New Director of Communications - Chad Showalter

[Orion-XL200]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:28 AM, disco2000 said:

Speaking of curiosity (and ironically I had been doodling this as random thoughts prior to you being on TowerTopics LOL so the timing is good to post this), just like social media has changed the landscape of the traditional news outlet, where in the past the TV news and newspapers needed two separate sources to confirm news before they would publish it, I think it has changed the direction parks need to go. Now it’s often as simple as re-tweeting somebody else. The immediacy of X, Facebook, TikTok, and Google searches in this new 24/7 world of news has created this rush to be first, albeit now with typos, inaccuracies, and whatever else.

And we know a few here are quick to point out the typo that the KI social media team put out….But we see the same issues even with the “mainstream” media as the Big 3 networks have had to adapt to the changing environment and they routinely put out stuff quickly that clearly an editor didn’t review and maybe not even a spell check LOL.
Has this same immediacy phenomenon resulted in differing skillsets and has the need for the traditional top notch “marketing professionals” in amusement parks been diminished over the years as a result of social media, bloggers, influencers, etc.

Let's face it - all the free publicity and answers to questions KIC provided over the years, and all of the questions fielded on your season passholder page is basically doing the job of paid employees for free!

How many less positions are needed to be staffed in the call center now that many of these answers are provided by people on social media sites answering the questions for free?

Would the park had been better off when you were still employed there to let you do what you did with the FB season passholder page on KI’s FB page?

It is clear, as you know, people would rather go to Facebook and ask random strangers the hours of the park rather than opening a browser and finding the official park website and pulling up the hours LOL.  And you are very well aware many will respond with the wrong answers as well, yet that seems to be where people are going for their information.

Jim is putting out more frequent information and marketing on the FB season pass page than KI does.  As such his stuff has higher visibility.

Is it possible that things like the FB season passholder page and influencer channels are a better marketing tool than the official KI social media channels?  Way more traffic on the passholder page or even KIC than the official KI FB and twitter pages.

And then let’s not forget about the countless bloggers, influencers, channels, etc. that all have a larger audience than the official park social media sites.

And many of these influencer channels do a great job of “marketing” a park and their new attraction that reaches a far broader audience that the park isn’t paying for!

At what point do you let that type of marketing/Q&A be handled for “free” by overzealous employees and park fans on social media sites and eliminate a PR role and some staff in guest services and roll “marketing” up under the GM umbrella for those rare occasions something happens that a spokesperson needs to be provided to the media?  Or simply hire a PR firm for the couple times a year marketing blitz on new attractions and special events or when something goes south and an incident requires damage control?

Don’t get me wrong, I think there will always be a need for a guest services call center and park marketing staff as not everybody is on social media LOL, but has social media influenced the amount of money a park needs to spend on marketing and the type of professionals needed in those roles, or maybe a redirect on how that money is allocated?  Maybe the park should be paying you and your admin staff for your FB page!

Or put another way, should parks make an investment in being more active on their social media channels?  Is the old marketing way of not over-saturating the public with constant material to the point that it becomes background noise and no longer paid attention to relevant anymore in the social media age?

Just using CF as an example, it appears to me that the amount of posting and interacting by park staff is somewhat driven by CF policies.  The parks generally post about the same frequency and while some of the parks interact with guests on social media, it certainly isn’t constant, and far more posts are not responded to than responded to.

From a social media perspective, would a park be better off to adopt some of the social media methods that influencer sites have?  Look at Don as an example – he is way more active on social media now and providing content more frequently than when he was at KI – was that CF driven or did he have so many other duties that social media was a backburner?

For example, while it may hurt the FB season passholder page LOL, would KI be better off posting to their social media channels and responding to comments at the frequency Jim (and your admin crew) does on the pass holder page?  And maybe that role isn’t a PR person but a guest services type person?

Or would KI posting at that high level of frequency cause people to tone out and not pay attention to the official social media sites?

Would daily posts by KI on park hours, if there are fireworks etc., be a good thing or should they stick to the infrequent posting and as such end up getting buried and lost amongst all the other influencer channels?

I do think that even if they took a more active role and “copied” your format to some extent, there would still be a need for the passholder page to do some of the additional sharing and other things you mentioned in Tower Topics.
 

Just a bunch of random curiosity thoughts LOL.

Hey thanks for this. As I'm scrolling the internet at the hospital while my mom prepares for cancer surgery, I happened to see the mention. When I can actually focus, I will fully read and respond. 

