Q: Are more resort guests using Twitter and Facebook to follow the resort they are visiting?

This is the second of a three-part series to update the social media research survey we’ve been running in partnership with Guest Research on mountain resort guests. This time around we’re analyzing whether more people are reporting that they follow the resort they just visited on Facebook or Twitter. Here’s how it looks year-over-year.

The Goods
We used the same sample we mentioned last week – 100,000 resorts guests across the last few years – to find the YOY trend for this query. The question was simply whether they followed the resort they just visited on Facebook, Twitter, both, or neither. Again, we’ve been asking this for a few years and here’s how the results look over time.

After dropping slightly in 2013, the number that claimed to follow the resort on neither site has once again risen. All other metrics – follow on Facebook, follow in Twitter, follow on both – have dropped since we started tracking these numbers in 2012. The number of guests who reported following the resort on Twitter has climbed slightly since 2013, but is still well below the original point recorded in 2012.

What This Means
It’s very important to remember that these numbers are self-reported. As social feeds become more crowded and reach drops, people may simply forget they are following a resort. In other words, there’s a good chance that many of these people who say they aren’t following a resort, technically are within the functionality of the network.

The point we arrive at is simply this: the growth of total reach on these media is slowing if it hasn’t stopped already. Individual influence remains the same, but the ability of a marketer to reach his/her guests is not matching the continued increase in fan counts. As these trends continue to develop, marketers need to be very honest with themselves about the implications, especially compared to more reliable channels.

Comin’ Round the Database When it Comes…
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