InnSpeak Podcast

Nicolette Johnston of Colette Publications joins the pod to talk about creating great content for your property. Nicolette is the publisher of Bed & Breakfast Magazine and Chateaux & Castles Quarterly, but she's also spent quite a bit of time being a travel blogger. Nicolette shares her tips for innkeepers to create great content for their blog and for their social channels and we also learn a little about Bed & Breakfast magazine and how to pitch your inn for a story!

Rob Fulton, CEO of AIHP (Association of Independent Hospitality Professionals) joins the pod again. This time we talk about a hot topic in the industry right now - ADA compliance & website accessibility for B&B's. There's been a lot of predatory lawsuits, or at least threats of lawsuits, going around over the last several months for websites that aren't accessible. We talk about what's happening and how to protect yourself.

Ben shares a few thoughts after attending an industry conference and issues a challenge to vendors in the marketing & technology space selling to innkeepers & independent hoteliers.

Diane Rogers of the Pinecrest Bed & Breakfast in Asheville NC joins the podcast to talk about her tips for managing OTA listings on Expedia. Diane gives practical advice for managing your OTA listings for higher yield (ie - more profit) and direct bookings. Hint: it's about actively managing availability.

Instagram "micro-influencer" Kourtney Barish joins the podcast to talk about her advice, tips and tricks for getting more engagement on your Instagram posts. She gives advice for how to quickly and easily manage & add hashtags to your posts, re-share other people's posts, manage Instagram posts that people take at your place, etc.

Kourtney is on Instagram.com/TasteOfBend a local foodie Instagram account. In addition to her own posts, she is compensated to visit local restaurants and share pics of their food. Kourtney also runs the Instagram accounts for Odysys and the InnSpeak Podcast

Rob Fulton, CEO of AIHP (Association of Independent Hospitality Professionals) joins the podcast to talk about "The State of B&B's in the U.S." and the findings of a recent study. We talk about what innkeepers can take away from the study and use as they think about their business in 2019 and beyond. We talk about the growth of the industry overall, what guests expect from B&B's, the competition that B&B's face, and other opportunities for guest satisfaction and increased profits.

Heather Turner, social media expert and marketing director for PAII joins the podcast to talk about some of the things she teaches to innkeepers about social media. Learn how to match the social media channel to your audience, how to be more effective at managing your social media presence and a couple of rules of thumb. And of course, we ask the awkward and unusual getting to know you questions at the end.

This "mini-episode" of the Innspeak podcast is a breakdown of Moz's 2018 Local Ranking Factors survey. Ben covers the key things that will help your property rank in Google's "3-pack" map results.

Kris Ullmer, President & CEO of PAII walks through educational & networking opportunities available to innkeepers. We also talk about PAII's advocacy efforts for the industry including a class action suit against OTAs like Expedia, arming innkeepers with information on fighting for equal footing with short term rentals in their area and also ADA compliance issues.

Stephen Fofanoff joins the podcast to talk about creating and marketing content to connect with potential guests. Stephen talks about the plans of the Washington B&B Guild to turn their association site into a content marketing machine. Stephen talks about how they're going to focus on creating content and partner with video content creators to do a better job of marketing that gets people interested in traveling to and staying at one of their inns.

Stephen serves as Innkeeper at Domaine Madeleine and VP of Guest Connection for Washington Bed & Breakfast Guild, soon to be Washington Independent Inns Network.