TDC Meeting, Spring Break, Swordfish & Snowbirds

Jan 11th’s TDC meeting offered an eclectic mix of information.

Starting with the Vice-President of the Canadian Snowbirds, Nancy Hopcraft,  who caught my attention with the mention of the ‘Birds working on a potential “Retiree Visa” allowing those who qualify an opportunity to spend more time in Panama City Beach (or anywhere in the Nation).  It’s a wonderful idea, and one that’s sure to bring about an economic boost but we’re looking at least 2 years, before hearing any final words.

Great News from the Bay Point Invitational! Last year, Bay Point Invitational, had been called on to help prove to the nation that our waters were open, and our seafood, edible. So they did. Opening up the event to include Swordfish, they had an industry celebrity chef cook up the fish right there during weigh-in.  You can’t beat that kind of freshness, creativity or ingenious marketing.

Bay Point stole the spotlight  by announcing their Classic Event in September, had 44 Boats involved and a quarter of a million in the purse, which enabled them to present a  $25,000 check to Beach Point Services.

Finally, we come to Spring Break.

The TDC marketing strategy for Spring Break, has been mostly focused on Social Media.

There’s a few other avenues being utilized as well and without further ado, we present The Plan.

An Online Lodging Survey is in the works to gather feedback in a timely fashion, with questions on whether the business is booking above or below last year. The reason behind this is to enable a quick response or changes to the program as needed.

Targeting Associated Press (USA Today, NY Times, National Morning Shows & CNN) to spread the word by content.

In regards to utilization of Social Media, the plan is to narrow social site efforts to maximize impact. How, you ask?

Good question:

Targeting 50 designated schools on the school’s Facebook page

Advertise on school’s Facebook page (creating a dialogue on page with actual posts, as well as advertisements)

Setting up a specific Spring Break Twitter account (only to be used for Spring Break topics, information, etc)

Creating a Re-Tweet gift card program at each targeted school. For example, if you attend school in one of the target markets, and you re-tweet a post from our Spring Break twitter, you will be granted a gift card. Note: not PCB specific gift-card.

Hosting Tweet-Ups.

What’s a Tweet-Up? To be blunt, it’s a real-life get-together, where people tweet about the event, while AT the event.

Tweet-ups are a huge marketing strategy, currently being used in Hollywood, and to great success.  Popular TV shows, new Movie releases, Political events- can all be found in the real-time world of Twitter.

Those in attendance today, raised some concerns over these efforts coming a little too late, mentioning that Maximum Campaign Mode is currently in full swing from Collegiate Marketing and that the TDC’s/CVB PR strategy of polls, surveys and social media, should have been launched in early December, before kids left for Christmas Break.

Personally, I find some validity in those statements and I’m interested in hearing you’re thoughts?

Should the TDC start the Public Relation campaign trail, before January?

Photo credit: tonyocruz.com