Partially, true. I am not at all an anti-social media Spirit. I just don't see the value in it the way TWDC chooses to use/abuse it.
Your point about amazon and TripAdvisor are very well taken because I DO use those sites and I DO respect them. But they also aren't a corporation like Disney in essence selling its own BRAND.
Consumer Product reviews are a good analogy because most people use them and provide a clean abstract. The idea is that the reviewers are essentially anonymous to you.. you do not have any association with the reviewer or predispositions about them.. and you *scan* several reviews to get an idea of the real conclusions rather than just read one source. Even in the era of traditional magazine reviewers, CNet, Consumer Reports, etc.. people still see value and put weight in these volumes of anonymous, even unqualified, reviews.
A casual researcher is not going to know where to go first.. so they will do some searching, do some scanning, and find a source that speaks in terms that they can relate to. Lets be honest.. a site like WDWMagic is rather intimidating to a casual Disney person, and extracting the impact even from the front page news could be daunting for a casual reader.
I don't see reviews and rankings of Disney parks, attractions, resorts/hotels, restaurants etc on the official Parks Blog.
Why would there be? It's a corporate outreach blog - not a community or host of user submitted content. The hate on Disney Parks Blog is misguided. It's a platform to communicate the corporate PR or a message to speak to it's customers. Look at other company blogs.. google for instance -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ - you won't find it to be about reviews, user submissions, 3rd party opinions, etc. What the Disney Parks has done has made it interesting to the mass audience by throwing out the bones the Disney fanbase always .. upcoming attraction info, backstage views, company-access only stuff, etc. It's a one-way street... I don't understand how anyone would expect it to be anything but that.
I don't buy the argument that people just Google WDW when getting ready for their first ever trip and if Lou Mongello's podcast comes up first, or Jeff Lange's Buy My DVDs, or Kevin Yee's Column of the Week, or OhioFanboiSpaceMountainLVER's come up first that's where they go and decide whether to take that first $9,000 MAGICal WDW vacation based on that. I just think that's a crock (I don't believe you are saying this, but others have)
No one is going to make their entire trip decision based on reading one post on some site.. but they can INFLUENCE when, what they do, etc. Reviews of FLE or Carsland may not make someone snap decide to head to WDW/DLR.. but they may help push them over the line.. or possibly even alter existing plans.
It's all about a chorus of voices to gain reach and build 'common opinion'. You don't need the world's #1 columnist on your side, if you have 99% of all the other columnist on your side
And honestly, if you have any concern over your message getting out to these casual visitors - you, not Disney - are going about it all wrong. No mommy in NJ is going to look at a 1000 post thread on Laughing Place, or even a thread like this on WDWMagic. Your tact is aimed at swaying the hardcore follower audience - ironically, the audience that is likely to spend money at Disney regardless of being happy or not with Disney. While this audience may be the most energetic - its also smaller and not going to hit Disney fast and hard like large reach influencers on the casual audience may be (bad press at the national level... travel influencers like airline costs, etc).
You methods may work for the long term tone towards the company in the community - but they don't work for making a commercial impact in the near term. Posting behind a faceless name with no credentials and no portfolio that is easily surmised does not sway the open public. Going back to Save Disney for instance, it takes a face, a message, and substance to get people to rally behind. Roy had his past and Disney name to help be that beacon to rally behind. It took that figurehead that people could identify and buy into. You'll never have that with an anonymous discussion forum post. You are dooming yourself to a perennial community curmudgeon rather than a force to shake the company up. Respected in the microcosm - but ineffective in the larger war effort.
I DO believe the way TWDC uses it is. I'd run that department in a different fashion from top to bottom (yeah, most of the current bloggers would be unemployed!)
[...]
I don't really disagree with that at all. I just fundamentally disagree with Disney's conclusion that it is paying off with any real dividends. I don't buy it. And it doesn't help that the folks selling it (to Disney and therefore us) are getting paid very handsomely to spout that babble.
That's your prerogative, and without any real insight into their investment vs other methods, I really don't have footing to make my own opinion on their effectiveness or what metrics they use. Nor do I really care how internal employees are able to justify themselves or not to their superiors. I have no interest in internal politics in a company that I never will have to work directly with.
But I have to imagine that pumping the internet with FLE news for 12 months solid with teasers and tours certainly has a lot more staying power and reach then paying for expensive TV productions to run teasers on national TV, or produce travel shows, or buy into morning coach shows for just a week or two.. and then have to find a way to sustain that surge over long periods of time.
I would imagine The Disney Parks Blog being one of the most successful initiatives they've had in marketing in a very long time.