[DonHelbig]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:28 AM, disco2000 said:

Speaking of curiosity (and ironically I had been doodling this as random thoughts prior to you being on TowerTopics LOL so the timing is good to post this), just like social media has changed the landscape of the traditional news outlet, where in the past the TV news and newspapers needed two separate sources to confirm news before they would publish it, I think it has changed the direction parks need to go. Now it’s often as simple as re-tweeting somebody else. The immediacy of X, Facebook, TikTok, and Google searches in this new 24/7 world of news has created this rush to be first, albeit now with typos, inaccuracies, and whatever else.

And we know a few here are quick to point out the typo that the KI social media team put out….But we see the same issues even with the “mainstream” media as the Big 3 networks have had to adapt to the changing environment and they routinely put out stuff quickly that clearly an editor didn’t review and maybe not even a spell check LOL.
Has this same immediacy phenomenon resulted in differing skillsets and has the need for the traditional top notch “marketing professionals” in amusement parks been diminished over the years as a result of social media, bloggers, influencers, etc.

Let's face it - all the free publicity and answers to questions KIC provided over the years, and all of the questions fielded on your season passholder page is basically doing the job of paid employees for free!

How many less positions are needed to be staffed in the call center now that many of these answers are provided by people on social media sites answering the questions for free?

Would the park had been better off when you were still employed there to let you do what you did with the FB season passholder page on KI’s FB page?

It is clear, as you know, people would rather go to Facebook and ask random strangers the hours of the park rather than opening a browser and finding the official park website and pulling up the hours LOL.  And you are very well aware many will respond with the wrong answers as well, yet that seems to be where people are going for their information.

Jim is putting out more frequent information and marketing on the FB season pass page than KI does.  As such his stuff has higher visibility.

Is it possible that things like the FB season passholder page and influencer channels are a better marketing tool than the official KI social media channels?  Way more traffic on the passholder page or even KIC than the official KI FB and twitter pages.

And then let’s not forget about the countless bloggers, influencers, channels, etc. that all have a larger audience than the official park social media sites.

And many of these influencer channels do a great job of “marketing” a park and their new attraction that reaches a far broader audience that the park isn’t paying for!

At what point do you let that type of marketing/Q&A be handled for “free” by overzealous employees and park fans on social media sites and eliminate a PR role and some staff in guest services and roll “marketing” up under the GM umbrella for those rare occasions something happens that a spokesperson needs to be provided to the media?  Or simply hire a PR firm for the couple times a year marketing blitz on new attractions and special events or when something goes south and an incident requires damage control?

Don’t get me wrong, I think there will always be a need for a guest services call center and park marketing staff as not everybody is on social media LOL, but has social media influenced the amount of money a park needs to spend on marketing and the type of professionals needed in those roles, or maybe a redirect on how that money is allocated?  Maybe the park should be paying you and your admin staff for your FB page!

Or put another way, should parks make an investment in being more active on their social media channels?  Is the old marketing way of not over-saturating the public with constant material to the point that it becomes background noise and no longer paid attention to relevant anymore in the social media age?

Just using CF as an example, it appears to me that the amount of posting and interacting by park staff is somewhat driven by CF policies.  The parks generally post about the same frequency and while some of the parks interact with guests on social media, it certainly isn’t constant, and far more posts are not responded to than responded to.

From a social media perspective, would a park be better off to adopt some of the social media methods that influencer sites have?  Look at Don as an example – he is way more active on social media now and providing content more frequently than when he was at KI – was that CF driven or did he have so many other duties that social media was a backburner?

For example, while it may hurt the FB season passholder page LOL, would KI be better off posting to their social media channels and responding to comments at the frequency Jim (and your admin crew) does on the pass holder page?  And maybe that role isn’t a PR person but a guest services type person?

Or would KI posting at that high level of frequency cause people to tone out and not pay attention to the official social media sites?

Would daily posts by KI on park hours, if there are fireworks etc., be a good thing or should they stick to the infrequent posting and as such end up getting buried and lost amongst all the other influencer channels?

I do think that even if they took a more active role and “copied” your format to some extent, there would still be a need for the passholder page to do some of the additional sharing and other things you mentioned in Tower Topics.
 

Just a bunch of random curiosity thoughts LOL.

Perhaps one day your curiosity will be a topic on a future episode of Tower Topics. With blogs, from 2017 to 2022, more than 1,000 stories were published on the KI Blog, including 245 in 2019. Why the significant decrease in frequency? Time restraints? Corporate restraints? Laziness? Out of content ideas? Certainly, this being a topic for a Tower Topics episode would address a lot of the questions that you and some others have on this forum, but I believe the podcast audience would rather hear about the latest news, events, park history with their time. 

