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toddburme

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Now that we all have had these for a while, is anyone seeing bookings from their efforts? My twitter account is gathering dust but I keep up on facebook. I try to be informative versus spammy in that I post going-ons etc that our guests could benefit from. I just don't have many followers. The ones we do have our nice in that they are mostly previous guests or people who found us. Yes, the initial ones were friends and family but most of those have slowly unliked us.
Anyways, I am not sure the time is worth it for us. I have felt this from the beginning so how much is my expectations meeting reality or vice versa.
 
I just looked at your page, do you want to leave the negative feedback on it? It is not a gvmt agency, you can delete it or hide it from view if you want to. Just wondering...it was the first thing I saw, I have not even looked at your posts yet.
Second thought - there don't seem to be any personal posts from you. If it is just a business then I wouldn't follow it either, real people I LIKE.
 
You really need to get rid of that negative recommendation.
I don't see anywhere on your website a logo to take you to your FB page. That would be a good thing to add.
FB has turned out to be an effective way for us to communicate to're our guests. I don't consider it as a medium to create new guests for us, although that has happened. What it's good for is keeping you in the mind of the guests who have stayed and enjoyed it. I think they return more often because they remember the good time they had here and want to experience that again. They love seeing photos we've taken ourselves, recipes, seeing the things we do ourselves in the area. Those are always the posts that get the most response. Blog posts, sharing from other business FB pages don't get much response, but I do them anyway just to keep things fresh. At check-out, when guests tell me they had a great time, I ask them if they're on FB and if so, I encourage them to 'like' us and keep in touch, and a lot of them do!
I think it also helps those who have found your website and then your FB page feel comfortable that many others 'like' you, so you must be good!
I don't twitter, so I can't help you there.
 
Re Twitter, it is something I really enjoy and never for guests, I don't ask that any follow me, but I have had other marketing professionals, and such want to stay here because of seeing me on twitter, one actually has, and more in many diff capacities have networked. My twitter friends are totally diff to the FB demographic. Twitter is where I get fed my daily dose of inspiration, news articles (breaking news), hospitality, tourism, photographs, funny quibs, etc.
I need positive influences and that is what I use twitter for, I don't follow anything political or with a strong agenda in any manner. And if someone I follows does I stop followin them (except for some brou ha ha over football teams losing etc). :)
 
I agree with BD - most of our FB activity is local events & other business' news and interaction with our former guests. It's also a way for anyone researching us to see the relaxed & friendly relationship we have with our guests. Definitely remove that negative review - it's the first thing the eyes hit when your page pops up. One negative comment can ruin anything else positive that might be on your page.
And like JB said - you need to show the person behind the posts. They need to see that it's not a marketing person hired to run your page. Express your & the Inn's personality through your posts.
Look at your posts after you send them - at the bottom of each, you will see a count of how many people have viewed it. If you post enough, you will increase your exposure and you will also get a feel for what time of the day your can touch the most people. I have found that 11am-12pm is a hot spot for my Fans.
 
I just received a booking today and in the field for "how did you hear about us?" they just put "facebook". Does that mean our facebook page (I don't know if they're a fan) or the regional tourism org's facebook page? Or did we show up in their newsfeed because one of their friends liked or shared something we posted? Or did our fb page show up in a google search?? Who knows!
I use fb like Breakfast Diva & K9 describe: to remind past guests how great it is here and to add personality and photos; disperse info about the area. To share recipes, make their mouths water, update them on the weather/season. And occasionally to promote a special or try to sell a room.
I do it because I enjoy it and it seems to pay off. It's hard to track exact numbers for an acurate ROI, but it's hard to track a booking back to one specific deciding moment.
 
I tried to remove that comment but was using the iPad and just assumed they were permanent. Oops. Also, because I am not the innkeeper, it is harder to inject "me" into the posts.
 
Good day ~! I'm William Benton & I'm new here ^^ You can add me up on facebook & alaso follow me on twitter :))) just insert my anme on the search engine .. Thanks ~!
 
It's amazing how often I'll be checking in a new guest and will start to explain something about the property or area, and the guest will say "oh yes, I read about that!". The only way they could have read about it would have been on FB. Now, did they go to FB before or after they found our website? I'll never know, but it's great for the guest to get the feel for us and what we offer, because it's only those who have no clue about us (don't read anything including the website) that have been problems....big problems! I'm still recovering from the PITAS that booked here for their anniversary and then wouldn't stay...they hated our location (that we were in the country) then slammed us because I wouldn't give them their money back because they wanted to stay in a hotel on the ocean. I'm sure they never read our FB page!
 
toddburme said:
My twitter account is gathering dust but I keep up on facebook.
I rarely go directly to twitter but my Facebook page links to my twitter account, so when I post on facebook, it tweets the same thing (with a link to the facebook page). Real twitter aficianados probably don't like that, but it works for me. I do track twitter 'stuff' with tweetdeck - you can add facebook to it and kill two birds with one stone.
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=123006872130
 
Cool that is nice. Maybe my twitter can pick up. I also need to work it more obviously.
 
