Following on from our look at the top resorts on Facebook in Austria and France, it’s now Scotland’s turn. With only five resorts, this didn’t take so long to research as the others, but please do let us know if we’ve any omissions or errors. In the meantime, here’s the Facebook chart for Scotland:
The Top 5 Scottish Ski Resorts on Facebook
1. Glenshee Ski Centre (4875 fans)
2. Nevis Range (2838)
3. Glencoe Mountain Resort (2525)
4. The Lecht (1351)
5. Cairngorm (379)
Glenshee has more Facebook fans than Val d’Isere
As you’d expect, the Scottish resorts don’t tend to have as many fans as the top European resorts, but it tickled us to see that Glenshee – which topped the Scottish list – has more Facebook fans than Val d’Isere…
Categories
As with other ski resorts, the resorts have chosen a variety of categories to describe themselves. The Lecht is a ‘Local Business’, with Glencoe a ‘Sports Venue’ and the Nevis Range in the more common ‘Sport/Recreation/Activities’ section. These categories don’t make a huge amount of difference to anything, but they do affect picture tagging options.
Individuals or Companies?
I was surprised to see that both Glenshee and Cairngorm have set up individual profile pages, rather than company pages. There are pros and cons of each option, but generally I would recommend all businesses have a ‘company’ fan page, as they offer more functionality. An ‘individual’ page can be a useful additional as part of the overall campaign.
BTW we did see that the Cairngorms National Park has a Facebook page with almost 5000 friends, but it’s not a ski resort specific page, so it was excluded.
5 comments
Doug Bryce says:
Jun 24, 2011
EDITED FOR SPELLING MISTAKE 😉
Interesting Iain. FWIW the skiers numbers are on average Cairngorm > Glenshee > Nevis > Lecht > Glencoe. Cairngorm had a blog last winter that was very popular which probably explains their low FB numbers. If I had to guess there are easily 5000+ members of the winterhighland web site – which many people use for checking conditions (more so that the official ski-scotland). One of the biggest problems with marketing Scottish skiing is trying to promote it with out pretending the product is something that is not. IMHO educating people how to make the most out the conditions when they are good is the key…
iain says:
Jun 24, 2011
Good post Doug. It certainly feels like Cairngorm aren’t too bothered about Facebook, although I had a quick Google for the blog and it may not be around? I think running a blog is great for interaction, content and SEO, but
you really want to have a Facebook presence as well.
It’s also interesting to think of Scotland as being one region, almost geographically as close as say the Portes du Soleil or, more accurately,
the SkiWelt. While they don’t compete in the same way as continental resorts, perhaps they could work more closely?
Of interest, do you think Scottish resorts really do ‘pretend that the product is something that it is not’?
Doug Bryce says:
Jun 27, 2011
Hi Iain,
Cairngorm very recently redesigned their web-site, and there was debate if the ‘blog & comments’ should remain part of the main site or be moved over to facebook. Guess they are still taking a little time to decide before next winter as the blog is currently not on the new site yet.
> think of Scotland as being one region
100%. There is no point the individual resorts spending marketing resource just to compete against each other. What is needed is combined effort to improve the overall perception of Scottish skiing.
> really do ‘pretend that the product is something that it is not’?
I don’t think anyone does it deliberately. The challenge is that conditions are *very* variable and change rapidly (for better or worse). On its day Scotland can occasionally be as good as anywhere. However rapid thaws, high winds and poor vis are also common.
Marketing such a product to new skiers / non-locals is incredibly difficult. Every year there are periods of good snow conditions – but predicting when they will be is almost impossible. (for example some years January is the best month of the season, other years it can be April!).
Obviously people within approx 3 hours drive are best placed to take advantage when the conditions do turn good – and the real challenge is educating skiers to read the weather & snow reports so they understand how to make the most of weekend / day trips. Skiing in Scotland is very much an opportunistic activity – Very different scenario to the alps where you book a weeks holiday 6 months in advance?
iain says:
Jun 30, 2011
Nice to see that it was a good season for Scotland…
http://www.planetski.eu/news/2909
The Top 5 Scottish Ski Resorts on Facebook | Chamonix Green & White says:
Aug 27, 2011
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