 

[disco2000]

14 minutes ago, DonHelbig said:

Perhaps one day your curiosity will be a topic on a future episode of Tower Topics. With blogs, from 2017 to 2022, more than 1,000 stories were published on the KI Blog, including 245 in 2019. Why the significant decrease in frequency? Time restraints? Corporate restraints? Laziness? Out of content ideas? Certainly, this being a topic for a Tower Topics episode would address a lot of the questions that you and some others have on this forum, but I believe the podcast audience would rather hear about the latest news, events, park history with their time. 

 

I didn't say it needed to be a Tower Topics podcast lol.  I was simply asking here has the marketing/PR/guest relations arena changed in the days of social media and|or have some parks not made the commitment to adapt to that changing environment...

Although you all did touch on the changing landscape of social media and its its influence on The Attractions Group Podcast when you had Taylor from Coaster Studios as a guest...

But yes I agree, we need to be reminded yearly OTD that The Brady Bunch was recorded at KI and OTD The Cincinnati Kids aired 

[disco2000]

2 hours ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Hey thanks for this. As I'm scrolling the internet at the hospital while my mom prepares for cancer surgery, I happened to see the mention. When I can actually focus, I will fully read and respond. 

Sorry to hear about your mom.  You are in my thoughts for a speedy recovery!

[DonHelbig]

7 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

I didn't say it needed to be a Tower Topics podcast lol. 

But yes I agree, we need to be reminded yearly OTD that The Brady Bunch was recorded at KI and OTD The Cincinnati Kids aired 

I didn't say you said it needed to be a Tower Topics podcast; just said it could be addressed someday. 

With OTD yearly reminders, a lot of people that see that kind of content are seeing it for the very first time. Give it your usual LOL if you want, but that OTD content connects with audiences every year. So says the analytics, not me. 

 

[disco2000]

Cool.  I hope it is addressed some day, as do others!  It might be the final straw why some people finally decide to write off the park and not renew passes (cross-threading)...

Oh I know the OTD content connects with people or it wouldn't be done.  I personally always enjoy seeing the clips and of the park in its infancy. But some here think the Brady Bunch filming here doesn't add any value and bringing it up every year doesn't add value or bodies thru the gate and if you can't put a tangible concrete number on it, then it isnt worth doing and further shouldn't market outside the region (again cross threading LOL)...

 

[DonHelbig]

1 hour ago, disco2000 said:

Cool.  I hope it is addressed some day, as do others!  It might be the final straw why some people finally decide to write off the park and not renew passes (cross-threading)...

Oh I know the OTD content connects with people or it wouldn't be done.  I personally always enjoy seeing the clips and of the park in its infancy. But some here think the Brady Bunch filming here doesn't add any value and bringing it up every year doesn't add value or bodies thru the gate and if you can't put a tangible concrete number on it, then it isnt worth doing and further shouldn't market outside the region (again cross threading LOL)...

 

You can definitely put a tangible number on it by looking at the metrics for engagement, web traffic and conversion value for every social media post, every blog published, and e-mail newsletter article and ad. OTD posts and repeating them annually have value for parks and sports teams, when they’re done right. 

 

[disco2000]

36 minutes ago, DonHelbig said:

You can definitely put a tangible number on it by looking at the metrics for engagement, web traffic and conversion value for every social media post, every blog published, and e-mail newsletter article and ad. OTD posts and repeating them annually have value for parks and sports teams, when they’re done right. 

 

In addition to being a great story teller, you are a numbers guy, so I figured if anyone could dispute the arguments against marketing in this thread below it would be you.  But of course now that your "gag order" is over LOL (either real or perceived here due to lack of posting), that thread is closed...

 

Given your incredible background and experience, we look forward to you being able to share your thoughts and opinions on topics that in the past you may have had to toe the employer line and not cross.

You could end each segment with the famous Paul Harvey quote:  “Now you know…the rest of the story."

[DonHelbig]

28 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

In addition to being a great story teller, you are a numbers guy, so I figured if anyone could dispute the arguments against marketing in this thread below it would be you.  But of course now that your "gag order" is over LOL (either real or perceived here due to lack of posting), that thread is closed...

 

Perceived for the record, as continuing to do The Attractions Group Podcast and beginning a second one with Tower Topics this summer would attest. 

