Blog Checklist Worksheet

I developed this checklist awhile back but it’s still current, as I find many people have blogs and use them but haven’t gone through and added some basic information and options.

This is how you should feel when your finished with a blog!

Created a Blog

Yes       No
No: Create

Customized and Uploaded a Page Header
Yes       No
No: Create and upload, I found http://fotoflexer.com/ to be the easiest to use for cropping and adding text if you don’t have a desktop photo editor.
Customized and Uploaded a Profile/Avatar Picture
Yes       No
No: Create and upload

Filled out all information on your About Us page including all website links and links to other media
Yes       No
No: Enter Information

Added Links to website and other online media in widgets section
Yes       No
No: Enter Information

Added Contact information, either on contact page or in widget

Yes       No
No: Enter Information

Added a search box to your Blog

Yes       No
No: Enable

Put your Blog Page link (or icon) on your website

Yes       No
No: Enable

Added your Blog URL to your email signature

Yes       No
No: Enable

Added your Blog URL to any other online media, i.e. Google+, Linkedin etc.

Yes       No
No: Enable

Let your clients and contacts know you have a Blog

Yes       No
No: Notify

Enable Authorship with Google

Yes       No
No: Enable

https://plus.google.com/authorship

Added an email subscribe option

Yes       No
No: Enable

Added your Blog URL to your print literature

The clear Avery address (or smaller) labels work well for this if you don’t want to reprint or have too much print material in stock.

Yes       No
No: Enable

Stalked Competitors’ Blogs

Yes       No
No: Stalk

Enabled Alerts for Competitors Blog posts

Yes       No

No: Sign up and/or enable Google Alerts or sign up for their newsletters by subscription

If using Twitter:

Set up feed for blog into Twitter

Yes       No

http://twitterfeed.com/

If using Facebook

Set up feed for blog into Facebook

Yes       No

No: Enable at https://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs or https://www.facebook.com/RSS.Graffiti

*Facebook now requires you to re-enable authorization once a month, unless you are posting multiple times per week it may be easier just to copy and paste your title and link into a post manually.

Sourced content for Blog

Yes       No
No: Enable

Content Sources:

Google Alerts  http://www.google.com/alerts

Paper.li   http://paper.li/

Smartbrief   http://www.smartbrief.com/index.jsp

Twitter lists: Even if you don’t “use” twitter, you can set up lists for business information sourcing. https://support.twitter.com/articles/76460-how-to-use-twitter-lists

Example: https://twitter.com/#!/forfeng/business/members

Sign up for newsletters or blogs relevant or interesting to your target clientele.

As you go through and read online articles, use https://workflowy.com to organize your information and links, this is useful because hot links are clickable, you can use it as a to do list, organize it, cross it off, move it, as well as it is accessible anywhere online on any computer.

Developed a Schedule for Blog Page posts

Excel works very well for this, or google calendar https://www.google.com/calendar/ or use a manual date book

Yes       No
No: Plan out a schedule

A tip for innkeepers to leverage the new Faceboook Graph Search

With Facebook Graph Search geared for public rollout soon, it’s important that innkeepers that have Facebook business pages invite ALL their friends and family to be fans of their business pages. In this case it has nothing to do with getting your fan count up.

While many business owners don’t feel comfortable, or don’t want to invite friends and family to like their pages. (I honestly have no idea why, but apparently some people do). It is not going to be about the friends and family, it’s going to be about who “they” are connected to.

The new Graph Search will allow people to discover restaurants, shops and other businesses their friends have visited and/or liked, this goes for Bed and Breakfasts as well.

So it doesn’t matter if your 80 year old Grandmother might never be a (paid) guest at your B&B, but her 40 year old health care aid might be. Your second cousin in Tennessee may never be a guest at your B&B, but the people he or she is connected to might be, especially if they search for places that your second cousin has “liked” that are lodging facilities.

