In an interview earlier this year, I asked ski photographer Dan Carr if iPhone photos were high enough quality to be used for social media purposes. His response made a very good point,

” I think [iPhone photos] can work because you aren’t trying to attract people’s attention from within a mass of other amazing ski photos…They obviously shouldn’t be terrible photos , but for daily reminders of how awesome the powder is at some place I think it’s not such a bad way to go.”

With that in mind as a common route resorts were taking, I was interested to see what would happen if a resort did try to step it up a notch. Many resorts have, bringing in local talent as Dan pointed out, but recently, I noticed one resort who was taking larger strides than most: Copper Mountain.

I actually stumbled across their photos as I was tracking a new metric and noticed their engagement was higher than most. Interested, I dug deeper and found a pretty sharp looking line-up of photos, especially when compared to the albums of similar events last year. While some of them appear to employ software-enhanced HDR techniques (HDR is frowned upon in many photography circles), their fans seem to love them which really is what matters in the end.

ALBUM: Snow! October 17, 2011 – View Album
135 Album Likes – 434 Individual Picture Likes

ALBUM: White Noise at Copper : Snowmaking 2011/2012 Season – View Album
244 Album Likes – 335 Individual Picture Likes

Compared to last year when Copper had just over a third the fan count that they have now (6,374 Oct 2010 v 18,662 Oct 2011), individual photo likes have gone way, way up, but album likes in general don’t seem to have increased with the number of fans. Rather than enjoying the photos themselves, it appears fans last year were more excited about the news in general. This year, with both news and awesome photos, overall engagement has gone up.

ALBUM: The White Stuff (2010) – View Album
72 Album Likes – 18 Individual Picture Likes

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.