From traditional media visits and FAM trips to resort team athletes, ski areas have long used outside personalities to promote their brand. But when the landscape shifted from print to screen, the way ski area marketers approached such “influencers” changed quicker than you can say collab.
Influencer marketing can be complicated, and, a few years in, every resort has had different experiences with it. To delve in, SAM sat down with six resort marketers—Luc Burns, Sunday River, Maine; Marsha Hovey, Trollhaugen, Wis.; John McColly, Mountain High, Calif.; Clayton Shoemaker, Big Bear, Calif.; JJ Toland, Sugarbush, Vt.; and Jared Winkler, Brighton Resort, Utah—to discuss the state of their influencer programs and a few things they’ve learned along the way.
SAM: HOW DO YOU DEFINE WHAT AN INFLUENCER IS FOR YOUR SKI AREA?
Hovey: At Trollhaugen, I separate influencers from professional athletes. I’d consider influencers those that have a career or the goal of a career in the social media/internet space creating content.
Burns: It’s someone who wields influence. You say the word “influencer” right now and everyone jumps to social media, but I think that’s gotten broader. We work with professional athletes that I’d very much consider influencers, and there are professional athletes I wouldn’t even give a comp ticket to. It continues to evolve as the world evolves, and marketing plans and audiences evolve.
Winkler: You have the bloggers, social media influencers, traditional media influencers from magazines and TV shows. Then there are truly different categories within those “influencer” realms. We justify their work by their reach, so if a journalist makes a mention of Brighton in their newscast, we’re going to give them credit for it just like we would with a social media influencer posting to his stories.
McColly: We look for folks that have good reach in our area. They could have lots of [followers] but be somewhat ineffective, or they can be a bit smaller but right on the nose as far as our market goes and drive a lot of traffic.
Toland: I look at it kind of clinically: An influencer is anyone who a change in visitation can be measured back to anything they did or said. Reach doesn’t matter as much. If they only reach 5,000 people but can bring an extra 100 people up here, it would mean something to me.
Shoemaker: It was like the Wild West at the beginning. Eventually, we began to create an agreement process and started vetting potential influencers. Because people can have a large following, but you end up marrying that person with your brand. So just making sure you’re digging into who they are, what they represent, and their lifestyle became a part of the process of defining “influencer” for us.
SAM: ON THAT NOTE, HOW DO YOU QUALIFY WHO YOU WORK WITH?
Winkler: I look at the value, not their reach as much. When Sundance happens in Utah, we get all the celebrities and their posses reaching out for lift tickets [to Brighton], saying, “We can get you exposure.” I have no problem saying no, because they have a reach but not a valuable reach in the sense of it’s not reaching out to skiers or snowboarders. We also look at a prospective influencer’s niche. Are they a food blogger, and is promoting our food and beverage something we’re trying to get after? Or a freestyle athlete and we want to promote that terrain?
Hovey: At Midwest resorts, the influencers you’re getting are different. I’m trying to find people that fit our brand. We are weird, we are quirky, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We had the world-famous Ben Afquack here last year, and that was great. And then there’s our sub-brand, which is this world-renowned terrain park, so I’m juggling different goals for who we choose to work with.
McColly: For Mountain High, we’re not super niche. We qualify people by the number of followers they have, their proximity, what their brand is all about, and who their followers are.
SAM: ARE YOU PITCHING FOLKS? DO YOU RESEARCH POTENTIAL INFLUENCERS, OR JUST RESPOND TO REQUESTS?
Toland: Both, but I’d like to move more in the direction of researching. Looking at people where you could see potential overlap, even if they’re not in our business, like your mommy bloggers (see sidebar below) vs. saying yes to everybody. I’d rather be proactive and rustle up those kinds of people. That appreciable difference makes it worth the hours of looking for them.
Hovey: This group is in the position to be reactionary to requests, but for those small mom-and-pop ski areas, being proactive and reaching out is critical. For the majority of ski areas in America, vetting requests is not what’s happening.
Shoemaker: People reach out to you, and you might find people, but I think there’s almost a third bucket here. If that guy’s a legend, it’s like, “go ride.” Some people you take care of because they’re deeply rooted.
SAM: ANY BAD EXPERIENCES WITH AN INFLUENCER?
McColly: We’ve all had those experiences where someone says, “Hey, I’m an influencer. I want to come up, and I’ve got four people with me, and I need rentals and lessons for my whole family.” That’s the lion’s share of stuff you see.
Toland: We had a few NFL people who had won a Superbowl come up and say, “Hey, hook me up with a ticket!” I’m like, “How about selling one of those rings on your finger?”
