Great Wolf Resorts Merges Waterparks and Social Media
Great Wolf Resorts is turning away from traditional copywriting and instead turning to user/guest experience for creating real-time content on its website. Plus, the company launched what it calls, the Great Wolf Connect. Guests at the indoor water parks can link their RHID (radio-frequency identification) wristbands to their Facebook accounts, allowing for automatic sharing of photos and other content.
Using Facebook, guests staying at the dozen Great Wolf Lodges are telling stories based on actual experiences, not ones made up by imaginative copywriters. Parents trust what other parents think, especially when it comes to activities for kids. In fact, in addition to Facebook and You Tube, the company has a Ask-A-Mom Panel--a group of moms who answer questions from guests.
Responses are streamed in real-time and Great Wolf's website allegedly gets over a million unique visitors a month. Using keywords, the content gets spread out across the site, depending on what aspects and amenities are being talked about.
Obviously Great Wolf Resorts puts alot of faith in what people are going to say, especially when--more or less--they're handing a microphone over to a visitor and saying, "Tell us what you think." Sharing goes beyond the expression of opinion, with visitors posting photos, videos and reviews.
Of course, it's not a completely open forum with dedicated staff and special software monitoring what may be considered objectionable posts and content. Such content can be immediately removed from the stream.
So, is filtering content providing an accurate picture of what people really think? Time will tell.
What happens if someone hates one of the parks, gets sick from the food, or kids have a miserable time?
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