Tag Archives: comments

Visual Storytelling: YouTube

 

visual-storytelling-YouTube

Bed and Breakfast Blogging recommends the book The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand by authors Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio. Earlier, we gave an introduction to the book as well as featured some of their Pinterest tips.  This post will specifically look at their YouTube tips.

YouTube (the second largest search engine) began in 2005 and is owned by Google (the largest search engine).  It is great for brand channels since businesses can place an intelligent banner image, embed social media links, and even feature a thirty second video trailer.

Hyperlinks can be incorporated into the video itself to create a “clickable” interactive video. Streaming video delivers nearly three times higher brand awareness and 100% higher purchase intent.

Important YouTube facts to know:

  • The average YouTube viewer spends 900 seconds per day watching videos
  • 44% of YouTube users are between the ages of 12 to 34 years old
  • Over 829,000 videos are uploaded each day
  • 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every single minute
  • 3 billion views daily on YouTube
  • More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
  • 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the United States
  • YouTube is localized in 53 countries and across 61 languages
  • 25% of global YouTube videos come from mobile devices

Authors Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio recommend that businesses be responsive to their audience.  Show an informal look at your company.  Video is a very flexible way to tell a company’s story and have a global reach. The key is to add value, inform, and entertain. This is a great way to do what social media expert Shannon Belew calls social selling.

The average video length is 2 minutes and 46 seconds.  Businesses should optimize their content for keywords used by their industry.  Discover the terms your target market is searching for and develop your videos around that.

Consider posting videos in response to comments and questions.  Let your fans and customers tell their own stories.  One of your videos could go viral (spread quickly over the internet).  Thus, businesses should use YouTube to tap into The Power of Storytelling.

 

Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography

The Tao of Twitter (Part 4)

tao of twitterThis is the last part of a four-blog-post series highlighting useful information from the hot #1 bestselling book on Twitter: The Tao of Twitter by Mark W. Schaefer.  One of Mark’s essential keys to Twitter success involves providing meaningful content.

His suggestions include:

  • Tweet about what interests you
  • Share what you are reading online
  • Link to your blog or other blogs with rich and relevant content
  • Link to your comments on other social media platforms
  • Leverage your other online content
  • Share something human like what you are grateful for
  • Tweet something non-work related
  • Tweet news related to your business or industry
  • Tweet your opinion on something in the news or something funny
  • Tweet in the moment
  • Tweet at peak times
  • Thoughtfully schedule tweets (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, or Buffer can help you fan them out throughout the day)
  • Tweet regularly only if you have something of value to share
  • Sharing someone else’s tweet is a form of complimenting them and it puts you on their radar screen: put their content then via @personyouareRTing
  • Keep your tweets as short as possible to make them more shareable
  • Tweet exclusive content before it is released anywhere else
  • Build up the buzz about something before it comes
  • Link to interesting content such as blogs, podcasts, and videos

Schaeffer also discusses the value of using and making Twitter Lists:

  • Click the Me icon, then click Lists and it will show lists subscribed to and lists you are a member of
  • To create a list its name cannot exceed 25 characters
  • Name the list something that makes sense but also grabs people’s attention
  • Click gear icon drop down menu and select Add or remove from lists
  • You do not need to be a follower to a user to add that person to the list
  • You can edit and delete any list you make
  • You cannot add or remove people from your list, you must go to their profile page in order to add or remove them
  • You can follow lists without following individual users in the list
  • Share your lists on Twitter and other platforms
  • Include yourself in the lists with the help of Hootsuite (open your profile in a tweet that mentions you and click to Add to List)
  • Create lists that are helpful to your target audience

Innkeepers, what would be useful information to your target audience: guests who want to stay at your bed and breakfast inn?

  • List of travel organizations and media
  • List of groups providing recipes
  • List of attractions and resources in your particular geographic location
  • etc.

