Chetola Trip

Today we were lucky enough to receive a lesson in social media from Chetola in Blowing Rock. It was a fascinating to see a behind the scenes look at what goes on inside the facility and how that is translated into their social media presence. One of the main takeaways from this lecture was the importance of catering to the heart when employing social media strategies, as opposed to simply marketing a product to customers. Our speaker stressed that instead of telling customers they need to buy something, just show them how great it is; this is similar to what we learned about in class about showing vs telling. I was impressed by the innovations that they have made in their social media campaigns, especially how they created a social media team. Instead of hiring an outside person to manage their social media, they created a team of fifteen people, one or two from each of the fifteen departments who showed an interest in social media. This reminded me of campaigns that many Instagram accounts run where they allow different people within their company/market/university to take over their page for the day. Overall, I feel like I gained a good idea of how a resort like Chetola runs their social media, which is great because my minor is Hospitality and Tourism Management, so it is cool to see how that can be combined with communications.