Week 6 already (week 5 of isolation) & another ‘Keep Hospitality Alive’ blog for you. I’m loving compiling these for you & hope you’re benefiting from them too?
I had a long chat last week with the owner of a visitor attraction who is taking this time as an opportunity to review all her costs, gen up on loads of new stuff & working out where their biggest challenges & opportunities for cost saving & increasing revenues lie. A great attitude that I think everyone should be adopting. Can you look at your menu’s? Packages? Events? Learn more about social media? Update your websites? Pull together content? Commission some new videos or photography? There is so much that could be looked at, so you can hit the ground running & be even bigger & better after this is all over!!
Don’t forget you can also book a FREE ‘PBP POW WOW’ with me every Wednesday. (I’m fully booked Weds 29th but have subsequent Wednesdays free). If you fancy a brainstorm or have a couple of questions you’d like to ask me about social media, I’d love to help where I can. Just drop me a line or click Here to Book.
‘USEFUL ARTICLES’
I’m gathering as many bits & pieces for you as I can that I’ve come across from experts in our field on social, marketing & more this week:
Firstly, last week I had the pleasure of being a guest speaker for ‘Selling Savvy’s’ first Virtual Summit. I loved it & very kindly received lots of nice feedback. I just wanted to make you all aware that Kate will be making this a regular event during lock-down & also has some special ‘How to Increase Conversion’ virtual events in association with the HBAA currently on offer that will take place weekly. You can view the last recording HERE
Have you checked out Mark Mculloch’s series yet entitled – ‘Pub & Restaurant Re-birth 2020’? It’s a series of videos, advice & interviews that will definitely help you. The latest one is: MODULE 10 – TIK TOK 101 FOR BRANDS – VICKY BANHAM TIK TOK INFLUENCER 1.3M
Something else I’d highly recommend you tune into is Hospitality Talks – In response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented impact on the UK hospitality industry. Katy Moses, MD of KAM Media, shares her short conversations with industry leaders each day on how they are dealing with the crisis & offering helpful advice to everyone who is affected in some way.
E-Hotelier have once again been offering some valuable insights. I particularly liked their ‘Panic, pause or pivot? Why you shouldn’t worry about your hotel game plan’ article. This quote from it also struck a chord with me:
“There’s no point worrying about things you CAN’T control, because if you CAN’T control them, there is no point worrying. There’s is no point worrying about things you CAN control, because if you CAN control them, there is no point worrying. Author: unknown”
I liked this blog post from The Drum as they are basically backing up what I have been harping on about!!: ‘Pizza Hut brand boss: “Now is not the time to pull back on media spend”.
Finally, I came across this FREE webinar entitled ‘Leading your business out of the Coronavirus crisis’. It’s on Thursday 30th April at 2pm. This is from The Caterer.
Happy reading & remember if you come across any articles, groups, emails etc around hospitality you think might benefit others, please do let me know so I can include.
‘PBP POST PICKS’
Still lots of creative content out there on hospitality social, plus a few more venues I’ve found & love what they do! Here are my ‘PBP Post Picks’ I found this week (CLICK THE IMAGES TO BE TAKEN TO THE POSTS THEMSELVES ONLINE):
My new social media crush of the week is Rockcliffe Hall & Spa!
I loved this post, designed to generate engagement by asking followers to post their images & memories at Rockcliffe. They are basically getting their followers to promote their venue for them!
I also loved both the sentiment behind this & the fact they shouted about it on their social media, as they should do:
We’ve talked about how important it is to show the people behind your venues many times before. This video uses many team members at home mainly with a message about how much they miss their colleagues & guests. Such a simple but effective idea CLICK TO WATCH THE VIDEO:
Finally from them, we’ve discussed Chef’s showing you how to make food & Bar Manager’s showing you how to make a cocktail, well how about showing you how to have a spa at home? Great idea CLICK TO WATCH THE VIDEO:
The Bearded Sailor have by far the best Fish & Chip shop social media I have seen locally. I love the openness, honesty & transparency of this post:
I loved the fact they involved their followers with every step of the journey including when they were considering deliveries & teasing them about what’s to come:
Again, their constant communication with their followers is great & lovely to see their yummy fish & chips lined up to go out:
Aldo’s came up with a fabulous idea, a pizza design kit for kids. Here they created a video to promote it – Not only does it entertain the kids but it also raises money for charity CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO:
Again, excellent communication with their followers thanking them & updating them but also by stating they are sold out, it makes them even more sought after!
Heaney & Mill in Headingley also have some very innovative ideas. They promoted their Sunday Roast delivered idea with a competition & cleverly used the reviews, comments & images that followers had been sending in, which is more effective than them just telling us why you should buy:
They also did a competition around their ‘Gourmet Ready Meals’ another great concept:
Elsworth Kitchen in Skipton have also attended one of my Pow Wow’s, but to be honest had already pretty much nailed their social. This is a brilliant behind the scenes look at their family life, whilst still promoting their products. Remember posts we can relate to, that encourage emotions always do well:
Broadleys Bistro in Ilkley came up with the simple but effective idea to add £1 onto all orders to raise money for local NHS & quite rightly shouted out about it:
Grayston Unity in Halifax are still reminding us that we can purchase vouchers to use later. Have you mentioned your vouchers recently & can you set them up so they can be bought online?
I delivered some training last year for Village Hotels, so I’m really pleased to see their posts like this one from their hotel in The Wirral. Loving the slogan #keepcheckingin too, great idea.
Another one from Everybodys in Guiseley again who I am currently working with. Such a simple yet highly effective post that encouraged engagement:
Finally, a big, well-deserved shout out to House of Koko who have been making hundreds of packed lunches for children going without meals in Leeds. What a lovely, thoughtful thing to do & when you receive press, make sure you share it!:
‘CONTENT IDEAS’
I’m sure you’ve been inspired loads already with those ‘PBP Post Picks’, but just in case you need more, head on over for the last few weeks ideas on my previous blog posts HERE.
The pressure is on to keep coming up with fresh ideas!!
Here are some you could try:
- Ask your guests or customers to share content/images/memories they have taken or have of your venue.
- Get your team to do a video at home, a short snippet with either a written message, part of a spoken message, part of a song or dance, then join them all together to make a piece of fun content.
- What packages can you offer that are different & stand out from the crowd. i.e. Sunday Lunch at home, Afternoon Tea at home, special Birthday packages, BBQ packs, ready meals, baking kits etc. Diversify your business to help you thrive during lock-down.
- Start a ‘Show us Yours’ section. Either share a recipe or image or just ask followers to show us their Yorkshire Puddings, cakes, cocktails etc. You can either do this for fun or as part of a competition & ask the Chef or Bars Manager to judge a winner.
- National Days this week you could jump on, include: Sunday 26th April – National Kids & Pets Day – Share images of your kids at home & their pets & ask followers to do the same. Monday 27th April is UK Coffee Week – Can you share demo’s, how to’s, give away free take-away coffee’s etc? Tuesday 28th April – National Superhero Day – Ask followers to share their superheroes during lock-down. Wednesday 29th April – International Dance Day – Ask your team to pull together some lock-down dances either individually or as snippets & pull together.Remember above all else keep being heartfelt, honest, candid & yourselves. With lots of people pics & those that generate emotions.
We can do this peeps & come out fighting the other side! Stay Safe. #keephospitalityalive and #keepsocialalive
Becky x