If you are looking for someone to tweet on behalf of your bed and breakfast, we are experienced in helping B&Bs gain more clients.  We invite you to contact Bed and Breakfast Blogging with Kristi Dement for a free consultation.  We provide professional blogging and social media services.

5 Ways to Attract More Attention Online

5-ways-to-attract-more-attention-online

What can we do to grab the attention of the online world and become more visible to our internet audience?  These are five ways we can attract more attention online.

1) Words–The words we use really help determine our online visibility.  In the online world, fresh content is everything.  We need to make a list of keywords we want associated with us and our brand.  We should consistently use those keywords in our content.

2) Actions–Ever hear the phrase, “What we do speaks louder than what we say“?  People observe others. Whether we want them to or not, people see actions as well as lack of taking action.  For example, if we consistently receive the same negative comments online, then we know we need to take action.  This is not the time for us to ignore it and hope it goes away! We should appreciate comments and respond to both positive and negative feedback.

3) Formatting–People like easy to read content.  Most people don’t read word for word online. They like to scan the page.

  • Use bullet points
  • Add numbers
  • Offer descriptive subheadings
  • Make important text bold
  • etc.

4) Links–We should provide links to other places in our website/blog as well as outside resources. This goes a long way in showing others that we like to be helpful and provide useful information. We are more likely to be seen as leaders on our subjects.

5) Get visual–Images and videos attract eyeballs.  People notice meaningful pictures.  Pinterest is a great visual social media platform that literally has billions of pins.

We should ask ourselves, “What does my target audience like to see online?”  When we see things from their perspective, we can be more creative.  Are we using the right keywords?  Are we taking appropriate action? Does our formatting make our content easy to read?  Have we provided great links?  Have we featured attention-getting images or video? When we can say yes to all five questions, we will attract more attention online!

 

Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography

What Makes A Blog Post Go Viral?

what-makes-a-blog-post-go-viral

Every blogger dreams of a bigger audience.  It is human nature to want to be recognized and to receive attention and praise.  So just what makes a blog post go viral?

1) Have you grabbed their attention with your title?  Opening lines should pique interest and curiosity, show a benefit, highlight a need, promise to entertain/inform/teach, or offer something of value.  Work hard early on at hooking your reader into your post.

2) Have you made it easy to read?  Readers scan pages online looking for keywords, phrases, and visual clues like numbers and bullet points. Use lists or other formatting techniques to emphasize points.  Your content must be appealing, entertaining, engaging, and interactive.

3) Does anybody really care about your topic? No one wants to know what you had for breakfast–unless maybe you had breakfast with a celebrity.  Giving people the “inside scoop” on a famous person’s thoughts and secrets will make your blog incredibly popular.

4) Have you had personal experience involving your blog topic?  Accomplishments speak volumes to your readers.  This does not mean you have to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or featured on the cover of People magazine.  What lessons have you learned along the way? People tend to respect you more if you share past obstacles or mistakes and how you overcame them.

5) Is this a brand new topic?  If you are in the fields of medicine, science, or technology you may very well have cutting edge information to share with the world.  We are listening!

6) Is your perspective different and maybe even controversial?  Sometimes blunt opinions can get people in trouble, but they can also get passed along.  Do you have a hot topic that will lure comments?  Be sure to respond to your comments.  This is what makes your blog interactive.

7) Is there something fascinating about your topic or are people sick of reading about it because everybody in the world has been covering it?  There is only so many times people can take hearing about the celebrities that tend to get all the media attention.  It can be annoying when they compare two celebrities who wore the same thing and then make comments on “who wore it better?”  Most people don’t care!

8) Is there something hilarious, quirky, or unbelievable about it?  There is a large dog in my neighborhood who, from behind his fence, will jump up and down like he is on a pogo stick all across his backyard when he sees my dog and I walking together.  I need to get that on video! Speaking of…

9) Do you have a good graphic, photo, or video available?  Humans are very visual creatures. That is part of the reason why Pinterest other image sharing social media sites like Instagram have done so well.  Did you know Pinterest has over 70 millions users?

