Christina Jelski
There are few things social media loves more than a good makeover.
Entrepreneurs Brett and Casey McManus stumbled upon this truth unexpectedly earlier this year, when an Instagram video showcasing their latest real estate project -- a revamp of a rundown motel in the ski town of Killington, Vt. -- went viral, attracting 10 million views.
The newlyweds, who hail from western New York and had begun posting as a way to update their loved ones, were surprised by the sudden traction. Within a few months, their Instagram handle, @innvestors, had accumulated more than 300,000 followers. A June post unveiling the 17-room motel's official rebranding as the Apres Inn garnered over 20,000 likes and hundreds of comments.
"Social media can be so unpredictable, and you never really know if something's going to take off," said Casey, who recently left her teaching career to focus on hospitality full time. "We were just kind of sharing it for friends and family to document the whole process. It feels so surreal to step back and say, holy cow, there are like 300,000 people who want to know what I'm doing today."
Encouragement from that online community helped bolster the McManus' spirits through the renovation. To help manage costs, the couple tackled as many tasks as possible themselves, only outsourcing more specialized work, like electrical and plumbing, to professionals.
The pair also continued to operate the motel during the overhaul, adding another layer of complexity. While they had previously dipped their toes into hospitality by way of Airbnb, flipping a few homes in New York's Finger Lakes region and operating them as vacation rentals, the Apres Inn project marked their first larger-scale, commercial hotel venture.
"It was a pretty tough time," said Brett, who, prior to taking on the motel, worked in marketing. "Casey was still teaching full time, so she was commuting back and forth, teaching all week and taking care of our rental properties and then coming up to help clean or paint."
Brett and Casey McManus in front of the rundown Killington motel that they purchased in early 2024, which they've since renovated and relaunched as the Après Inn Photo Credit: Courtesy of Brett and Casey McManus
The couple has since relocated to Killington and operate the Apres Inn themselves, though they brought on one person to help with housekeeping.
To characterize these self-taught hoteliers as underdogs, however, would be a mistake.
Despite being upstarts, their sizable social media presence has given them a significant marketing advantage, which they hope will translate into booming business come ski season.
"While it's too soon to say just how much Instagram has boosted our bookings, we can tell from Google Analytics that people are flowing to our website through social media and then converting," Brett said.
He added that they've already welcomed a handful of social media followers as guests, many eager to hang out by the front desk and engage in conversations about the inn's transformation.
"And that's been really cool, because it makes things less transactional," he said. "Instead of people booking a room, coming in and just going about their day, we've gotten to have some cool conversations with our guests."
The McManuses are exploring other avenues for content creation, including the potential launch of a YouTube channel. And a growing number of companies and brands have reached out about partnerships and endorsement deals.
For now, Brett and Casey appear to consider themselves hoteliers first and content creators second.
"We don't want to become this super commercialized page where we're just promoting nonstop partnerships, because people have communicated in a lot of messages that our content feels authentic," Brett said.
For smaller brands or properties looking to make a splash ahead of launch, perhaps pulling a page from Brett and Casey's playbook could prove a savvy strategy.
Rather than filling a social media profile with carefully curated content that focuses solely on the "after," perhaps there's value in sharing more of the "before" -- and the ups and downs in between.