Читать книгу The New Rules of Marketing and PR - David Meerman Scott, Kevin Nalty, Steve Garfield - Страница 29

My wife, Yukari, was checking out her Twitter stream one day and noticed that someone she follows tweeted about Hotel & Igloo Village Kakslauttanen.¹ Yukari clicked the link and learned that the resort is located in the Saariselkä Fell area of Lapland in northern Finland. In winter, you can stay there in a private glass igloo, which means that from bed you can check out the stars (or, if you are lucky, the aurora borealis). She found this terribly exciting, so she tweeted a response from her Twitter ID, @yukariwatanabe: “I want to go there!”

We discussed the resort that evening over dinner. Why not go? Our daughter was off to university, so we had the time. The next day we booked the trip for several months later. Done deal.

Now, I know that a winter vacation above the Arctic Circle might seem like a punch line to a bad joke. Heck, the sun didn’t even rise when we were there in mid-December (the “day” consists of just four hours of twilight at that time of year). But for us it seemed perfect, because we’ve traveled all over the world and are always looking for unusual adventures.

How did we know that we wanted to go? By the resort’s website, of course. The site lists all sorts of winter activities for guests. When I saw “Husky Sledding Safari,” I was ready to pack my bags (bucket list . . .). But Yukari wanted to do a little more checking, so she Googled the resort, looked at the reviews on TripAdvisor, and also read about it in a New York Times article.

Everybody I know has a story like this. Somebody makes a comment via a social network site. It leads someone else to a website where the content educates and informs. And that person ends up becoming a customer of a company that he or she had never heard of moments before. We’re living in a new world of marketing and PR.

If you are the seller in this transaction, it all comes down to content: What are you creating, compared to what others are saying about you?

You’re in control. You create the content. You bring in the business.

Our time in Lapland was amazing. We had all kinds of wonderful adventures. The dogsledding was especially fun, because I got to drive (well, more like hang on). And we never would have had this amazing experience if the Hotel & Igloo Village Kakslauttanen only marketed their property using the old rules. We never would have heard about it.