10) Have you shared your blog post on every relevant social media channel?  You may want to describe the post differently depending upon the platform.  Since Linked In is for business and career-minded people, you may have a different way of promoting your blog post to your Linked In connections than to your Facebook fans and friends.

How will you know if your blog post was successful?

  • Number of unique visitors to your blog post
  • Re-tweets, shared links, social network mentions
  • Quality of the blogs and websites where your blog post is referenced
  • Frequency of approaches by people interested in working with you
  • Quantity of traffic where sales take place
  • Amount of paid opportunities that result from your blog
  • Blog subscriber numbers
  • E-mail sign ups
  • If people who have powerful influence refer to your blog
  • The number and quality of comments from your readers

Trust me, you will know!  Do you have any ideas about what makes a blog post go viral? Please share below.  I read all comments and respond when appropriate.

Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography

25 Ways To Write Creative Blog Posts

If you are reading this, then I assume you are looking to be CREATIVE (and definitely not boring) when you write a blog post.  This way you will have plenty of admiring fans! 25 ways to write CREATIVE blog posts:

1. ADVICE– You have unique advice that only you can offer to your readers.  Once you understand who your audience is, then you can write like you are writing to a friend.  They will feel like they know you and you will develop a huge following.

2. CAUSE– Why not rally your readers behind a cause you support?  Let them know what you are doing to make a difference and how they can help. Give a call to action. Seriously, don’t leave that out.

3. COMMUNITY– Your community could be defined by your local area or it could be people who share a common interest or goal.  Reach out to “your peeps” and connect with them!

4. COMPARISON– Take two things and compare them.  Whether you compare two breakfast foods or two fun activities, the fun is in comparing and contrasting them. This could be educational, entertaining, or funny as well. Speaking of…

5. EDUCATIONAL– People like learning about things.  That is one reason why search engines are so popular.  Tell them something that not everyone knows, but you know because you are an expert at it.  Everyone is an expert at something.  Blog about what you know best.

6. ENTERTAINING– Everyone likes to laugh and have fun.  You could blog about entertainment that is coming to your community whether it is a music concert, sporting event, or theatrical production. Be sure to make it “entertaining” to read!  Since blogging is writing that is typically less formal than say a report, let your personality shine in the post.

7. EVENTS– People like finding out about events–ones that will happen and ones that already happened.  If you have the “inside scoop” on the latest, you can “tell all” in your blog!

8. FAQ– This common acronym is short for “frequently asked questions.”  Many websites have an FAQ page on them.  Blog about commonly asked questions.  Blog answers to familiar questions so you can refer your readers to when they ask them.  Saves you time in the process!

9. FAMILY– Some of your best material can come from your family members and others with whom you are close. As long as you make it generic enough that you don’t single out any one person or you know they won’t mind your sharing it, go ahead.  You know you want to!

10. GUIDE– A guide-type blog post could be a collection of tips about a specific topic. While similar to advice blog posts, they are different in that these tips can be applied by a variety of different people–not advice for one type of problem.  Example: Simple Tips to Get Clients To Pay on Time, Quick Ways to Find Just What You Want Online, etc.

11. HYPOTHETICAL– Ask your readers what they would do in a hypothetical situation. Maybe answer that question as well. These types of blog posts tend to get a lot of comments because people like to imagine, “What if….?” Sometimes I imagine, “What if I win a ton of money in the lottery and get to quit my day job?!”  I kind of have to buy a lottery ticket first. Oh well.

12. INSPIRATIONAL– Share something motivational with your readers.  Help them connect to you in a powerful way through your telling of someone overcoming a challenge and beating the odds.  Maybe that someone who overcame something big is you.  Don’t be afraid to share since it could encourage someone else!

13. INSTRUCTIONAL or “HOW TO”– Give instructions on how to do something that others want to know how to do, and suddenly you have a captive large audience.  You can be creative with your titles of these posts as well. Two examples: How To Teach Your Dog Fun New Tricks, How To Make Delicious Homemade Ice Cream, How To Make a Memorable Family Scrapbook, etc.