Winkler: Flava Flav came up with an entourage. He was there doing his thing, screaming and being obnoxious, and it was funny to see people calling out “Flava Flav!” from the chairlift. But the downside was that he created this excitement around himself then didn’t want people coming up to him. And he was charging for photos with his clock.
Shoemaker: I’ve seen people on the deck get swarmed when people recognize them. It’s hard to get people to calm down sometimes. We had Justin Bieber up here a couple years ago, and that was just chaos. And once Tony Hawk was just chilling on the deck and people wouldn’t leave him alone.
SAM: EVER HOOKED SOMEONE UP WITH TICKETS AND HAD IT RESULT IN NEGATIVE COVERAGE?
Shoemaker: Sometimes, with the younger kids, it comes with the lifestyle that ties into skiing and snowboarding. And when that becomes a public display on the mountain and this is a person that you’ve given a pass to, it can be an issue. We used to have team riders, and that was contractual. You would talk about things you would and wouldn’t do. That doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s just people coming to your resort, so it’s a little looser.
Toland: The further you get away from the core of our sport in terms of the influencer, the greater the danger of getting a phone call. When I was at Jay Peak (Vt.) and [reality show] “Winter House” was filming, they were posting pictures of drinking Fireball on the tram. I think it was 40 minutes before I got a phone call from the tramway [board] saying, “What’s going on?”
SAM: DO YOU HAVE THOSE CONVERSATIONS WITH PEOPLE? ABOUT EXPECTATIONS?
Winkler: We do with our season-long “ambassadors” who have a pass. Those conversations happen a lot with them. If it’s a one-time user, you can’t really have that conversation as much. But relationships are key. If someone does a great job, the next time they call, it’s easier to say yes. And easier to say no (when they don’t).
McColly: If they’re there one time and they blow it, you tried it. If it’s someone that’s under contract and you have a relationship, then you have a talk right away.
SAM: HAS THIS STARTED TAKING UP MORE OF YOUR TIME? HAS IT CHANGED HOW YOU MANAGE THINGS?
Burns: This goes back to the question of how you qualify influencers. I think you can make a snap judgment on whether you want to pursue a person. For Sunday River (Maine), it’s “Where are they located?” One guy asked [for a pass] and his entire audience was on the West Coast. That doesn’t do a ton for us. So, I think there are certain easy-check boxes that you can say “yay” or “nay” quickly and then it might devolve into a bit more time.
Shoemaker: Most of our requests come in from social media, so our social team gets a lot of them. It just depends on the person or the outlet it’s coming through: PR, marketing, et cetera.
Winkler: It’s always kind of been there. In the early 2000s, we relied on photographers and athletes to go out there to shoot, take photos. Our whole strategy was to get people on the hill and try to get that editorial content in the magazines. We didn’t buy advertising. It used to just be a personal relationship with the marketing guy. And then it grew into suddenly the content is immediate. You then evolve into having a team with a community manager, a social media manager to handle a lot of that. I have a dedicated guy (Mike Harrington) to field those requests, and he stays fairly busy.
Hovey: Social media being used as a customer service tool has increased greatly, and those requests are coming through social media vs. email at an alarming rate the last couple years. Like, the last two or three years, everyone’s a drone filmer.
SAM: LET’S TALK ABOUT PAY VS. TRADE.
Toland: I don’t mind the pay-to-play atmosphere, but we take a baby step approach to it. If someone calls and says, “I have 8 billion followers, give me a thousand dollars,” I might say, “Here’s $100 and a lift ticket, and if you can prove it, we might get into a deeper relationship with you.”
Hovey: I never pay anybody to come out. I think there’s a lot of people that want to be affiliated with a true mom-and-pop. I really hammer home to everyone that messages us that we are a mom-and-pop ski area. We will support the people that support us. We do have discounted season passes or comp season passes for those people that are living and breathing Trollhaugen, because there is something to be said for that brand loyalty and the people that are here every day when it’s raining and when it’s negative 20. That stuff to me is selling our brand through and through.
Burns: When you work with larger influencers that work with more traditional partners, the expectations for your available budget can be out of whack. One of our long-time influencers also works with Visa and MLB and other large organizations with dedicated marketing dollars behind their influencer programs. Kind of calibrating those expectations as you align with people who aren’t familiar with the ski industry has been a learning curve for us, and for them, too.
Shoemaker: We talk about paid, we talk about trade, but I also think user-generated content is your free influencer content: people that are relatable to our guests and just having a good time. We use a lot of user-generated content in stories or on our website. It’s more relatable than paying some superstar athlete who flew in on a jet and got everything for free. That user-generated content gives you an opportunity to kind of always be refreshing your content and getting people stoked.
SAM: IN CLOSING, WHAT’S ONE THING YOU’VE LEARNED?
