scurvypirates

Ahoy mateys. It’s been awhile since the captain has been on deck and behind the wheel. When I am not wearing the eye patch, I have been busy running a new start-up digital marketing firm called Rally Interactive LLC, and business has been, well, a treasure trove of projects to work on. Which leads me to a question I want to throw out there for my one or two followers of this blog. I am not looking for right or wrong type answers, but I’d like to know what works for you. Here’s the spin: We are busy rebuilding a business-to-consumer site for a well-known outdoor apparel brand. Part of their ongoing content marketing strategy involves a healthy amount of blogging, which they are good at. The crux of the decision that needs to be made is this: should the blog live within the main consumer site for SEO purposes, or is there value in breaking it out and having it live on its own domain? Tell me what you think in the comments section.

I want to thank Troy Thompson from Travel2.0 for a recent post where he highlights this YouTube campaign for Leavenworth, WA as one of his favorite uses of Social Media for tourism marketing. Before I begin to wax Piratic over this, let’s dive right in and have you watch it first. Then me lads, I’ll tell you why I am so impressed:

It’s hard enough to get tourism destinations to leverage YouTube as a channel for highlighting their video assets. Some will cobble together some in-house clips of b-roll and post them up on their channel. I suppose that’s better than nothing. But the folks from Leavenworth have gone beyond that. They have invested in a story. An elaborate story, featuring a nutcracker named Woody Goomsba. One thing recurring theme I agree with Troy and the Travel2.0 folks on: story first, tools later. YouTube is just the social media tool here. This video would not have 185,000 plus views if it wasn’t a good story. I urge you to also view the behind the scenes video that shows the making of this. Notice the news clips of PR this video generated for Leavenworth. Notice the production values that went into shooting this. So if you are a destination marketing organization, are you investing in the story, or spending too much time messing around with the tools? Top shelf, Leavenworth. The Captain is a fan.

I applaud Park City-based The Canyons Resort, (or maybe just Canyons), for committing some serious bucks towards creating content. Check out How Do You Mountain. Is this a social media campaign? Or is it a PR campaign? Yes, it’s all of those things. If you are going to shell out a $40k stipend for 4 months of work, put the winner up in a luxury suite at the Waldorf Astoria, spiff them out with content creating tools like a camera, video cam, laptop, then give them an all-access pass to one of the largest ski resorts in North America, people are going to notice. Here’s what I really like about their strategy:

1. the selection process to find their pro blogger for a season in itself is creating user-generated content. A 2 minute video is required with every application. Tons of people are going to submit. Heck, I’ll bet some marketing staffers at neighboring resorts are going to apply, just for the fun of it. Aye mateys, why not? I’m sure there will be some funny ones that will end up on their YouTube channel later this fall, regardless of who wins the coveted position.

2. Forget about turning screws in the rental shop, bumping chairs, slinging nachos in the bar. This would be the highest paying ski bum job you are going to find in Park City this winter. Most other resorts and DMOs pawn off blogging and content creation to an intern or someone who is currently on-staff and chronically overworked. Kudos for bucking up the cash.

3. Who cares if the person who wins ends up being a tool? The contest is going to generate more PR buzz in the long run just for the high stakes nature.

What do you think? Smart move?