14. INTERVIEW– If you don’t have any famous celebrities you happen to know (most of us are in this boat), then you could always interview a person notable for what they do. A person who is accomplished in a career or sport or another area of life.  If you interview a person who has an inspiring story and then you have an “inspirational interview“! Wow, two different ways to write a blog post combined! You are an overachiever!

15. LISTS– People love lists.  Examples: 10 Ways You Can Change Your Spouse, 20 Best Party Appetizers, Top 40 Bestselling Books About Fitness, etc.  You get the idea and they will too!

16. MEMORIES– Often, we like to recall fond memories or retell funny situations.  We may even want to remember how we overcame a trauma for the sake of helping another person who finds themselves in the same emergency. When you blog about a memory, be sure to create a vivid picture in their minds of all the important details of your experience.

17. NEWS– Did you know that sometimes bloggers are the first to break a news story? There have been cases where a blogger has gotten in trouble for sharing some kinds of sensitive information.  Keep your day job and don’t blog about company trade secrets. Another word of advice is to keep your love life private so no one tries to sue you for disclosing personal details.  However, if you are in attendance at an exclusive event that you have permission to be blogging about, then by all means SHARE!

18. OPINIONS– If you loving sharing your opinions, then blogging is right up your alley!  As long as you are tactful and the topic is appropriate, it is alright to share what you think. You don’t have to have all positive comments from your readers.  In fact, it makes it more interesting when some of your readers do not agree with you.  Usually readers who do agree with you, will come to your defense when you are criticized by others.

19. PHOTOS– If you took a great picture or want to share several incredible pictures, then you may want to have a photo blog post.  When your text is all about what is in your photo(s), then you have a photo blog post.  Whether your pictures are of smiling people, grand buildings, gorgeous nature, or something entirely different, there are others who would love to learn about how you managed to capture the photos and the techniques you used in getting it to look the way it does.

20. PREDICTIONS– It is common at the end of the year (or the beginning of the new year) for people to come up with their predictions about some topic.  Examples: The Future of Technology, 10 Social Media Predictions, What is To Come in American Education, etc. Similar to the hypothetical “what if” posts, these are your thoughts as to what will come about in the next year (or whatever time frame you select) concerning a particular topic. Inquiring minds want to know!

21. PROBLEMS– Life would not be nearly as exciting if there were no glitches.  Inevitably, snags come along.  You spill chocolate ice cream on your brand new white dress shirt.  You get a ticket for speeding on your way to work early one morning.  Your problem post could be written to be a funny look at everyday life or it could be a solution post in which you address how to solve a particular problem with a specific idea, product, or service. People are always looking for solutions!

22. QUIZZES– Some people love taking quizzes for fun.  Why not write a blog post that is a quiz about something interesting?  Examples: 15 Questions to Discover the Vacation of Your Dreams, How Well Do You Know Yourself?, etc.  The point is to make your quiz blog post appealing enough to your audience, so that they want to take it.

23. REVIEW– Everybody loves reading reviews.  You could blog a book review, a restaurant critique, or a movie screening.  Reviews help other people who, for example, were thinking about reading the same book, dining at the same restaurant, or watching the same movie; decide if they want to based on your review.  When you write a review blog post, you have the power to influence your readers to take action or avoid it.  Don’t let the power go to your head!

24. SECRETS– This could mean quick shortcuts, little known facts, or juicy details.  Like news posts, people like finding out things they would not normally know had they not read your blog.  Same cautions apply!

25. STORIES– People love reading fascinating stories.  A story blog post captures the attention of your audience yet is brief enough to be the length of a blog post. Stories with important lessons for your readers earn you loyal readers.

