This is not a complaint but I find it interesting now the amount of stuff they are giving away to the social media types.
I work in TV news and used to be we had a specific media contact and I had no problem getting tickets a few times a year for myself and my family. In the last two years they changed it where you have to go thru their website and the limit is two 1 day park hoppers twice a year and there is no one you deal with on a regular basis. So it amazes me the amount of money they blow on these people while regular media is now just an afterthought.
I guess they think by buying off social media types they can control opinion on the web but they are idiots if they think they can. You know if anyone wants to do any investigating into the quality of a WDW vacation it wouldn't take long to find it.
So I guess they think if they get these pixie dusters to blow enuff smoke up peoples butts it will make people consider going to WDW instead of I don't know offering new attractions and a higher quality experience for the money.
You can have all the pixie dusters you want out there but if people are coming back from WDW feeling like they have been ripped off then no amount of pixie dust will be able to fix the bad word of mouth WDW gets.
But here is the core of the apple...is the money spent on these social media types money well spent? Is any of it getting new business? I think by the time anyone finds one of these sites on the web, they are already predisposed to going or are a repeat visitor.
So the reason really becomes one of covering up the dirty sheets, and that is not a self sustainable business model.
Sadly most old school/main stream media while usually being more accountable, is much less trackable/verifiable. Yeah, you can say that Neilsen gave our channel a certain score for a particular region, but that is still heavily extrapolated based upon the people they do have participating.
But with online media, there is at least some sort of tracking. Especially for Disney owned/operated sites they have the ability to glean info about you. Liked their facebook (any of em.....)? Hooboy, people think that the info they will get from RFID bracelets is scary, imagine letting them see everything you have posted on Facebook, the people you like, the other brands you follow, etc. It's a marketers dream.
I think that social media gets targeted now due to a longer reach. Courting a TV program used to be the only way to get your message out, but after that 5 oclock news, it was gone. No more. Targeting the current new media (social and non) tends to stick around much longer, and can have a larger reach. With TV if you miss it, you are out of luck. Couldn't show your neighbor the new pictures from Epcot as they were only on the news. But now if your neighbor missed the initial FLE press announcement, you can fwd them links and pics afterwards. And while you may not have directly seen something, with the advent of "liking/plusing/whatevering" posts, things rise to the top and hand around. Reposting things on Tumblr or pinning them on your pintrest helps to spread em around. So it starts off at Disney fanbois only, but second round is seen by some casual fans, third round by their friends, and it just kinda trickles out from there.
At least that is what all the social media "experts" are using to sell their talents on to major corporations. It may not be right, but it's first, and that is what people want. Currently we are driven to know about stuff now, not when the news cycle suits us. Breaking news story about the head of an intelligence agency quitting due to an affair? Wait til the 5 or 11 PM news, the next days paper, or 30 seconds for CNN to send out an alert to everyone who has their app installed. Which sounds more like our current society.