@BoddaH1994 and I have fun doing the podcasts. We have pinned to the top of the X channels for each podcast a post for listener questions if you or anyone else has anything about the industry, Kings Island, Buc-ee's.  

 

Edited November 7, 2023 by DonHelbig
Typo

[Tr0y]

2 hours ago, DonHelbig said:

 

@BoddaH1994 and I have fun doing the podcasts. We have pinned to the top of the X channels for each podcast a post for listener questions if you or anyone else has anything about the industry, Kings Island, Buc-ee's.  

 

 

I’d like to know if it was your idea to call / market Orion as a “Giga” coaster. 

I’d also would like your opinion on Orion vs the other Giga coasters in the chain.

And your opinion on if we will see Giga additions to the legacy SIX parks now that they have merged with CF.

[DonHelbig]

3 minutes ago, Tr0y said:

 

I’d like to know if it was your idea to call / market Orion as a “Giga” coaster. 

I’d also would like your opinion on Orion vs the other Giga coasters in the chain.

And your opinion on if we will see Giga additions to the legacy SIX parks now that they have merged with CF.

Great questions! Submit them on the Tower Topics X in the pinned post asking for listener questions. You can combine them into one question. 

[SonofBaconator]

I still don’t understand the argument that Orion isn’t a giga, if you’re standing at the base of drop, its 300ft tall..

[BoddaH1994]

1 hour ago, Tr0y said:

 

I’d like to know if it was your idea to call / market Orion as a “Giga” coaster. 

I’d also would like your opinion on Orion vs the other Giga coasters in the chain.

And your opinion on if we will see Giga additions to the legacy SIX parks now that they have merged with CF.

Here is a direct link to the pinned Tweet: https://x.com/tower_topics/status/1703949761387044984?s=46&t=Zl4tfOSUx8ou9AWrqZJlzA

[Tr0y]

14 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

Here is a direct link to the pinned Tweet: https://x.com/tower_topics/status/1703949761387044984?s=46&t=Zl4tfOSUx8ou9AWrqZJlzA

I don’t have X.

[DiamondbackFan]

2 hours ago, Tr0y said:

I don’t have X.

Not many people do, anymore.

[DonHelbig]

28 minutes ago, DiamondbackFan said:

Not many people do, anymore.

It's a common misconception that nobody is on X anymore, but the numbers tell a different story. With approximately 556 million active monthly users and an impressive 6.4 billion monthly visits as of this fall, X is still very much alive. 

[Orion-XL200]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:28 AM, disco2000 said:

Speaking of curiosity (and ironically I had been doodling this as random thoughts prior to you being on TowerTopics LOL so the timing is good to post this), just like social media has changed the landscape of the traditional news outlet, where in the past the TV news and newspapers needed two separate sources to confirm news before they would publish it, I think it has changed the direction parks need to go. Now it’s often as simple as re-tweeting somebody else. The immediacy of X, Facebook, TikTok, and Google searches in this new 24/7 world of news has created this rush to be first, albeit now with typos, inaccuracies, and whatever else.

And we know a few here are quick to point out the typo that the KI social media team put out….But we see the same issues even with the “mainstream” media as the Big 3 networks have had to adapt to the changing environment and they routinely put out stuff quickly that clearly an editor didn’t review and maybe not even a spell check LOL.
Has this same immediacy phenomenon resulted in differing skillsets and has the need for the traditional top notch “marketing professionals” in amusement parks been diminished over the years as a result of social media, bloggers, influencers, etc.

Let's face it - all the free publicity and answers to questions KIC provided over the years, and all of the questions fielded on your season passholder page is basically doing the job of paid employees for free!

How many less positions are needed to be staffed in the call center now that many of these answers are provided by people on social media sites answering the questions for free?

Would the park had been better off when you were still employed there to let you do what you did with the FB season passholder page on KI’s FB page?

It is clear, as you know, people would rather go to Facebook and ask random strangers the hours of the park rather than opening a browser and finding the official park website and pulling up the hours LOL.  And you are very well aware many will respond with the wrong answers as well, yet that seems to be where people are going for their information.

Jim is putting out more frequent information and marketing on the FB season pass page than KI does.  As such his stuff has higher visibility.

Is it possible that things like the FB season passholder page and influencer channels are a better marketing tool than the official KI social media channels?  Way more traffic on the passholder page or even KIC than the official KI FB and twitter pages.

And then let’s not forget about the countless bloggers, influencers, channels, etc. that all have a larger audience than the official park social media sites.