Try one (or a combination of several) of these types of blog posts the next time you write! Don’t be afraid to get CREATIVE.  Most importantly, enjoy the process that blogging requires.  It always helps me to visualize my readers reading this.  Will they think this is funny?  Does that tell them everything they need to know?  etc.  Feel free to share your CREATIVE blog post ideas or to ask me a question related to this post.

Online Guest Book

online-guest-book

You may already have a guest book in each room of your bed and breakfast for guests to make their comments, but did you ever think of putting their written praises on your website in an “online guest book page”?  Of course, you will need to get their permission in order to use their comment and please respect their wishes if they prefer you not give their full name or specific city when you quote them in a testimonial.

Website visitors will gain insight from what previous guests have said about their experience staying at your bed and breakfast. Some bed and breakfasts already have a web page devoted entirely to feedback they have received.

Your guests may think of reasons that you did not even think of as to why they liked staying at your bed and breakfast! It does not get any better than putting unsolicited positive feedback on your website so potential guests can feel good about booking one of your rooms because they heard recommendations directly from actual guests who have stayed with you!

 

Image by Marcus Berg of Unique Angles Photography

Phone Communication with Your B&B Guests

phone-communication

As bed and breakfast innkeepers, it is likely that you will speak to your guests and potential guests over the phone.  We are going to look at ways you can make the most positive impression on guests during your phone conversations.

When speaking to your guests over the phone, it is important to clearly and cheerfully pronounce the name of your bed and breakfast as well as your name when you answer the phone. This way they know they have reached the right number and answering with a pleasant voice is your first way to extend your hospitality to them.

If you receive a call during the time you are with your current guests and/or making breakfast, it is best to let your callers leave a message so that you can respond at a time when you can give them your full attention.  If you sound distracted or like you are busy (which you can often be) they may not think they will receive the care and attention they expect when visiting your bed and breakfast.

Be sure to take notes of every phone call.  Including the following information:

  • Caller’s name and contact information
  • The purpose of their call
  • Any questions they asked you
  • Their reservation information (if applicable)
  • Comments about their interests and reason for staying
  • Other relevant information you do not want to forget

Having this phone log will save you precious time.  This can let any other innkeepers and/or staff become aware of the phone conversations you had without you having to take the time to verbally provide the details to every phone conversation to other employees.  It also helps remind you of previous conversations with the guest(s).

You should have a list of things to do in your area–including recommended restaurants, tourist attractions, community activities, and so forth.  This will be your quick reference guide so you can answer questions without having to hunt for the information during your time on the phone.  Guests will appreciate how organized you are.

Make sure that guests know a phone number to reach you at during every moment of their stay.  This is vital to providing them with a pleasant experience, answering their questions, exchanging important information, and for safety in case of emergencies.

Be sure to ask, “Is anything else we can help you with?” before ending every call. They will appreciate this courtesy and it shows that you care about their experience at your bed and breakfast. This goes a long way towards establishing repeat business as well as gaining referrals!

Let Your Guests Evaluate You

In order to receive feedback for the bed and breakfast experience you offer, why not have your guests fill out a short evaluation form?  This gives you valuable information and provides them with an opportunity to give you a great testimonial and maybe point out some things they noticed.

Your evaluation form only needs to ask a few questions:

1) What did you like the most about staying at our bed and breakfast? (things they thought were great)

2) Any disappointments? (things they think you can improve)

3) If you could change one thing about our bed and breakfast, what would it be? (this does not necessarily mean you will get negative comments–they may offer great suggestions for you to think about)

4) Do you have any additional comments you wish to share? (this way they feel that they have had every opportunity to share their concerns or ideas)

This evaluation form lets them know you cared about their experience and hope that they will return.  It also allows them to reflect on their stay.

Take any negative comments with a grain of salt.  There may be some truth to them or you may have had a picky guest who is hard to please.

If you want to use any of their glowing statements as positive testimonials, ask permission before quoting them in marketing materials or on your website.

Overall, having your guests evaluate you gives you important information so you can be a better innkeeper.

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