Ostensibly, it's to create business. But I can tell you on less than one hand how many room nights I've gained due to Facebook: zilch. I've visited the competition's Facebook pages, and they all look lovely, full of the evidence of busy-work, including reviews and testimonials from past guests. Great. In my opinion, that means Facebook is functioning like a history book, giving us snapshots of the way things used to be. That's because only your friends and fans of your business's Facebook page can see this wonderful collection of pixels you've spent hours working on.
If I'm looking for a place to attract return business, this is an acceptable method, providing, of course, that your guests all have Facebook pages. But that's not always the case. In fact, most of my customers are Facebook challenged, even if they're tech savvy in other areas. I can tell you that if I hadn't gone to graduate school in my 40s, and if I didn't own an inn, I would eschew Facebook. I've been on Facebook since 2005 when they appeared in my Goddard College email one day. Thinking that it was something connected to the college, I joined. Facebook lay dormant in my mind for a few years, until the phenomenon exploded a couple of years ago, and I found myself ahead of the curve. It was only temporary.
So why do I bother? Are people going to come back and stay with me when I post on the Auberge Facebook status that I ripped the ceiling out of the bathroom in Room 4, and I'm replacing a pipe there? Or that the crocuses are vainly trying to poke up through the snow? Or some other similarly pretentious and saccharinely insincere comment?
In the meantime, hours go by, hours spent distracted by all this, hours that would be better spent writing, which is what I'm supposed to do. So if the Auberge page looks a little stale once in a while, you'll know it's not because we don't want to stay in business; we just want to be us.
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