The fact that your Grandmother or your second cousin has liked your page means it will come up in related results when lodging is searched for.

If you have not previously invited people you are connected to like your page, go to your business page, at the top, go to “build audience”, then “invite friends”, make sure you have the “search all friends” option and not “recent interactions.”

Innkeepers, are you REALLY leveraging local?

On Monday I had a great interview with Tom Costello, and during the interview he brought up the gentlemen that he had interviewed previously, whose thoughts were that hoteliers (and this relates to any lodging) needs to be spending more time out and about, shaking hands, and “pressing flesh” is I think how he put it.

Coincidently, I was in a small town in CT seeing a client last week, and I happened to have a free moment after, and popped into the local book store. On the way through town I had noticed two Bed and Breakfasts on the way in (neither one of which I had ever heard of), and asked the store cashier (who ended up being the owner of the store) if she knew anything about them. “Not a thing,” she said, “we have never met them.”

That got me to thinking a bit. I’m a big believer in the power of in-person networking, social media is the cat’s meow, but not the end all and be all of marketing and branding.

How many innkeepers in towns small and large, have made a point of going out and introducing themselves to every business in the area? I would hope you’ve made contacts with local restaurants and area attractions, but what about the local boutique clothing store, the local jewelers and the kid’s learning center game shop? Do they know who you are?

When I lived up in New Hampshire, we had about 30 B&Bs in a 20 minute drive radius. I know for a fact that most local businesses had on their radar that there was B&Bs up there, but the vast majority knew absolutely nothing about them aside “maybe” from their names.

While the local Chamber of Commerce might know your inn, how much opportunity and exposure are you losing out on if not EVERYONE in business near or semi-near you, knows who you are, about your inn and most importantly, why they should send friends, family and business associates to stay with you.

I don’t have time you say. Make time!

You go to the grocery store or the bank at least once a week, you have errands to run which takes you hither and yon. Take five minutes to pop your head into a local shop or business and introduce yourself and hand out business cards. Cookies help too.

Think about how spending that extra 5 minutes only once a week could equal how much business long term?

With the economy still having problems, the staycation trend is continuing to stick around. If you are not leveraging local for your B&B, it’s free networking, then you are missing the boat. Take the five minutes, take the local challenge, who knows who you might meet, and who knows how much business you can get from it unless you try it.

I challenge B&Bs to make up a list of local businesses who may not yet know you, put them into an excel spreadsheet and tackle at least one per week. Carry it one step further and have an open house and invite area business over for a cup of coffee and some scones. Offer to do a brochure exchange with local businesses. People WILL refer people to you, but they have to know who you are first.

I would suggest some related reading: Leveraging your business cards for the hospitality industry and Forget Tripadvisor, don’t forget word of mouth for lodging.

 

Bed and Breakfasts, Reputation Management and Deleted Tweets

A common concern I hear frequently voiced from B&Bs, “Is what if I have a conversation with someone who voices a complaint,” or “What if I posted something I regret?” Like a drunk tweet, or something posted in anger, “Should I delete it?”

Deleting tweets is up to an individual, but keep in mind just because you delete it from twitter, does not mean they are deleted from Tweetdeck (online and desktop based), from Hootsuite, or from Twitter itself, if the person has not deleted their tweets in reply.

Something to consider as well is the ease in which people can take screenshots.

If a tweet is made by mistake, it’s up to you whether to delete or not, if it’s something made in anger or otherwise, I would perhaps delete it and then the next tweet be an apology. Leaving it is up is up to you, again someone might have already seen it/screen shotted it.

Deleting tweets made in discussion or by someone voicing a customer service issue, I would highly recommend not doing.

First of all, tweets go by pretty quickly if you are an active user, so a discussion tweet should be buried under other tweets fairly quickly, if they are not, you may want to think about posting more additional content then usual to drive the tweets down your stream.

