Overnight success with social media
Sliding on The Cheap turned to Out&About Marketing for help with social media. Kevin Tinto, a great businessman and founder of Sliding on The Cheap could see the potential for using social media for his business. His website, http://slidingonthecheap.com offers discounted skiing and snowboarding lift tickets, ski&stay packages, ski deals, ski shop sales, ski resort events and killer deals from around the country. Sliding on the Cheap has solid email following (30,000 subscribers+) and many businesses report a spike in phone calls the minute their newsletter goes out. Kevin, who lives part time in the Bay Area and part time in Truckee is a hard core skier and really passionate about skiing, snowboarding, motorcycles, wakeboarding, biking and anything outdoors. He’s determined to spread discounts and insights from the ski resorts to his loyal followers and help making skiing and boarding more affordable – a great idea in this economy. If you are not already a fan of his newsletter, join today and watch for it to hit your Inbox – you are guaranteed to read something that you will like and use for your next ski/board adventure.
Here’s what Kevin Tinto said about this custom created social media strategy for Sliding on The Cheap:
“As one of the largest Ski/Snowboard informational services with more than 30,000 weekly email subscribers worldwide, we sensed that Social Media was critical to the continued growth and success of our business, but had no idea how to implement on a large scale. With limited knowledge of this new medium, we turned to Milena Regos. Her charge: Develop in a matter of weeks, a complete and professional Facebook and Twitter Strategy. Within two weeks of launch we had 345 Facebook Fans and we are adding new Fans and Email subscribers daily. We fully expect to add thousands of email subscribers by season’s end, and expand our business in directions we couldn’t have even contemplated just six months ago. As Managers, you have two choices: use Out&About Marketing to work on your Social Media Strategy, or find yourself outgunned in a complex and changing Internet environment”.
With the launch of Sliding on The Cheap social media strategy, they are off to a great start. Within days, they accumulated 345 Facebook fans and continue to grow fast thanks to an easy and engaging Facebook contest.
It’s the perfect business to engage on social media with their fans. People love discounts and freebies and they will help spread the love from Sliding on The Cheap. Fan them on Facebook or start following them on Twitter today. Although, we can’t disclose the specifics of their social media strategy, here are some tips that any business can utilize to become successful:
- Create a solid word-of-mouth campaign. Word of Mouth is your best marketing vehicle. If you have happy customers, they will talk about your business to their friends and spread the word for you – for free. If you need help creating your Word of Mouth campaign, Out&About Marketing can help.
- Explore the possibilities of social media. Find the networks that make the most sense for you. Not everyone needs to be on Twitter and not everyone needs to be on LinkedIn. With more than 300 million active users on Facebook you can’t ignore it but you still need a plan on why and how you are going to engage. Have you heard of Foursquare? It may be the next Twitter.
- Understand that once you commit to being on social media, you need to keep your content fresh and engage with your followers. There’s nothing worse than seeing a blog that hasn’t been updated for a year or going to a Facebook page that’s been non-existent for months.
- Think of fresh and engaging content. Make sure you provide value and not just sell your business.
- Listen to what your customers are telling you and address their requests in your business. Use social networks as a research tool to make your business better.
- Adjust your strategy as you learn more about the social media environment. You will make mistakes. Apologize quickly and publicly when you make a mistake and move on.
- Hire someone with experience that can help you get your social media off the ground. This new marketing medium is changing too fast and you need someone who’s staying on top of it, understands how it all works and can recommend the best approach for your business. You are probably not going to hire someone full time to learn and maintain your social media effort, but you can outsource some of it and commit to doing some of in in-house by spreading the responsibilities to people within your company. Social media can be very powerful if used well and any company can benefit from it. Social media does take knowledge and time. The knowledge required is not just about social media, but also about online marketing in general and how customers behave online. If you get stuck, Out&About Marketing is here to help you!
Share some excellent social media stories here or tell us what you need help with. Do you know someone who wants to explore the endless possibilities that word-of-mouth and social media present? Send them this post today. (Full disclosure: In case it’s not clear until now, Sliding on The Cheap is my client).
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