It’s so easy to get swept up in the visible vanity race that is Facebook fans, that I’m afraid we’re neglecting other, equally or more important metrics. Don’t misunderstand me, you fans are a powerful tool and the more the merrier, but if I had my choice between 5 new fans or 1 new email address, I think I’d choose the emails address.

So, let me quickly share one simple metric that you shouldn’t let slip through the cracks with fan-count myopia syndrome on the rise.

The Cost Formula
Let’s say your content strategy involves using two website. On the first, you have 9,000 followers. On the second, your follower count is below 200? And let’s also say that content for the network with 9,000 followers only costs $50 to produce. The content on the second is more powerful and valuable on the site with 200 followers, but it costs $500 each time a post goes out

With the first site, your cost-per-follower-reached is 1/2 of a US penny: $0.005. On the second site, it’s $2.50.

If you were in this marketer’s shoes, where would you try to increase your follower counts first? The second site? I’d agree.

The Real Names
Strangely enough, the average number of Facebook fans a resort has is just over 9,000 and, between labor, equipment, etc., I’d say Facebook content costs about $50 per post for most resorts.

On the flip side, between cameras, software, time to shoot, time to plan, time to edit, time to upload, every piece of video content is costing resorts closer to $500. And, wouldn’t you know it, the average resort has 175 subscribers on YouTube.

Yes, video content can be pushed through other channels. But the fact that subscribers counts are so low (Salomon Freeski TV alone has 2/3 the subscribers of every resort in North America combined) tells me we’re missing a huge chance to make video marketing more effective and affordable.

What happens when you focus…
This is a chart of Park City Mountain Resort’s total YouTube subscribers over the last year:

Now, what in the world could have happened back in mid-October? It’s pretty simple, really. Thanks to Mike Thomas, They started making the growth of their YouTube subscribers a focus with a simple tweak that YouTube celebs and brands have been using for years: asking people to subscribe.

Check out 2:41 in the video below:

But wait, wouldn’t having recommended videos along with the subscribe link also increase the video view count? Let’s take a look at their YouTube views for the last year:

The location of that spike look familiar? Well, whatdya know.

Think Beyond Fans
Fans are great, but there is so much low-hanging fruit out there on other networks. Networks where you’re spending 10x the resources to create content. Park City has a head start on optimizing for YouTube because they believe in the value of their video content.

The same thing applies to a dozen other metrics, including your email database. If resorts spent half the time trying to increase their number of valid emails they have as they do on growing their Facebook fan count, I think they’d be shocked with the results.

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.