Second, the people who follow the person complaining/having an issue/problem may track back to you, if they see their friend/connection talking to you about an issue and then don’t see a response from you, because you have deleted your tweets, it looks like you are not paying attention and not responding. From a reputation management aspect, that’s bad.

Third, if you delete tweets from a conversation, even one that turned out to have a positive resolution, and more importantly if from one that you did not, if the person conversing with you happens to go back and check your twitter stream, and finds your tweets to them deleted, it will cheese them off to no end. From a reputation management aspect, that’s very bad.

This can blow up in your face, if the person decides to then spread your name across other social media channels, including tweeting your name and twitter user name to their other networks.

As a Bed and Breakfast, think about what a customer/past customer/future customer will think if you delete a conversation with them. Will they notice?

Maybe and that’s a risk you should not take. If I had had a conversation with a B&B about a customer service issue and the B&B deleted their tweets, it would leave me with a bad taste in my mouth and a much lowered opinion of the B&B.

Think before you post and think before you delete.

Travel Bloggers and Bed and Breakfasts

I’ve gotten quite a few emails in the past year from Inns I work with, and Inns I chat with online, asking me what I thought about solicitations from travel bloggers asking to do a feature on their B&Bs.

On first glance, that’s terrific, a travel blogger or writer wanting to do a piece on a B&B. Free advertising, right?

Well not free, because some of them are requesting free nights lodging, plus perks, some of them lots and lots of perks.

There was a terrific article that just came out this morning about 9 CRITERIA FOR SELECTING TRAVEL BLOGGERS, and in it they mention many of the things that an inn/B&B should be looking at when considering whether to host a travel blogger, especially one asking for freebies.  While this article is talking about something different than stays in exchange for press, many of the same tenants apply.

In conjunction with this, I was forwarded yesterday, a solicitation email from a writer for Yahoo Yoices http://voices.yahoo.com/, formerly Associated Content (not to be confused with Associated Press), asking a friend who has an inn, for a stay there for two nights, with dinner at a local restaurant and a special offer for skiing included, in exchange for writing an article about them.

I thought it might be time to finish up this post.

I had previously reached out to several travel bloggers I know and respect, to ask for their input. They asked that their names remain confidential, as apparently travel bloggers and writers have some differing views on “perks” and what is kosher to ask for or receive in terms of favors.

Here were some suggestions they had about weeding out the gold from the chaff if they are asking for freebies.

Is there a guarantee that the article will be published?

Is the article they are writing, a feature piece, or a column that will be buried in on online section or in print format?

Is the article print only, web only or both?

Where have they been published before?

What’s their background? A writer with a background in Oceanography, but no experience writing for the travel industry, is not going to do your inn justice.

Have you looked (and have they provided) prior links to articles they have published?

Are they working for a reputable company/site? Some online articles are just a collection of link farms. Some are Pay to Post avenues, like the former Associated Content (now Yahoo Voices), where the writer gets paid on the basis of how much traffic they can generate, not necessarily concentrating on the quality of the traffic.

Where will the article be promoted? And if it’s online, for how long?

If the article is online, how long will it stay “live”, and if it does stay live, will it eventually be moved to gated content. Meaning it will only stay public for several weeks and then it moves to paid subscription content access only.

Any travel writer (online) worth their salt (according to my friends) can give you actual statistics about how many times an article has been read that they have previously written. Get some stats from them on other articles where they have featured B&Bs, and have them give you an actual copy of what the stats look like. Don’t just take their word that they got 50K hits on it.

Get some references from them of other B&Bs/Inns that they have done articles on, and call them up. Did they find it was worth it?

Check out their social media offerings? Do they have a niche? Do they have a following? Don’t go by numbers. Go by the quality of the followers. Anyone can buy fans or followers, it doesn’t make them influential.

Do you have the rights to use their article and any photos taken for the article in your own advertising?