And many of these influencer channels do a great job of “marketing” a park and their new attraction that reaches a far broader audience that the park isn’t paying for!

At what point do you let that type of marketing/Q&A be handled for “free” by overzealous employees and park fans on social media sites and eliminate a PR role and some staff in guest services and roll “marketing” up under the GM umbrella for those rare occasions something happens that a spokesperson needs to be provided to the media?  Or simply hire a PR firm for the couple times a year marketing blitz on new attractions and special events or when something goes south and an incident requires damage control?

Don’t get me wrong, I think there will always be a need for a guest services call center and park marketing staff as not everybody is on social media LOL, but has social media influenced the amount of money a park needs to spend on marketing and the type of professionals needed in those roles, or maybe a redirect on how that money is allocated?  Maybe the park should be paying you and your admin staff for your FB page!

Or put another way, should parks make an investment in being more active on their social media channels?  Is the old marketing way of not over-saturating the public with constant material to the point that it becomes background noise and no longer paid attention to relevant anymore in the social media age?

Just using CF as an example, it appears to me that the amount of posting and interacting by park staff is somewhat driven by CF policies.  The parks generally post about the same frequency and while some of the parks interact with guests on social media, it certainly isn’t constant, and far more posts are not responded to than responded to.

From a social media perspective, would a park be better off to adopt some of the social media methods that influencer sites have?  Look at Don as an example – he is way more active on social media now and providing content more frequently than when he was at KI – was that CF driven or did he have so many other duties that social media was a backburner?

For example, while it may hurt the FB season passholder page LOL, would KI be better off posting to their social media channels and responding to comments at the frequency Jim (and your admin crew) does on the pass holder page?  And maybe that role isn’t a PR person but a guest services type person?

Or would KI posting at that high level of frequency cause people to tone out and not pay attention to the official social media sites?

Would daily posts by KI on park hours, if there are fireworks etc., be a good thing or should they stick to the infrequent posting and as such end up getting buried and lost amongst all the other influencer channels?

I do think that even if they took a more active role and “copied” your format to some extent, there would still be a need for the passholder page to do some of the additional sharing and other things you mentioned in Tower Topics.
 

Just a bunch of random curiosity thoughts LOL.

Hey @disco2000 first off, thanks for the wishes on my mom's health and I'm glad to say that she is home and doing well! 

Finally able to read your post! You bring up a lot of valid points/thoughts. Please bare with me on my all over responses and order:

As far as influencers go, the park has recently utilized some "influencers" for media events, press-releases, etc. who do not have a ton of following/reach. Not that I truly care, but would a reach of over 65,000 members to one unit be better than an account that has 100 followers or less? -Cross threading Tower Topics here.- Influencers if utilized right, can be positive, but I also feel like there has to be an influence being given from the park as well. The influencers who push out videos/posts that highlight their days definitely help the park out, but there always could be more.

When it comes to typos, I always have to laugh when the news does it (when I occasionally catch it). 

I have been told by a few park officials including Mr. Koontz that since the inception of my group, the number of silly calls (what time does the park open, where do I go to get into the park, etc.) has drastically dwindled. 

As far as traffic to pages/profiles goes....in order to gain reach/interaction for posts/pages you have to post frequently/post items worth being shared (from my own experience and things I've learned over the years). The more eyes on posts, the better for business.

Quote

Is it possible that things like the FB season passholder page and influencer channels are a better marketing tool than the official KI social media channels?  Way more traffic on the passholder page or even KIC than the official KI  FB and twitter pages.

I would say at this point yes. As I typed above, the more yes the better from shares. The KI social pages could increase their reach/interactions with more posts being shared. 

Quote

At what point do you let that type of marketing/Q&A be handled for “free” by overzealous employees and park fans on social media sites and eliminate a PR role and some staff in guest services and roll “marketing” up under the GM umbrella for those rare occasions something happens that a spokesperson needs to be provided to the media?  Or simply hire a PR firm for the couple times a year marketing blitz on new attractions and special events or when something goes south and an incident requires damage control?

The park/chain could save a lot of money in payroll by not having someone doing the PR role...sure you could have someone with a role of being a spokesperson when needed (I mean we've got one now, but as we've all seen has not returned a request for comment, but that is neither here nor there. A PR firm may need to be the end goal....sending out an email blitz for things like pass sales, pass perks (lol), communications, etc.  As far as a GM umbrella for being there for the rare occasions, I think it'd be okay. Look at SFFT. Jefferey Seibert as the head of the park, he's the one posting/sharing information about new rides, updates in the park, answering questions on social media, etc.  Maybe if the merger goes through, this may be something that SF brings to the table.

