Social Media and the Peach Stand – Should your hotel participate in social media? Find your answer by the peach stand at the fruit store.

Every where you turn all you hear about is social media – Facebook, Tweets, blogging, reviews. It can seem overwhelming and the thought runs through your mind that your hotel should participate. But that gnawing question never goes away – why should you?

Simple – it will go on with or without your participation. But that’s not enough to know, is it? Don’t sweat it, the answer really can be found by the peaches at the fruit store.

Growing up in Brooklyn, on hot summer nights we would take a stroll to the local fruit store to buy some delicious treat that was in season. So often my Mom and I would encounter Josephine at the store doing the same thing. 

So while they were selecting the good peaches from the pile, Josephine tells my mother that the best peaches she ever had was during a vacation in Georgia. My mother listened intently as Josephine often traveled and would know these things.

One thing about her was that she loved to talk. The conversation lead to the hotel that Josephine stayed while in Georgia and how the they had a small basket of fresh, juicy and delicious peaches at the front desk.

They didn’t realize that there were 3 or 4 other people standing around, quietly listening to them talk about her vacation. Mom shared the conversation with Dad as we sat in our backyard enjoying the peaches.

Our next door neighbor Helen was in the backyard with her husband when Mom called her to the fence so she could share the summer acquisition of the peaches. Helen said she heard Mom talking about Georgia peaches and vacations, so she began sharing experiences of her vacation last year. The next summer Mom and Dad decided to visit Georgia.

Social media isn’t a new phenomenon. It isn’t a new internet fad.

It’s that neighborhood conversation by the peach stand and in the backyard on a hot summer night now communicated through the world every day and in every season.

Those conversations are going on with or without your participation.

Now wouldn’t it have been an amazing thing if there happen to be a manager of a Georgia hotel at the peach stand that night?

Ok, now I want some peaches. It is peach season, you know. I’m thinking a weekend getaway to Georgia. I bet I can find some really good peaches there. That is what Josephine, Helen and my parents told me. 

Participate.