The Innkeeping Blog

Facebook has been in the news A LOT over the past several days, ever since their founder and head honcho, Mark Zuckerberg, announced some big changes to the site and how the site now integrates with the rest of the web.  Click here for a great summary of the changes.  Allow me to give you my two cents about what’s happening here…

Facebook has over 400,000,000 users, most of whom log in every day – and often more than once a day.  It’s apparently as active (I’ve heard recently even more active) than Google.  People (your guests) are sharing all kinds of information and details about their lives with their “Facebook friends.”  Mashable.com reports the average Facebook user has 130 “friends.”  Sounds pretty darn powerful on the surface.  But, is it worth any effort on your part to market your B&B in the Facebook world?  After all, don’t you already have your hands full with SEO and blogging?  If you watch this little humorous video, you’ll certainly get the gist why so many people still ardently believe (or at least profess to believe) that Facebook is a colossal waste of time.

I think it’s important to distinguish between being a Facebook user to personally connect with friends and family and using it as a savvy marketer of your business.  It’s true – Facebook can sap a lot of time, and a lot of the content you’ll see from “friends” you will deem as waste.  But hundreds of millions of people find more value than waste in what they are sharing and learning about friends and family.  Case in point – yesterday I posted on my personal Facebook page a picture of a Japanese maple I just planted about 10 days ago, which is already showing signs of stress.  The caption of my photo was, “What’s wrong with my new Japanese maple?”  Within minutes, I had five friends offer opinions and advice for treating it.  I did the same thing about 3 weeks ago – posted a photo of billowing white smoke coming out of my lawn mower and asked, “What’s up with my lawn mower?”  A few old college friends happen to be small engine experts and immediately offered sound advice, which helped fix the mower.  Now, I’m willing to bet that 90% of my Facebook friends thought my posts were ridiculous or a waste of time for them  to read…some friends enjoyed helping me…and other friends got to see all the responses and probably learned something.  Pretty cool.  With Facebook, you take the good and the bad and hope that the good outweighs the bad.  It was pretty cool having 642 friends see a picture of my suffering Japanese maple and have some people help - all within minutes.  By the way, I have a personal Facebook page and one for PAII – here’s the one for PAII.  Would love to have you join my network and help me figure out how to get my stapler unstuck.

Back to the topic at hand.  Is this a waste of time for innkeepers, or something pretty fabulous?  My opinion?  Something pretty darn fabulous.  Your guests are connecting on a daily basis with people that are (generally) pretty close to them, and Facebook has some powerful tools that will allow your guests to be ambassadors for your property with their network of people.  I’m going to mention three powerful examples of what I think represents the power of Facebook, and by extension the power of this new age of media in which we now live.

Like

Facebook now gives people the ability to “like” something just about anywhere on the internet and have their Facebook friends see the fact that they like whatever it is that they now like.  Websites (and therefore businesses) now can grab some HTML code from Facebook and put a “Like” badge on your site.  So, let’s just say that I recently stayed at the Forty Putney Road Inn in  Brattleboro, VT, and decide to hit the “Like” button on his web site, because it makes me feel good…I want to pass some mojo over to the innkeepers, Tim and Amy…I want my friends to see that I like it…or all of the above.  When my 642 friends now log into their Facebook accounts (very likely today and several times today), they will see that “Jay Karen likes Forty Putney Road Inn.”  Now it just so happens that Tim and Amy have the Facebook “Like” badge on their website.  And, their page on TripAdvisor and BedandBreakfast.com have Like badges too.  Fortunately or unfortunately, these three separate badges don’t all recognize that it’s the same property, so if I like each one of them, my Facebook page will show that I like this B&B in Brattleboro three different times, and the name of what I like that shows on my page is displayed in three different ways:

• Jay likes Forty Putney Road Bed and Breakfast in Brattleboro, VT (the bedandbreakfast.com “like”)
• Jay likes Forty Putney Road Bed and Breakfast, Brattleboro on TripAdvisor (duh)
• Jay likes Vermont Bed and Breakfast, Vermont Inn, Steps from Downtown Brattleboro VT (the “like” from Tim and Amy’s website)

It would probably be more ideal from a Facebook user point of view to somehow synchronize all of this.  But I’m sure that could be down the road.  Nevertheless, hopefully you get my point.  Hundreds of friends now know that Jay Karen likes this place in Brattleboro, VT.  How on earth before Facebook and short of sending a blast email to all of my friends (assuming I had working email addresses for all of them) could I have told hundreds of friends and family that I like something like this?  Hopefully you have an inkling of what’s happening here.