Quote

Don’t get me wrong, I think there will always be a need for a guest services call center and park marketing staff as not everybody is on social media LOL, but has social media influenced the amount of money a park needs to spend on marketing and the type of professionals needed in those roles, or maybe a redirect on how that money is allocated?  Maybe the park should be paying you and your admin staff for your FB page!

I don't think the park should pay us for what we do....it's not about that for us, I think. We do it because we like it...though I'm sure some folks think we do it to get paid or to get things from the park, but we don't. 

 

Quote

From a social media perspective, would a park be better off to adopt some of the social media methods that influencer sites have?  Look at Don as an example – he is way more active on social media now and providing content more frequently than when he was at KI – was that CF driven or did he have so many other duties that social media was a backburner?

For example, while it may hurt the FB season passholder page LOL, would KI be better off posting to their social media channels and responding to comments at the frequency Jim (and your admin crew) does on the pass holder page?  And maybe that role isn’t a PR person but a guest services type person?

Or would KI posting at that high level of frequency cause people to tone out and not pay attention to the official social media sites?

I cannot answer for Don, but I believe his main duty was not Social Media. As of now, I believe what Don is doing is his job. 

I don't think that the park would post/interact on their channels like we do on the Facebook group as they ultimately have someone to answer to, they likely have a directive from a corporate entity (whether locally or in Charlotte) that dictates what they can/cannot share. There are things that have been shared with myself and my team that we could share but often times choose not to in respect to the park and often times their social media policy even though 95% of us do not work for the park/Cedar Fair anymore. We even have those newer employees who attempt to post things that we know for certain that shouldn't be posted online....we will not allow the posts to go through for two reasons respect of the park and not wanting the person to get fired. We will give feedback to the person that will tell them to review their social media policy and that we do not want them to get fired so we are declining their post. 

I don't necessarily know where I'm going with that lats bit, but haha. Anyway, hopefully you understand my rambling. 

Again, thanks for your post/posing the questions! 

[disco2000]

1 hour ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Hey @disco2000 first off, thanks for the wishes on my mom's health and I'm glad to say that she is home and doing well! 

Finally able to read your post! You bring up a lot of valid points/thoughts. Please bare with me on my all over responses and order:

As far as influencers go, the park has recently utilized some "influencers" for media events, press-releases, etc. who do not have a ton of following/reach. Not that I truly care, but would a reach of over 65,000 members to one unit be better than an account that has 100 followers or less? -Cross threading Tower Topics here.- Influencers if utilized right, can be positive, but I also feel like there has to be an influence being given from the park as well. The influencers who push out videos/posts that highlight their days definitely help the park out, but there always could be more.

When it comes to typos, I always have to laugh when the news does it (when I occasionally catch it). 

I have been told by a few park officials including Mr. Koontz that since the inception of my group, the number of silly calls (what time does the park open, where do I go to get into the park, etc.) has drastically dwindled. 

As far as traffic to pages/profiles goes....in order to gain reach/interaction for posts/pages you have to post frequently/post items worth being shared (from my own experience and things I've learned over the years). The more eyes on posts, the better for business.

I would say at this point yes. As I typed above, the more yes the better from shares. The KI social pages could increase their reach/interactions with more posts being shared. 

The park/chain could save a lot of money in payroll by not having someone doing the PR role...sure you could have someone with a role of being a spokesperson when needed (I mean we've got one now, but as we've all seen has not returned a request for comment, but that is neither here nor there. A PR firm may need to be the end goal....sending out an email blitz for things like pass sales, pass perks (lol), communications, etc.  As far as a GM umbrella for being there for the rare occasions, I think it'd be okay. Look at SFFT. Jefferey Seibert as the head of the park, he's the one posting/sharing information about new rides, updates in the park, answering questions on social media, etc.  Maybe if the merger goes through, this may be something that SF brings to the table.

I don't think the park should pay us for what we do....it's not about that for us, I think. We do it because we like it...though I'm sure some folks think we do it to get paid or to get things from the park, but we don't. 

 

I cannot answer for Don, but I believe his main duty was not Social Media. As of now, I believe what Don is doing is his job. 

