There are a lot of ways to get people to spend time on your Facebook page: videos, apps, contests, trivia, you name it. One that I hadn’t seen in the ski resort marketing world was a game…until I met the Alpinizer.

Situated on Alpine Meadows Facebook real estate, the game has a pretty simple basis, get your snowboarder or skier down a slope, hitting checkpoints along the way, using a limited amount of snow that you can “draw” on the mountain. All the basic game mechanisms were there, including the classic high score table, the virtual carrot on a stick for online game junkies. (Note: The game doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. My sincere apologies if you were stoked out of your mind to finish reading this post so you could go rock it.)

Extra Incentive
Additionally, they’ve made playing their game extra enticing by offering a 2-1 lift ticket when you post of picture of yourself with a mountain on top of your head (another feature of the game). Below are a few examples, but I counted 10 of these pictures in their user gallery.

The benefits of such a game? It keeps skiers on your Facebook fan page, looking at your logo, for long periods of time instead of on your competitors. It’s fun, and may have a positive impact on your brand. Being innovative, it likely got a bit of attention and had a hint of a viral nature. Gives skiers a chance to interact, albeit virtually and on a very basic level, with your mountain when they don’t have a chance to be on the slopes.

Worth The Cost
I think the game has a lot of potential, but it just may not be the right fit for a Facebook presence like that of Alpine Meadows. Let me explain. Currently they have just over 7,000 fans, but I had to scroll down through more than 20 wall posts to find a post with more than 2 comments or 10 “likes”. Very few of their fans post on their wall at all (Alpine Meadows’ posts outnumber fans by about 3 or 4:1).

In the neverending battle to get virtual fans onto the slopes as real customers, I always see one of the most critical moves as developing community and interaction so you have your fans’ attention. They may have clicked “Like”, but now they have to “like” YOU as a social media personality. Then, with their attention, you can really begin to use tools, like a Facebook game with a ticket discount prize, to turn those fans into paying skiers.

I think it’s a fun little game and props to Alpine Meadows for being innovative, but perhaps it’s simply a social media case of putting the cart before the horse.

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.