McColly: That it pays to define what is expected from these folks, especially if they’re an ambassador-type relationship where they’re going to be visiting numerous times. That way, at the end of the day, you can look back and say, “Hey, did they perform? Did they not perform? And what are the trackable results?”
Hovey: I would say this conversation is crucial after you have a solid brand. If you don’t have an intention for the content that you’re gathering from these people, you’re not going to have a uniform direction. So, make sure that you have your solid brand story and find out how this fits into it.
Burns: Be at peace with what you’re getting out of it. I think of it like your paid campaigns in the winter. We run a brand campaign, and the goal of it is not necessarily to drive revenue. It’s more about awareness and higher-funnel stuff. Influencers, in a way, remind me of that. We’re working with people who we want to marry our brand to and who are in a market that we’re interested in. Sometimes tracking that is hard and being OK with that is important.
Toland: It’s a channel that has value and should be pursued with a certain level of deliberateness, but don’t be so deliberate that you don’t afford yourself a level of flexibility to have some fun.
Shoemaker: Being authentic, not just going after someone because, say, they have the largest audience. You’ve got to stay authentic but also ask yourself, “What is the overall goal with an influencer program? When is the best time to implement it? What do you think the needs are? And finally, what are the end goals?”
Winkler: Create great relationships, work with people who reinforce your brand, and stick with it, because it’s a long-term game versus a quick return on investment.
Top of the Hill | A few marketers name their favorite influencers.
One of our favorite influencers to work with is Zeb Powell (@zebpowelll). He and his team of photographers, filmers, and friends—many of whom are also pro snowboarders—are some of the most selfless, community-minded individuals. Zeb puts his whole heart into snowboarding, and it shows every time he comes to Trollhaugen. He will stop to sign autographs and take pictures whenever he is asked, and does so with a smile, creating those core memories for guests of all ages.
—Marsha Hovey, Trollhaugen, Wis.
Pat Fava (@_project_pat_) would be one of our favorite athlete/influencers we work with. He grew up riding in competitions here, has worked on our terrain park crew, and continues to represent the resort in a way where you know it’s his home resort even after winning X-Games, rail contests, and becoming a big name in the snowboard industry.
—Mike Harrington, Brighton, Utah
Sunday River has developed a relationship with a former local named Troy Murphy, aka Donny Pelletier (@donnypelletier207), who returns home to film on-snow content. Troy grew up in town, went to Gould [Academy, located in Bethel, along with the resort], was an Olympic mogul skier, and “Donny” just kind of started. It’s been a great partnership for us. There’s an authenticity there that doesn’t feel forced. Troy is a professional and has done incredible work with the deliverables. It’s added an interesting element: he’s a professional influencer but also has that local connection.
—Luc Burns, Sunday River, Maine
We work with a blogger named Nicole Feliciano (@momtrends; @theskimoms) who keeps her operation tight and targeted. Women who follow her respond well to her posts, and she’s evolved it into almost an old-school travel club that will bring and host groups. She’s great to work with, and the people who follow her are equally fun. She scratches into what’s fun at a resort and takes the time to find people’s stories so her followers can draw an emotional connection. People appreciate when you apply that curiosity to your writing. Those are the influencers that you want.
—JJ Toland, Sugarbush, Vt.
SAMMY Guest Editor says…
Influencer marketing used to be simple: find someone cool, give them a lift ticket, hope for the best. Now? It’s spreadsheets, contracts, and existential debates about what influence even means. The folks in this article nail the reality—reach is easy to measure, impact is not. And yet, here we are, trying to justify why someone with 500 engaged locals might be more valuable than a celeb with millions of followers who just learned what a gondola is.
What if we thought about influencers the way we think about guests? Not as transactions, but as part of a bigger ecosystem with lifetime value. Your best marketing isn’t just coming from paid; it’s coming from that random skier with 2,000 followers who tells their friends they had the best day ever. Influence is messy, nonlinear, and, like a powder day, best enjoyed in the moment—but only if you’re ready to adapt.
So, what’s the playbook?
Define value beyond vanity metrics. Build long-term relationships. Say no when it doesn’t fit. And most of all, think about timing—align the right voice with the right moment if you can. Not every influencer is right for every campaign. Some are built for hype, some for trust, some for depth. The trick is knowing when to use which tool. It’s the same debate we always have: performance advertising versus brand marketing. But the answer isn’t one or the other—it’s brand performance. Influence should drive impact today while building equity for tomorrow.
Kudos to the crew who pulled this roundtable together. These conversations matter.
—MATT PETERSON*, Vice President of Marketing, Palisades Tahoe
2024 SAMMY Leadership Award Honoree
*Thank you, Matt, for also providing the title of this article!