I don't think that the park would post/interact on their channels like we do on the Facebook group as they ultimately have someone to answer to, they likely have a directive from a corporate entity (whether locally or in Charlotte) that dictates what they can/cannot share. There are things that have been shared with myself and my team that we could share but often times choose not to in respect to the park and often times their social media policy even though 95% of us do not work for the park/Cedar Fair anymore. We even have those newer employees who attempt to post things that we know for certain that shouldn't be posted online....we will not allow the posts to go through for two reasons respect of the park and not wanting the person to get fired. We will give feedback to the person that will tell them to review their social media policy and that we do not want them to get fired so we are declining their post. 

I don't necessarily know where I'm going with that lats bit, but haha. Anyway, hopefully you understand my rambling. 

Again, thanks for your post/posing the questions! 

Glad to hear your mom is home and doing well!

Sounds like we agree on a lot of things on my rambling post.  Your rambling to my rambling makes sense.  Now if it does to anyone else is another story LOL.

 

[Orion-XL200]

3 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

Glad to hear your mom is home and doing well!

Sounds like we agree on a lot of things on my rambling post.  Your rambling to my rambling makes sense.  Now if it does to anyone else is another story LOL.

 

 

Haha! Appreciate ya! 

[DonHelbig]

1 hour ago, Orion-XL200 said:

I cannot answer for Don, but I believe his main duty was not Social Media. As of now, I believe what Don is doing is his job. 

My primary role the last few years I was at Kings Island was managing all of the park’s social media channels, which included organic and paid content, writing and publishing blogs, and optimizing the key performance indicators. The park annually had industry-leading results the years I managed the digital content efforts. 

I made it a priority to try to at least “like” every comment so the person making the comment knew it was seen, but due time restraints I wasn’t able to always reply back with comments. I would have liked to have been a lot better in this area, but was still able to accrue industry-leading results for engagement. A lot of that high engagement was derived through storytelling. That’s what I enjoyed the most, both when I did PR and then social media, telling the park’s stories.

I was hired in 2007 to do the PR for the park, and then took on social media as that was emerging in 2008 around the time construction on Diamondback began to take shape. By 2015, it had become two distinctive different jobs. In the summer of 2017, there was a marketing restructure and at the bigger parks in the chain, PR and social media (digital marketing) were split into two different jobs. I landed on the digital side, which allowed for me to expand my skill set. It was a great opportunity, which came at a time when traditional PR was changing and the printing press was no longer news outlets, but rather Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs to share your news and stories, because that’s where the people you were trying to market to were. 

When I did PR, I was always looking to make noise to keep top of mind awareness for the park. During my years riding The Racer in the 1980’s, I was fortunate to be around and learn from three of the best to ever do it (PR) in the amusement and theme park industry in Bill Mefford, Ruth Voss and Carolyn Boos. They were the three most influential people in my career and the reason I was able to have a successful 27-year PR career, including 11 seasons doing PR at Kings Island. 

Way too much information, but this is what my role was during my years at Kings Island.
 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2023 by DonHelbig

[disco2000]

36 minutes ago, DonHelbig said:

My primary role the last few years I was at Kings Island was managing all of the park’s social media channels, which included organic and paid content, writing and publishing blogs, and optimizing the key performance indicators. The park annually had industry-leading results the years I managed the digital content efforts. 

I made it a priority to try to at least “like” every comment so the person making the comment knew it was seen, but due time restraints I wasn’t able to always reply back with comments. I would have liked to have been a lot better in this area, but was still able to accrue industry-leading results for engagement. A lot of that high engagement was derived through storytelling. That’s what I enjoyed the most, both when I did PR and then social media, telling the park’s stories.

I was hired in 2007 to do the PR for the park, and then took on social media as that was emerging in 2008 around the time construction on Diamondback began to take shape. By 2015, it had become two distinctive different jobs. In the summer of 2017, there was a marketing restructure and at the bigger parks in the chain, PR and social media (digital marketing) were split into two different jobs. I landed on the digital side, which allowed for me to expand my skill set. It was a great opportunity, which came at a time when traditional PR was changing and the printing press was no longer news outlets, but rather Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs to share your news and stories, because that’s where the people you were trying to market to were. 

When I did PR, I was always looking to make noise to keep top of mind awareness for the park. During my years riding The Racer in the 1980’s, I was fortunate to be around and learn from three of the best to ever do it (PR) in the amusement and theme park industry in Bill Mefford, Ruth Voss and Carolyn Boos. They were the three most influential people in my career and the reason I was able to have a successful 27-year PR career, including 11 seasons doing PR at Kings Island. 

Way too much information, but this is what my role was during my years at Kings Island.
 