Facebook Sharing

Before this “Like” badge was given ubiquity by our friends at Facebook, the coolest way of sharing my recommendation of a B&B was through a connection established through TripAdvisor and Facebook.  I often write reviews of restaurants, B&Bs and hotels when I travel, and many months ago I noticed a cool feature on TripAdvisor.  After I finished writing a review of a B&B, it asked me “Do you want to share this review on Facebook?”  A big light bulb turned on over my head.  Of course, I said yes.  Once I did that, on my “wall” on Facebook was news from TripAdvisor about my review – it showed how well I rated it (i.e. 5 out of 5) and gave the title of my review (i.e. Perfect Stay in Napa).  Now, 642 of my closest friends and family could see that I had a fantastic stay at a B&B in Napa, CA (thanks Russ and Sharon for a great stay at the Old World Inn), and might be curious about it…and maybe click on it.  If nothing else, they saw that I went to Napa, and now Napa might have a slightly deeper footprint in their minds as a place to someday visit or return to.  In light of the development of the “Like” feature, I hope TripAdvisor keeps this feature too, because it allowed my friends to see some deeper information than just that I like something.  Pretty powerful stuff, if you ask me

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Facebook Advertising.

Remember – I have two Facebook accounts – one personal and one professional.  Every time I log into Facebook, I see two or three small display ads on the right side – similar to Google AdWords, except with pictures.  When I’m in my personal account, I see ads that have something to do with golf (I mention golf as an interest in my profile), a critical ad of New Jersey’s governor (my current city is listed as Haddon Heights, NJ) and something that says “Fun in Philadelphia” (I’m over the drinking age, as noted in my profile, and under the age of 90, live 5 miles from Philly, and am male - do you think they targeted this one?).  When I’m in my professional account, I see ads for business insurance (my profile indicates my profession), some outfit that wants me to join the “Who’s Who” of CEOs (my profile mentions my job title) and a new (and I think a bit extreme) ad for a group called “Hotels Against TripAdvisor” (somehow they must know I’m in the lodging business and targeted this one – or maybe I’m on a very short list of actual people identified to see the ad?  Nah. Can’t be that.)  And…I can even see which of my friends has “Liked” the company that is running the ad!  How cool is that?  Now, running Facebook ads costs money, and you can choose either Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Impression (CPM).  To me, this is more powerful than even Google AdWords (don’t take my word for it though – I’m an amateur, not a professional internet marketer), because you’re going deeper with this ad than just what words someone types into a search box – your ad can show based only on very specific geographic, psychographic, demographic and other parameters.  Again, how cool is that?  I’m not suggesting you dump thousands of dollars on Facebook advertising – be sure to learn about it more, discover what the prices might be (based on the geographic, psychographic, demographic parameters you set for the ad) and consult with your internet marketing gurus, should you be working with some in our industry.

To this point, I met an innkeeper in Minneapolis not long ago, who happens to play in a classic rock band.  He has for more than 25 years.  He asked my advice on this whole Facebook thing.  His inn happens to be about 30 miles outside the Twin Cities – a perfect little drive from a heckuvalot of people.  I said something along the lines of…What if you create a Facebook ad that said something like “Stay at a B&B run by a Rock Star – and bring your guitar” and have it show only on those whose interests might be something like classic rock, guitar, live music or rock and roll…are between the ages of 35 and 65…and live in Minneapolis or St. Paul?  The light bulb hopefully went off for him.  Maybe, if they do covers of particular bands (and I heard them play Jimmy Buffet at the Minnesota B&B Association conference), they can have a different ad show up that says something like “Stay at a B&B owned by a Parrothead” and have it show only on those who have Jimmy Buffet among their interests.

Waste of time or game-changer for B&B marketing?  You choose.  I think you can tell what I feel about it.