What They Didn’t Teach You in School (Ryan Dixon – Thorpe Park)

Laura

on 23 Nov 2011

Hi, I’m Laura and these are my interviews with some of the best people working within digital and social media. I only finished school a few years ago and what I found out since leaving was the amount of opportunity within the digital communications world. I wrote a blog post addressing ‘how I wasn’t made aware of pursuing a career in digital and social media’, which is why I am on a mission to do these interviews. I want to make young people more knowledgeable about career options and hopefully these will leave them feeling inspired and excited by what can be achieved. Also, hopefully someone within the education sector will read these to help with career advice.

Name: Ryan Dixon

Company: Thorpe Park

Job Role: Brand Manager

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @ryandixon85

What is a usual day for you?

A usual day for me in a season is looking at the figures of people coming into the park the previous day and whether or not we need to do any tactical changes. All of our business is driven by ticket sales so if we don’t hit the target we have set we need at look at if we need to change the communication. That could be our communication via our social networking social, or it could be our website. Longer term there are key periods in our year, so there are usual things like summer and Easter, then we have various event throughout the year, such as fright night, so it’s putting plans together for them through key media.

How did you get into your role?

I did marketing at University and got into it that way. I started off with a big American manufacturering company; they weren’t actually doing the kind of marketing that I wanted to pursue, so I then went onto an agency to get more experience and then the role I am currently in came up, actually through a friend of mine. It was the kind of marketing I wanted to be doing. It was for a well recognised brand, doing some of the above the line stuff that I really wanted to do. It’s working on stunt shows to new ride launches; it is a fun place to be. I saw the role and thought that was the thing I would like to do.

On that journey at what point did you get introduced to social media?

It was very early on when I arrived at Thorpe Park, we didn’t have a Facebook page we were active on, and the Twitter page was in its infancy, so it really started at that point and since then it has been about not just having a page, but how the page can really work for us. So we have grown our fan page by about 250,000 in the last 2 years. It has continued to grow from when I started. There is a big focus, especially for next year to drive engaging content on social media. So it has been there since beginning but it’s started to get more serious in the last year or so.

Have you seen a big change with social media and how you use it?

We have seen a big change. When we started with Facebook, we did it because it seemed like the right thing to be doing and everyone else was doing it and we used it to periodically update people on things that were going on at the park and we used it as a tool to communicate offers and things that have definitely driven sales. It has changed over time, our fan base doesn’t respond to just communication around offers, our engagement rates are really low on that, it’s putting content on there that people get really exited about. Whether that’s footage of a ride or it’s the latest developments on a new ride, I think now it’s the content people crave. So in terms of the change I think we have gone from using it as a tactical tool for updating people on things to actually it being all about content, that isn’t necessarily pushing a sale but it’s building the brand up which in turn (not tractable) drives sales to Thorpe Park. The other thing that is still evolving with us is that two-way communication. People are asking questions, they complain and its all how we look at that, deal with it and communicate back to people. I think that is definately a focus for us next year.

Do you think without social media it would be hard to drive ticket sales?

I wouldn’t say that it is impossible without social media. I would say we would be able to still do it. We did it for 20 odd years before that anyway but I think it’s a really important part of what we do now and it really help to drive that excitement and reach out and communicate with people, previously we were relying on people coming to us. In terms of our brand website we were relying on people hearing radio campaigns, TV adverts. With this we have a great set of brand advocates on our social media site that we can start to have two way conversations with. So I wouldn’t say without social media it’s impossible but it definitely help a lot.

What’s the best advice for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

The key thing is knowing what you want to do from the outset. With me I knew I wanted to get involved with a consumer brand, I knew that I wanted to get involved with some above the line media stuff. I do so having that knowledge- it helped that every job I got was taking me towards that step. The problem is, and this is more advice for people coming straight out of university- if you go into a channel that you don’t necessarily want to be in because you don’t really understand what you want to do, long term you will end up getting sucked in and will end up three years down the line not being able to break out of that channel and move into another channel. I think the barriers that get put up in the marketing industry once you get in are so high that its very tough to make that move, so I think the biggest advice from me would be- understand exactly what you want to do from the outset and make sure whatever job you’re doing, the projects you’re doing within that job are taking you to that point.

To find out more about Ryan Dixon you can reach him on his linkedin page.

Last week I interviewed Georgia Rakusen, the account manager at Screenreach and she told me: