You just had some great guests stay at your inn, or a lovely wedding just took place on your lawn and you got some awesome photos. The temptation is just to just put them all up on Facebook in an album. Stop. And don’t do it.
Two major reasons why you don’t want to do albums (at first)
One. Posting individual photos gives you more posting material. So instead of 2 dozen photos clumped into one album, one post, Space them out.
Two, And this is the important one. When you post an album on your Facebook Business/Fan page wall, fans (and non-fans as well) can comment on both the album and the pictures individually.
The downside to this is say you have two absolutely stunning/beautiful/fascinating photos in the album. Those are the ones that are going to get commented on, not on the album itself.
The drawback to this is people seeing your album posted in their Facebook internal feed and/or coming to your Fan page for the very first time, don’t see the comments on those photos, Only the comments on the main album.
As an example I saw an album a few days ago done by a B&B that had 2 dozen photos in it, the album itself had 4 likes, one of the photos had 19 likes and a dozen comments, but from the casual viewer of the grouped main album you couldn’t see that.
Photo Album (above) as it would appear in someone’s Facebook stream/timeline. Note 3 likes
Photo Album (above) as it would appear on someone’s Facebook Fan/Business Page. Note 3 likes
Individual Photo from Album (above), note 2 Likes and 2 Comments, neither of which are apparent on the main album.
After you have posted the photos individually, you can then move them in an album at a later date.
Additional tip: Don’t forget you can add hot/hyper/URL links into your photo and album descriptions and they become clickable.
And don’t forget if your posting photos of guests, make sure you have their permission! A suggested read: The downside of visual/photo advertising in hospitality, restaurants beware. Very much applicable to Lodging as well. This site: http://www.betterphoto.com/article.asp?id=37 has two model releases that I would suggest can be customized for a B&Bs use. There are many more out there if you Google them.
Thanks for the great tips for maximizing the use of photos on facebook – excellent. (I notice people like our food & beach photos, so I use those subjects often:)
I know, I love seeing you post those, I miss the ocean and love seeing people and pages post those. You posted one earlier this week (had to go find it) of a mother and daughter walking on the beach https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151822758656542&set=a.120738851541.115698.107764701541&type=1&theater Love it, reminded me of bringing the kids to Block Island
Excellent advise here.
I actually noticed the posting problem a while back and decided to post individual pictures instead and it has very much made a huge difference in guest interaction. It has been one of those “Happy Accidents” we all love.
Yayy!!! I wish I had used your photos as an example. I will next time!!