Dilemmas in Social Media. Are we ready to meet them?

It is easy to make a mistake in the social media. Øyvind Kvalnes at Handelshøyskolen BI in Bergen, Norway, has identified in his recent research five dilemmas that can come up. While social media give a fantastic opportunity to discover and create network with other people, it also gives us challenging situations. As Mr. Kvalnes puts it, one gets a chance to discover oneself just as the Greek philosopher Socrates suggested. Mr. Kvalnes himself is a philosopher and professor at the Trade University of Bergen.

Do's and don'ts on Facebook. Learn from the biggest.

Recently my friend had a trouble with her flight with Norwegian, one of the biggest operators in Scandinavia. So I went to the air-company’s Facebook page and found the Discussion Board where I could share my (in this case) her experience of their nonexistent customer care. But this post is not about the complaints, it is about how the air-companies handle the Facebook communication.

Promoting your B&B in Free Ways.

So, we know now that a B&B has to have a web site, a Facebook Fan page and possibly a blog. Those can and should be promoted to the existing guests as well as to potential customers. If you collect e-mail addresses of your guests, you can easily create a promotion e-mail letter and invite your former one-time or regular guests to visit your new web page, Like you on Facebook or share opinion on TripAdvisor.

Your can promote your pages by advertising: in the traditional media (be it a local or regional newspaper or a TV-ad), or on the Internet. The Internet offers both payable and free of charge means. Ads on Facebook, or GoogleAds, Yahoo! and others can be used, as well as banners on all kinds of sites.

QR Codes for B&B

One of my colleagues in the tourist business (in Hammerfest tourist office, Norway) complained once that she had to put bar codes on all the items in the souvenir shop, and that some items were so small that she didn’t know what to do. If only she knew about QR codes!