I am going to also add that one of my travel writer friends said that no one who works for a quality lodging publication (online or off), needs to ask for freebies, unless they are offered by the lodging establishment. His comment was that most travel writers of value are paid well for their work, and that the ones out soliciting, were the little people who you won’t get much value from their articles.

When it comes right down it, each innkeeper has to evaluate whether the cost of giving a room night or nights away (plus possible perks), is going to equal the amount of free publicity/ press that you are going to get out of it.

Facebook Local and what it means for Bed and Breakfasts

It appears Facebook is still working on aspects of Facebook Local (which hasn’t really hit the news much yet), which is in the process of being rolled out along with Facebook Nearby, a good article on Nearby here: http://socialfresh.com/5-ways-businesses-can-leverage-the-power-of-mobile-marketing/ .

An aspect of Local that has appeared, (I am assuming last night, at least for me) is the appearance of suggested pages to like, under a page you may go to that you have not previously liked.

I came across this, this morning, because someone has sent me an invite to like their new page. After I liked the page, other suggested pages came up below as suggestions to like as well.

Example: 

What this means for Bed and Breakfasts?

The Good? Your inn might show up on a local competitor’s page.

The Bad? Vice versa, almost all the inns I unliked and then liked again show competitors pages in the suggested page results.

The Pretty Good? It will not show up to people already fans of your page.

I played around with this, this morning and liked and unliked several hundred pages, of those about 150 B&B ones.

Findings relevant to B&Bs:

Some of the suggestions are influenced by friends who like a page.

But if you don’t have any friends that do like a page, it “just” gives you local pages (usually).

Results are influenced by friends, I logged into a friend’s account and her suggested pages were slightly different than mine, so just liking and unliking your own page will not let you know exactly what everyone else is seeing.

After more messing around with what influences a page, I found that results are a combination of friend likes and the category you have your page under.

For a B&B if you have your category under “Local Business” and “Hotel” it’s going to bring up “related” results, i.e. other inns and related hospitality. (take a look at the very first screen shot)

If you change the category to “Companies and Organizations” and “Travel and Leisure” (for example) I have not tried all the combinations yet, but it makes a huge difference in results). This is what you get.

Suggestions based on a “general” local search with some influence by friend likes.

Since this is important to address for B&Bs, as obviously you don’t want your competition showing up in results. Change your category tags.

The other way around this would be to reinstitute like-gating pages. (I was never a fan of the pages where you had to “like” the page to see additional information) but redirect pages can be of use if you advertise them properly, in this case someone coming to a link you suggest, sees a like option but will not see other suggested pages when they do like it.

So instead of https://www.facebook.com/forfengdesigns

You would redirect them to a subpage (hosted by an app) like https://www.facebook.com/forfengdesigns/app_102068836552678

I would suggest changing the page categories as a first option, and doing a page redirect as a secondary one. I expect there to be further changes to this feature in the near future.

A quick addition as I continue to mess with the feature, very rural B&Bs need to be less concerned with this then by B&Bs in a more populated area. I have not figured out the radius exactly of local suggestions but it seems to be under 10 miles.

The Lodging Resource Newsletter: Issue #18, January 2013

Hello again Lovely Innkeepers!

I hope you all had a great Holiday season and started everything off with a bang! Now is the time to get your tushes in gear and do all the marketing things you know you should be doing……….

On that note, this is important if you have a Facebook Business Page (even if you don’t use or don’t use often it often) “Facebook has implemented changes to its text overlay policy for cover photos and News Feed ads for Pages. Starting today, text is limited to no more than 20 percent of an image’s area.” give it a read and then check your banner image/cover photo:
http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2013/01/facebook-cover-photos-text/

And a funny for you innkeepers: Personally I thought this was hilarious, but perhaps even more fun if you could change the neighboring hotel/motels WIFI to this?

