FARMHOUSE INN BLOG AND ALL ABOUT THE SONOMA WINE COUNTRY

Here at Farmhouse Inn we pride ourselves not taking life in Sonoma County too seriously...we love helping our guests discover some of the whimsy and fun of living in the wine country.  When the birthday for our (fairly) new Barn building rolled around this year we wanted to do something extra fun so everyone could join in and help us celebrate.  We are fairly new to social media and Facebook...still learning the ropes (plus they keep changing everything when we do get it figured out)  but wanted to see what we could do to increase our presence there. 
And Meghan had an idea of piggybacking on the release of the new Snow White movie too...what do you think of the concept behind  our first Facebook promotion?

 

Right when we were discussing what kind of hijinks we could get up to - we discovered a company called Grosocial that specializes in helping companies grow their social media presence and designs tabs for Facebook promotions.  Right up our alley...they helped us design a sweepstakes that could be shared on Facebook with the entries and shares tracked through their application. We had the most fun coming up with some ideas for prizes and they helped us flesh it all out.  Now the Sweepstakes is done, the winner is announced, and we thought we would share some of the fun we had along the way.  It was definitely a learning experience but luckily our new friends at Grosocial held our hands through it all.  if you didn't happen to see it here is a picture of the Sweepstakes...

I was reviewing some of the previous Wine Country Blog posts and you must think we do nothing but eat and drink...and eat and drink and...here in the Sonoma wine country. Here at Farmhouse Inn we do seem to focus on those activities but there is quite a lot more to do in Sonoma County. The Russian River (canoeing, kayaking, fishing) runs right through the valley out to the Sonoma Coast.  Armstrong Redwoods (and trail riding through the park) is right down the road. Farmers Markets and farms galore, museums (Charles Schulz, anyone?), skydiving, ziplining...what is your pleasure?

Spring is just around the corner (after we get through the St. Patrick's Day celebrations) and that brings Easter - my grandgirls are coming to visit.  I bribed them with a trip to one of Sonoma County's most precious treasures...a visit to Safari West - maybe even on Easter Sunday for the Hunt for the Hare".  Every once in a while Danielle (age 12) expresses an interest in being a veterinarian and is interested in all things scientific.  And Jessica (age 10) is an extremely good student and curious about everything- I think they would both get lot out of a Safari Adventure at the animal preserve. It may not be Africa, but it's close! The animals are running free around your safari jeep allowing for a certain amount of interaction with the animals.  These pictures will tell the story.

Can you guess what some of the babies above are?  Some are obvious but for better pictures and descriptions you should visit the Safari West Facebook page (and become a fan while you are there).
 In case you are wondering how close you can get to the animals...when you go out on the Safari Adventure tour you actually drive around looking for the animals and almost anything can happen.

Well... it has been a long day here at Farmhouse Inn- this afternoon we were so close to 3000 fans on our Facebook page that we finally embraced this "social media" thing and tried to make something happen.  Around 4:00 we needed 26 fans to get there - it took us a few hours but with a lot of help from our friends - we did it!! We had people from Connecticut, Maryland, Oregon, Idaho, quite a few from California, and even a few locals from Santa Rosa on Facebook helping with the cause.