The Journey

The journey is more important than the destination.

Several years ago a friend of mine asked me if I would do the Fairlee Triathlon in Vermont. After training for three months, feeling like I was going to drown in the swim, feeling nauseus on the run, I crossed the finished line and was hooked.This led to my triathlon journey.

Please consider supporting my latest effort to raise money for Bretton Woods Adaptive through the Janus Charity Challenge at Ironman Lake Placid this July. Check out the Links I Like section of the blog or explore the BWA Fundraiser links.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

How Twitter saved me 80 dollars



Photo Credit - Stevewilliamsphotos
Photo Credit - Stevewilliamsphotos

This is a cross-post from my other blog:


I'm in the process of training for Ironman Lake Placid. It's my 2nd time doing the race and prior to my first race I did a training weekend to prepare. It was incredibly helpful last time, so I decided to do it again for this year's race.

I made reservations at a reasonably priced hotel for $80/night and felt pretty good about it. Over the past several months I've been interacting through Twitter with individuals and business from Lake Placid as I tweeted about my race preparations.  More recently I saw some interesting posts from the High Peaks Resort and decided to follow them.  Their marketing guy, Bill, is pretty sharp and is using a great example of how a business can increase revenue using Twitter and other social media.

They are having a spring special called Elevate Your Rate. Here is the explanation from their website:

To celebrate Spring, the region and the High Peaks for 46 straight days beginning on April 22nd we will be "elevating" a special rate for 46 minutes each day based on the elevation of one of the 46 High Peaks. For example a rate based on the 4867 foot elevation of Whiteface Mountain will be $48.67.

How will you know which 46 minutes these rates will be available? Some time between 8am and 8pm EST each day we will alert friends, fans and followers through our Twitter Profile and Facebook Page. After the update is posted the “elevated” rate of the day will become available for 46 minutes! It used to be that you’d have to actually climb all 46 of the High Peaks to be considered a true 46’er; well now there’s another way to reach the top.

 So, I set my Twitter account to follow the High Peaks Resort via SMS.  Sure enough, that morning I got the text that the Elevate Your Rate was available and booked my room for $40/night, half of what my other reservation was going to be for a total savings of $80.  Thanks Bill.

What other examples have you seen Twitter make a real impact to the bottom line?

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