The study also sought to put a number on how social media influences guests’ ski vacation decisions. While total numbers were lower than expected, of those guests that did identify that social media activity impacted their decision to visit a resort, the impact was relatively high.

“We were all hoping for bigger numbers,” stated Amy Josef of Ryan Solutions. “However, in no way do these results take away from the incredibly powerful nature of social media to spread your content virally. The key will be to ensure your content is shared, commented on and retweeted. It’s all about engagement. Social is here to stay and we’ll enjoy watching the numbers grow over time.”

Additionally, every response received in this survey is tracked to an individual guest. Future results will start to cross tabulate responses by guests with high, medium and low RFM (RFM is a common measure of guest behavior and value – Recency, Frequency, Monetary) to further answer the question of who these social followers really are.