 

Thanks for sharing.  On the contrary, I don't think it is way too much information, and certainly brings up some more rambling thoughts and questions, but we can save that for a future podcast 

[RollerColt]

On 11/9/2023 at 10:14 PM, DonHelbig said:

My primary role the last few years I was at Kings Island was managing all of the park’s social media channels, which included organic and paid content, writing and publishing blogs, and optimizing the key performance indicators. The park annually had industry-leading results the years I managed the digital content efforts. 

I made it a priority to try to at least “like” every comment so the person making the comment knew it was seen, but due time restraints I wasn’t able to always reply back with comments. I would have liked to have been a lot better in this area, but was still able to accrue industry-leading results for engagement. A lot of that high engagement was derived through storytelling. That’s what I enjoyed the most, both when I did PR and then social media, telling the park’s stories.

I was hired in 2007 to do the PR for the park, and then took on social media as that was emerging in 2008 around the time construction on Diamondback began to take shape. By 2015, it had become two distinctive different jobs. In the summer of 2017, there was a marketing restructure and at the bigger parks in the chain, PR and social media (digital marketing) were split into two different jobs. I landed on the digital side, which allowed for me to expand my skill set. It was a great opportunity, which came at a time when traditional PR was changing and the printing press was no longer news outlets, but rather Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs to share your news and stories, because that’s where the people you were trying to market to were. 

When I did PR, I was always looking to make noise to keep top of mind awareness for the park. During my years riding The Racer in the 1980’s, I was fortunate to be around and learn from three of the best to ever do it (PR) in the amusement and theme park industry in Bill Mefford, Ruth Voss and Carolyn Boos. They were the three most influential people in my career and the reason I was able to have a successful 27-year PR career, including 11 seasons doing PR at Kings Island. 

Way too much information, but this is what my role was during my years at Kings Island.
 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing, Don. Much appreciated!

[IBEW_Sparky]

On 10/19/2023 at 12:02 AM, Orion-XL200 said:

For sure! 
 

I’m sure that the day will come that Don will share why he left and I’m guessing it will be a chapter in a book he may release in the future. 

I wonder how many years the term of the NDA was/is because you know there unfortunately is likely a quite lengthy one.

[BeeastFarmer]

55 minutes ago, IBEW_Sparky said:

I wonder how many years the term of the NDA was/is because you know there unfortunately is likely a quite lengthy one.

Is there typically a NDA when employment ends?  

I don't think he owes an explanation to anyone, but if chooses to, and can, then good for him. I just think it needs to be on his terms.  A book would be a great opportunity!

[jzarley]

6 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

Is there typically a NDA when employment ends?  

I haven’t heard of an actual NDA per say, but it’s not unusual for there to be some sort of separation agreement in place—especially if there’s some sort of stock equity, vested LTI or other separation payment involved.

For example, when I left SeaWorld I had a one year non-compete (meaning I could work for no one that SEAS considered a core competitor for a year after leaving—which was pretty much every theme park company) and a 2-year non-solicitation (meaning I wouldn’t recruit ay of their employees) and non-disparagement agreement.

I honored all of those. I didn’t work for the next theme park company until six weeks or so after my one-year expired, and I’ve never had a reason to disparage the company—I still like and respect the people I worked with there.

[Orion-XL200]

On 11/11/2023 at 10:04 AM, IBEW_Sparky said:

I wonder how many years the term of the NDA was/is because you know there unfortunately is likely a quite lengthy one.

Knowing Mr. Helbig quite well, he will share his story as soon as he is ready. As far as it has been indicated, I can say I am pretty sure there is not a NDA from leaving the park.

[Orion-XL200]

sorry for the double post 
 

I imagine Mr. Helbig may be ready to share his story prior to Coasterstock tickets going on sale (if it happens) or before the new coaster opens. 
 

#staytuned. 

[DonHelbig]

13 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:
 

I imagine Mr. Helbig may be ready to share his story prior to Coasterstock tickets going on sale (if it happens) or before the new coaster opens. 
 

#staytuned. 

Mr. Helbig was my dad. I’m Don.

[Orion-XL200]

11 hours ago, DonHelbig said:

Mr. Helbig was my dad. I’m Don.

You da best lol

[DonHelbig]

16 hours ago, Orion-XL200 said:

 I imagine Mr. Helbig may be ready to share his story prior to Coasterstock tickets going on sale (if it happens) or before the new coaster opens. 
#staytuned. 

You know, the only thing that matters is the ending. It's the most important part of the story, the ending. And this one... is very good. (Smiles, closes laptop.)