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You know it already: Your employees, customers, and competitors are using social networking tools increasingly in their daily lives. You know you must get your park or attraction on the bandwagon—but how? Creating a Facebook page seems quick, easy, and cheap, but it’s important to look before you leap. Whether you Twitter, Flickr, Yammer, or Digg, create an overarching digital marketing strategy, and plan to guide your social networking efforts to ensure valuable time and resources aren’t wasted. Here are 10 Ls that tell you how:
  First, look around to see what your competitors are doing. Do all of the other parks and attractions in your area have Facebook pages? Is the content fresh and current? Are they streaming video on their web sites or linking to YouTube?
“People are so connected now that digital channels are, for many, the primary way they consume information,” says Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer in New York. “A robust online presence can really differentiate an attraction from its competition.”
A second part of this step is to look at your various audiences—employee prospects, weekday visitors, annual pass holders—and decide which one you want to target first with your new digital marketing strategy. Focus on the audience that is most likely to be using social networking tools; for many parks, this may be seasonal employees. A limited targeted approach can be a great way to experiment without putting a great deal at risk.
 “You have to listen before you shout,” advises Mike Schuler, promotions manager at Darien Lake Resort in upstate New York, who is an avid and active social networking user. “Social networking offers lots of opportunities for brand extension beyond brick and mortar. You can really generate passion among your visitors and become part of their daily lives.”
Jill Kurtz, director of client services at Balance Interactive in Springfield, Virginia, notes the listening phase really encompasses all the things you can do to gather information about your target audience: surveys, frontline documentation, online digital marketing tools, and so forth.
She emphasizes “every company should listen to what’s being said about the brand online.” Some useful tools include Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) and Addictomatic (http://addictomatic.com). “Listening should take awhile, and companies should not act during this phase,” Kurtz says. Especially for a seasonal business, Kurtz recommends listening long enough to cover both high and low times.
 Schuler started Darien Lake’s MySpace page in 2007, then switched over to Facebook as he discovered more “friends” there and better viral growth. “Digital marketing involves a lot of trial and error,” he notes.
While learning will help you uncover the channels best suited for your needs, it will also make you a better user. “One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is diving into social networking without understanding the culture of the channel,” says Kurtz. “This only makes you look stupid.” One great way to learn and to experiment is to start out by only commenting on or linking to content generated by others, rather than posting your own stuff. Participate in communities, and feel your way around.
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium redesigned its web site from the ground up in 2007 to make it more interactive. The zoo created a Facebook page last year, then started using Twitter. Staying in learning mode can help you keep current with the ever-changing nature of this technology, says Pete Fingerhut, associate director of marketing and communication for the Ohio zoo. Fingerhut is now investigating ChaCha (www.chacha.com)—a site that answers questions texted by mobile phone users—for possible zoo promotion.
 Once you’ve decided on a channel, it’s time to launch. Both Verna and Kurtz cite video as one of the fastest-growing tools for online marketing. It’s also well suited to amusement parks and attractions, whose experiential nature is effectively replicated on video.
 Don’t, however, forget about those reliable favorites: your corporate web site and e-mail marketing; they’re both still crucial—and valuable—parts of your digital marketing strategy. That’s what the Track Family Fun Parks in Branson, Missouri, decided to do. “One of our first big projects was creating a really good web site,” says Vice President Craig Wescott, whose father founded the company. “We spent a lot of time and money adding information, interactive features, games, and e-commerce applications,” he says. Track collects e-mail addresses from site visitors and uses them to send about eight e-mail blasts per year, each with a special offer or promotion and a call to action.
Track created a Facebook page about a year ago; it’s maintained by Sales and Marketing Manager Julie Wilson. Wilson uses Facebook primarily to stay in touch with local residents who, although they account for only a small percentage of the parks’ business, are a loyal and vital source of referrals to out-of-town visitors. She uses it to promote special events, school partnerships, and party and group packages, and she tries to update it twice a week.
The Columbus Zoo web site gets 300,000 hits per month and has captured about 60,000 e-mail addresses. Fingerhut’s staff sends out an enewsletter once or twice a month.