Cool that is nice. Maybe my twitter can pick up. I also need to work it more obviously..
http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/
its for us busy souls! means I do both in one swoop - you can choose to just send to you fan page, just your friend page or both whichever works - also you can link more stuff together ie I run the Harrogate at Xmas page and have the Hgt at Xmas twitter feed linked up - but it isn't run by me - also saving work.
 
I've been sceptical, but I have to admit that I've been very surprised at how many people have seen some of my FB postings recently. Even though my page only has 181 likes a recent image I posted of an unusual rainbow over Loch ness was seen by 1700 people.
Only had 1 booking from someone who said they say us on FB, still unconvinced of it's worth for new customers.
 
We get very little activity from our Facebook page. I am personally starting to get bored with Facebook.
If you are on Facebook anyway, then use it. But as a marketing tool, I see little value in it.
 
We get very little activity from our Facebook page. I am personally starting to get bored with Facebook.
If you are on Facebook anyway, then use it. But as a marketing tool, I see little value in it..
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
 
We get very little activity from our Facebook page. I am personally starting to get bored with Facebook.
If you are on Facebook anyway, then use it. But as a marketing tool, I see little value in it..
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
.
Highlands John said:
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Now if I could only get my trigger finger to work faster I could capture some great hummingbird shots from our yard.
 
We get very little activity from our Facebook page. I am personally starting to get bored with Facebook.
If you are on Facebook anyway, then use it. But as a marketing tool, I see little value in it..
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
.
Highlands John said:
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Now if I could only get my trigger finger to work faster I could capture some great hummingbird shots from our yard.
.
copperhead said:
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Someone recently recommended to me that FB ads are only valuable to build a fan base, but the promotion of individual posts on a business page may be worthwhile - for promoting an event or a special. The cost is very small, at least for the one I am experimenting with (on our visitors center page, not my own) - $10 to run for so many days and be seen by 1000 to 2000 people. These show up in the news stream, not on the right side of the page. There's no demographic targeting, it just goes to 'friend of fans'. It has garnered a jump in likes for this page, although a small one. One caveat is that you have to have 400 likes before you can do it.
 
We get very little activity from our Facebook page. I am personally starting to get bored with Facebook.
If you are on Facebook anyway, then use it. But as a marketing tool, I see little value in it..
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
.
Highlands John said:
From where I'm standing the only people making money from FB advertising are consultants who advise businesses on advertising on FB.
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Now if I could only get my trigger finger to work faster I could capture some great hummingbird shots from our yard.
.
copperhead said:
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Someone recently recommended to me that FB ads are only valuable to build a fan base, but the promotion of individual posts on a business page may be worthwhile - for promoting an event or a special. The cost is very small, at least for the one I am experimenting with (on our visitors center page, not my own) - $10 to run for so many days and be seen by 1000 to 2000 people. These show up in the news stream, not on the right side of the page. There's no demographic targeting, it just goes to 'friend of fans'. It has garnered a jump in likes for this page, although a small one. One caveat is that you have to have 400 likes before you can do it.
.
muirford said:
copperhead said:
HJ, you are right, don't spend $ on FB advertising - at least not at the present, there is no value. But your FAN page CAN bring additional views, and some have clicked like because of some of our posts. Pictures do the most, have to admit.
Someone recently recommended to me that FB ads are only valuable to build a fan base, but the promotion of individual posts on a business page may be worthwhile - for promoting an event or a special. The cost is very small, at least for the one I am experimenting with (on our visitors center page, not my own) - $10 to run for so many days and be seen by 1000 to 2000 people. These show up in the news stream, not on the right side of the page. There's no demographic targeting, it just goes to 'friend of fans'. It has garnered a jump in likes for this page, although a small one. One caveat is that you have to have 400 likes before you can do it.
We recently did facebook targeting (this is with a business page where there are 35,000 fans, so now on FB only a small portion get the posts in their news feed. Another way for FB to make $. Anyway, we targeted a female population of a certain age. So we were guaranteed of our fan base that 10,000 would see the post. I haven't heard back on the results, I didn't see any more likes or shares than normal, and zero feedback! So it may have actually backfired. But it was a test...
 
This is kinda neat. I got a booking yesterday and in the "where did you hear about us" field they put a local business's facebook page. This business shared one of my photos -- not even directly from my page but from another page's share -- and one of their fans followed it back to me and booked a getaway.
This is where I see the value of facebook: not for the number of people that like my page but for the number of potential guests who can be reached. Can't run a facebook page as a little island; it has to be part of a network.
 
My guests from Toronto today said they travel only via Trip Advisor. They found us there, then went to the blog and then FB page... so whether we realize it or not, whether we have followers and LIKES some people do the research.
 
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