Feel the Buzz: Bloggy Mountain High

Colorado Ski Country is getting buzz from Bloggy Mountain High, our evangelism event/ski blogging expedition. As of today at about 9:30 AM, BMH has over 58,000 Google mentions 18,700 Google mentions. (Thanks to Jim Turner for the correction.) And keep in mind that this is an event that was announced less than a month ago.

Ok, ok. So I’m back-patting a little. But it was a good event and we’re rightfully proud of it. Now, let’s look at some of the buzz in the blogosphere:

• Scoble posted about the marketing component of BMH and the business savvy of the Colorado Ski people he also raved about the blue skies and perfect powder.
• Buzz Bruggeman blogged about the technological advances that make skiing even more fun and how much he loves Rock Resorts.
• Mie did four posts (!) complete with wonderful photographs. She rocked the inner tubes, did some snowmobiling with Scoble, was astounded by the beauty of Colorado, and raved about her room at Keystone.
• UPDATE 2:42 p.m. - Jason at Colorado Ski Country has posted a roundup of Bloggy Mountain High. My favorite “lesson learned” from the event: “Get a deposit from Scoble before loaning him a helmet.”
• UPDATE 2/22/06 2:43 p.m. Jeff Schmalenberg of the New West Snow Blog writes that the powder wasn’t the best he’d seen, being a local and all - but that BMH ruled nonetheless.

A couple of points of analysis:

• In one of Scoble’s posts, he criticized the lack of free WiFi at Copper. This honest critique lends more credibility to the other things he says about Copper, just like his honest critiques of Microsoft in the past have lent more credibility to his employer. Otherwise, he would be just a paid shill for both. That’s one of the hallmarks of the blogosphere: independent, critical thinking.
• Some criticism has popped up about the way that prominent bloggers are given these sorts of trips in the hopes that they’ll blog about them. One commenter on Scoble’s blog even went so far as to call the practice unethical. See comments numbered 7, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 25 for our conversation on the subject. The bottom line with this event is that our friends in Colorado absolutely did invite bloggers to enjoy a vacation on their dime. But as Scoble so aptly put it, “you can’t fake a good experience.”

These sorts of events are typical of what makes the blogosphere such an exciting space for marketing. It’s explosive, but it’s more than just a new space in which to sell things. The most exciting thing about this space is that for blog marketing to work, you need to have a great product.

In our era of constant advertising, people become inured to the bombardment of messaging, spin and imagery. People begin to think that honesty doesn’t really exist anymore in business. The honesty and authenticity of the blogosphere grabs people’s attention in part because they know and expect that in order to thrive among the bloggers, a product has to be able to hold its own. It cuts through the crap.

We’ll be covering more about how businesses can work within that structure at our upcoming seminar.