Image courtesy of someecards

A Few of our Posts from this past month including a new blog we started “Just on Thing”:

Using WorkFlowy to organize your Bed and Breakfast’s blog posts
http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/using-workflowy-to-organize-your-bed-and-breakfasts-blog-posts/

Innkeepers, think before you post…a photo
http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/innkeepers-think-before-you-posta-photo/

Leveraging Google Maps for Lodging Part Two
http://chefforfeng.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/leveraging-google-maps-for-lodging/

Just One Thing
http://chieflogroller.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/just-one-thing/

Just One Thing-Buying Fans and Followers
http://chieflogroller.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/just-one-thing-buying-fans-and-followers/

Just One Thing-Twitter Bios
http://chieflogroller.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/just-one-thing-twitter-bios/

Just One Thing-Target Market Identification
http://chieflogroller.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/just-one-thing-target-market-identification/

Forfeng’s Favorite Blog Posts of this past month:

A-Z Tips for Making the Most of your TripAdvisor Listing
http://tripadvisor4biz.wordpress.com/a-z-tips-for-making-the-most-of-your-tripadvisor-listing/

5 Warning signs you’re got troubles at your Bed and Breakfast
http://www.bandbcoach.com/blog-on-how-to-run-a-bed-and-breakfast/bid/90435/5-Warning-signs-you-re-got-troubles-at-your-Bed-and-Breakfast

Year End Review: Making a List. Review of Bookings and Revenue, Part 1
http://www.abouttheinn.com/2012/12/year-end-review-part-1/

Year End Review: Who’s Naughty or Nice? Review of Bookings and Revenue,
Part 2
http://www.abouttheinn.com/2012/12/year-end-review-part-2/

Google Plus Pages Can Now Act Like Real People
http://www.virante.org/blog/2012/12/28/google-plus-pages-can-now-act-like-real-people/

Google+ Communities: What Marketers Need to Know
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-plus-communities/

How Google+ Communities Benefit Business
http://www.steamfeed.com/how-google-communities-benefit-business/

Finally, You Can Search All Your Tweets Via Twitter
http://searchengineland.com/finally-you-can-search-all-your-tweets-via-twitter-142985

Your Twitter archive
http://blog.twitter.com/2012/12/your-twitter-archive.html

8 Stats Showing Why Your Company MUST Tweet In The New Year [STUDY]
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/your-company-must-tweet_b33165

Preparing for the New LinkedIn Design: How to Optimize Your Page and Profile
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/preparing-for-the-new-linkedin-design-how-to-optimize-your-page-and-profile/

Phone Support For Verification Issues With Google Local For Business
http://searchengineland.com/phone-support-for-verification-issues-with-google-local-for-business-144633

Facebook revamps Nearby: What businesses need to know about the local recommendation tool
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/12/20/news/facebook-revamps-nearby-what-businesses-need-to-know-about-the-local-recommendation-tool/

Facebook To Start Super-Sizing Link Previews In News Feed
http://allfacebook.com/facebook-larger-link-previews_b108480

What Hotels & Restaurants Should Know About Facebook Nearby Upgrade
http://blog.revinate.com/2012/12/what-hotels-restaurants-should-know-about-facebook-nearby-upgrade.html?

21 Pinspirational Ways to Turn Your Pinterest Addiction into Profit
http://www.business2community.com/pinterest/21-pinspirational-ways-to-turn-your-pinterest-addiction-into-profit-0377345#JMzluIPDVfmStxUB.99

The Essential Social Media Acronym Glossary
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-acronym-glossary_b34247

12 Ways to End Your Blogging Year With a Bang
http://pushingsocial.com/12-ways-to-end-your-blogging-year-with-a-bang/

31 Must-Read Social Media Blog Posts
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/31-must-read-social-media-blog-posts/

Top 20 Social Media Marketing Articles From 2012
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-20-social-media-marketing-articles-2012/

How to be massively more creative
http://jimsmarketingblog.com/2013/01/03/how-to-be-massively-more-creative/

21 Social Media Predictions for 2013 From the Pros
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-predictions-2013/

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