I never thought I’d learn something about marketing from anyone involved in something called “Geek Week”, but, as usual, I was proved wrong. Between random nerdy activities, Utah State University’s science departments held an event in the parking lot of the football stadium that drew a larger crowd than some of the gridiron games in fall.

The attraction? Twenty-thousand bouncy balls were going to be dropped from a helicopter from 200′ up. Whatever you found, you kept. Thousands of kids, parents, college students, and marketing bloggers turned up to witness the shenanigans. Upon the word from a lab-coat swaddled crew, the barriers were lifted and the mayhem began as kids engaged in rather impressive hand-to-hand combat over any and every ball.

So what does this have to do with social media and marketing? Everything.

The web is full of lots of colorful bouncy balls being dropped from helicopters. In our case, these are new social media marketing tools and tactics backed by a sharp, persuasive pitchmen with all the answers. There are lots of things out there that have the “cool factor” but need to have careful planning and integration into a marketing plan to actually be effective:

• iPhone Apps
• Website redesigns
• QR Codes
• Twitter Accounts
• Facebook Accounts
• Mobile Sites
• Foursquare
• Facebook Apps
• HD Steaming Web Cams
• “Viral” videos
• Blogs

These are all things that are fleetingly chased until another exciting thing comes up and it is forgotten just as quickly as it was found.  Don’t fall into that trap.

What I’d challenge you to do is treat all these technologies like a trophy hunter would treat a herd of Elk. Pick the animal you want to sack, create a plan, ignore the tempting but distracting 4 points you see along the way, and stick on that one goal until you’ve got him laying in the bed of your truck.  Rock Facebook, rock Foursquare, or rock QR codes, but I worry that resorts are spreading themselves and their resources too thin across too many technologies and not getting much value from any of them.

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.