Nancy Skee, of Olde Square Inn in Mount Joy, PA, has decided to channel her desire to greet people and cook for them into fun and informative Facebook Live videos! Here is what Nancy had to say about how this came about and how she does it:

“Two of the things I so enjoy about being an Innkeeper is making breakfast and talking with guests in the morning. I REALLY missed that when we had to temporarily close. Self-quarantine has definitely make things quiet around here.

I was looking for ways I could keep in touch with my guests, share delicious food with them, and, honestly – keep myself busy. After all, you can only spring-clean so much, right? As I found myself wandering back to the kitchen thinking about the foods I’d like to make once we were back in business, I hit upon a way that would take care of all three.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am EDT, I get on Facebook and shoot a live cooking demonstration that is easy enough for viewers to make along with me. As a former 8th grade teacher it was no problem to make an outline of what I wanted to teach for that day’s episode, but believe me, you don’t have to be a teacher to be able to do it yourself.

I plan what I want to teach for the week, set it up as an event on Facebook, and then post reminders each day about what’s going to be featured next, along with general ingredients and any special equipment that might be needed. The morning of the demo I again post a reminder for people to tune in at 10am.

On demo day I set my phone on a tiny tripod in my tiny work space, ready with all my ingredients laid out and a finished product ready to “ta-dah!!” at the end. Throughout the video, viewer’s names show up, and I try to give a shout-out to everyone who joins me. If I’m too involved in what I’m doing and miss someone, I always go back after posting the live video to say hello and answer my followers questions.

Are the videos perfect? No. Do all the demonstrations turn out the way I had hoped? No. (I have one episode on grilled fruit where you can see smoke rising in the background when I forgot to turn down the heat on the apples.) Doesn’t matter. People are excited to see who you are and are happy to know you mess things up, too.

The videos have brought so many more visitors to my Facebook page than I could have imagined. They post their finished products and even ask to have me demonstrate specific recipes. They like my page, subscribe to my newsletters, and share my videos. I’m having a great time connecting, and I know that when we’re ready to open again I’ll be looking forward to welcoming back my former guests and making some new friends!”

Nancy is using modern technology to promote old-fashioned hospitality – Bravo!