At last. After hours of frantically thinking about what to post on Instagram, you get a sudden burst of inspiration and create a photo and caption that makes yours B&B look absolutely fabulous.
Feeling very proud of yourself, and relieved to finally get a post out there, you upload it, close the app and then get back to running your B&B. Job done.
Except it isn’t.
If you just post and walk away, your social media account is never going to grow.
Posting is just one very small part of growing your bed and breakfast brand on social media and to walk away after posting is missing a huge opportunity as well as wasting all of that time and effort trying to come up with a post in the first place.
I see far too many B&B owners put so much time and effort into creating posts, only to neglect their community after they have posted.
‘Posting and ghosting’ has a very negative effect on your post because it creates low engagement on your post which signals to Instagram that people don’t like your post, so don’t bother showing it to other followers.
As a result, because the post didn’t perform very well, B&B owners start to doubt themselves making them think that their original post wasn’t good enough.
So what do they do?
They spend even longer on creating posts which takes even more time away from their B&B. Or worse, they just give up convincing themselves that social media doesn’t work.
The secret to Instagram is content AND engagement. You need to do BOTH.
When you start engaging with your followers after posting, Instagram will notice that people are liking and commenting on your post and will then start showing it to others.
This is vital for helping potential guests find your content online.
Your work is NOT DONE after your post; you’ve got MORE work to do still.
I can hear you screaming that you have got a busy B&B to run, and you haven’t got the time to spend all day on social media.
I’ve got you covered. Even if you follow my first tip, it will only take you 15 minutes and you will see a significant increase in followers and engagement.
However, if you do ALL of the things I suggest after posting, it will dramatically increase followers and direct bookings, and it will only be an hour’s investment of your time at the most.
Remember, posting is just one part of social media. Things to do immediately after posting…….
15 Mins Engage
As soon as you post your content, don’t just close the app. Instead, stay in the comments for 15 mins after posting. Engagement is about conversation. If you are not there, people won’t talk to you.
Reply to all comments in your posts.
When people comment on your post, even if it is just an emoji, remember that they have taken time to respond to your post. It is important that you show your appreciation and respect by nurturing their comment with a reply.
At first, you won’t have many comments to reply to, so once somebody has left a comment, reciprocate and go to the last post that they made on THEIR feed and leave a valuable comment.
If they just left you an emoji comment such as a love heart, leave them the kind of comments that you would like to receive. Lead by example.
If they are someone that you can relate to and are somebody that you think could be a potential guest in the future, follow them. Support your supporters.
If you do nothing else, these 15 minutes after you have posted will bring in huge rewards over time and you will start to see just how effective social media is.
However, for extra brownie points and to take your Instagram to another level, follow the next actions:
5 mins Pin your best comments
If you are fortunate enough to receive a number of comments in your post, there may be some that really stand out.
For example, somebody might have been a guest in the past and made a comment such as, ‘Beautiful B&B. Superb hosts and the best breakfast that we have ever had.”
Wow. You don’t want that hidden at the bottom of your comments. You want to pin it at the top of the comments so everybody can see it.
It is easy to do:
Once you find the comment, swipe from right to left on it. You will see three icons for different interactions — one to report, one to delete, and one to pin the comment. The icon to pin the comment looks like a little pushpin. Simply click on the pushpin icon.
WARNING: Be very careful not to delete the message. Take a screenshot of the message before attempting to pin it, so if the worst happens, you can share the screenshot in your feed.
You can pin up to three comments on any of your posts, and you can also un-pin comments if you later change your mind about it. Just swipe from right to left on the comment again and de-select the pin icon.
You can also use the pin method, just to say thank you to any new followers who are commenting for the first time.
15 mins Share the post to your stories
You have gone to a lot of trouble to create your post, so put it to even more use by sharing the post to your story feed.
Everybody uses Instagram in a different way, and you would be amazed at how many people just look at the story feed and not the post feed, so it makes sense to ensure that as many people see your post as possible.
Add a sticker to it or write an extra few words on the story post to provide another angle to the post.
15 mins Engage with other accounts
This is a very effective way to attract a bigger following. When you appear on other accounts and make comments, their followers will see your comments and many will visit your profile.
The accounts need to complement your B&B account.
For example if your B&B was located in the Cotswolds, find larger accounts where the owners post nothing but information about the Cotswolds. There are accounts like this for any location.
Find walking accounts, watersports account, city break accounts, tourist accounts……anything that relates to the location of your B&B and comment make some valuable comments. People will notice you and visit your bed and breakfast page.
BONUS CHEEKY TIP (10 mins)
This is a method that works extremely well. Stat using this today and you in a few weeks you will see your account grow.
When people comment on your posts, DO reply immediately but (and this is important) DON’t ‘like’ their comment.
Instead, wait 1 or 2 days, and go back to all of your previous comments and then ‘like’ them.
By ‘liking’ their post, Instagram will notify them that their post has been liked and they will no doubt go back to your post to see which one it was. This indicates to Instagram that people are still interested in your post and will show it to more people.
It only takes minutes to do but is incredibly effective.
Try it out and let me know how well it works for you.