 “Every good project deserves a good plan,” says Hillary Bressler, founder and CEO of .Com Marketing in Winter Park, Florida. By necessity, this will sometimes limit the number and scope of digital marketing activities your attraction can undertake. Bressler emphasizes an effective plan must be one that can be maintained, and that resources must be taken into consideration. “Don’t spread yourself too thin,” she advises.
“The key is to stick with your primary demographic,” says Darien Lake’s Schuler. “These are the people who are predisposed to your brand.”
Limit the frequency of communication, as well. “It’s hard to grasp the right frequency, but we’ve finally decided on one e-mail promotion per month,” says Fingerhut. “We are constantly learning about our guests and what they want.”
 Bressler notes you can leverage and repurpose content, using stories created for an e-mail blast to populate your blog or to be divided into tweets. You can also leverage your customers’ content, as Track Family Fun Parks has done. One page of the parks’ site allows visitors to post their own photos and captions from their visit. A story and photo contest last year drew more than 100 entries.
Similarly, the Columbus Zoo web site features a page that allows visitors to “tell their zoo story” by submitting essays, photos, and videos; they can even send them to friends. An online contest to name a new baby elephant generated 12,000 entries from all over the world.
 “Integration” is a key word in digital marketing strategy and can mean several things: First, it means to link all of the pieces of your online presence. If you post a video on your web site, post it also on YouTube. Post a link to it on your Facebook page, and send out a link on Twitter. “Cross-fertilization is very important and a very effective way to drive traffic,” says Kurtz.
The Columbus Zoo plans stories around events that occur throughout the year. “Facebook and Twitter help us support the campaign,” says Fingerhut. He also recommends a second form: integrating your digital marketing tactics with your traditional marketing. Ensure your print ads, television and radio spots, billboards, and other media feature your web site address.
Third, link up with partners. For example, when Fingerhut cuts a deal with the local paper, he wants a banner ad on the paper’s site that links to the zoo’s site. Track Family Fun Parks has several cooperative promotions with other businesses in the Branson area.
 The one crucial thing about your attraction’s online presence is to keep it fresh and current. Visitors to a site or a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated in a month or more are likely to navigate away quickly. “The minute your customer perceives that you’re less than relevant, then you’re in trouble,” says Verna. “Logistics can be a deal breaker if you’re not prepared to handle the response. This is definitely a reason not to jump in with both feet, but to limit your digital marketing efforts.”
When creating your digital marketing plan, spell out not only each tactic, but who is responsible for it and how often it will be updated. Better, go one step farther and plan out content for each channel, constantly replenishing your store of ideas. Schuler has a content plan for Darien Lake that goes out a year; it includes not only promotions and sales, which are primary, but the “lifestyle” items that allow him to connect with the park’s fans—surveys, contests, photos, and so forth.
 “We really struggle to manage the time and make the effort worthwhile,” says Track Family Fun Parks’ Wescott. “We often wonder what we are getting in return.”
Although it’s important to set goals and objectives within your digital marketing plan, realize measurement is where these tactics can really differ from traditional marketing. “It’s tough to measure success with social networking, so you have to evaluate your efforts on multiple levels,” Schuler says. “It’s often about quality as well as quantity.”
 The most successful social networking sites allow self-expression— and a little bit of brand control—on the part of the user. You must recognize this essential nature of online interaction and relinquish a bit of control. Staying on top of Google Alerts and other notification tools can keep you apprised of what’s being said about your brand. However, it’s a good idea to have a gatekeeping system on your own site where someone on staff can vet content before it is posted.
“Companies have been using the Internet to communicate better over the past 12 months or so,” says Bressler. “However, many are still designing web sites with no strategy to get people there.
“People are afraid of building a strategy for fear that it won’t work. So they just put tactics out there—a Facebook page, a blog, whatever. It’s important to realize that strategy determines what might work.”
“We were intimidated at first,” admits Fingerhut. “However, we did discover that many of these tactics are not that difficult to learn. Everyone is figuring out their place in the space right now. If you haven’t started yet, you will.”
Jennifer J. Salopek contributes to the Digital World column for FUNWORLD. She is a freelance writer based in McLean, Virginia.
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