Finding new customers is never an easy task, but it’s necessary if you want to continue doing business as things in the short-term rental space become more competitive. Airbnb and other platforms don’t offer enough features for advertising your offers, so social media becomes an excellent tool. We will give you the whole process of turning social media into a source of potential customers! To get started, we’ll have an overview of some popular platforms that advertise vacation rentals- looking at their pros and cons along the way.
Why social media
Social media is one of the best places to promote your vacation rental business. The most advantageous feature that these platforms give you as a host is the customer data they collect. You will be able to target ads only for users who might be interested rather than promoting your listing to just anybody.
It is time-consuming to create and manage your campaigns on social media platforms, but it is an investment that pays off. It wouldn’t be as popular among entrepreneurs if it weren’t such a worthy option. Vacation rentals, in particular, are a perfect type of business for this promotion. You can promote your business by creating unique content at first and then gaining followers naturally. This will take time but will be very rewarding.
High conversion rates come at low costs. The cost per click for traveling advertisements is several times lower than with other categories of ads. The new traffic attracted by these advertisements will boost your position on Airbnb’s popular tab and allow you to attract more guests! Whether or not the new visitors book your property doesn’t matter. The increased traffic to your listing page alone is enough to get Airbnb and VRBO algorithms to increase your rank in the search results.
Mastering social media promotionÂ
Choosing the right social media platform can make all the difference. There are many social media platforms where you can advertise your offers, each with its unique features and benefits. We will review several of the most popular social media platforms here.
Many beginners prefer to start with only one platform and get acquainted with its features first. However, the most influential businesses use several sites at the same time. The results of your advertisements will not necessarily follow a general pattern, so it is also good advice to run multiple small campaigns on different platforms. This way, you’ll know which listing and platform turned out to be more successful and focus more of your efforts to that marketing channel.
These are also aggregator platforms, which allow businesses to handle social media accounts and advertising campaigns all in one place instead of doing them separately. Some of these sites aggregate the statistics for you so that it’s easy to compare different sets of data from your various campaigns.
Come up with a strategy
Beginners in marketing often mistake having no strategy when creating their first campaign. They let the situation evolve and change how they create a plan accordingly. By coming up with a plan from the beginning, we avoid this mistake and have an opportunity to gain a competitive edge over them. With that being said, however, it’s essential to have some room for maneuvering once we can figure out which channels are more effective than others.
Make a plan for your content
Good content is critical to developing a successful strategy. You need to decide which type of content you will post, when, and how often. Check out some Instagram pages or TikTok pages that you think have good content. Study them a bit. What type of posts are they creating? How often are they posting? Do they have a color scheme? Does the page have an overall theme? These are all things that should be considered when making a plan for your content. A lot of the time, you do not need to re-invent the wheel. Inspiration and ideas for different types of posts can be used from popular pages that you enjoy.
Managing your account
You need to be managing your accounts appropriately for a successful reach. This means having all the necessary information about the property you are promoting and filling it with images that make people want to go there and see them in person but also represent reality properly. Trying to make things look better than in real life is a standard error that can cause significant damage if not looked out for constantly.
Work with your audience
The interaction with your audience is essentially a part of account management, but it is crucial enough to deserve its category. Working with your audience means not only replying to the comments and answering people’s questions but also creating engaging posts that encourage your audience to interact with your brand.
The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor your advertising to them and appeal to what they want. For example, it is possible to turn a direct interaction into a set of valuable information. You can make a quick poll for your followers on their preferences. This will both engage the audience and provide some relevant knowledge.
The best social media for promoting your Airbnb listing
 This section will give you an overview of the four most popular social media platforms. They are different, and have unique features and benefits that every company should consider. As we mentioned earlier, your marketing approach should be individual– which is why it’s important to know what options are available for you.
1. Instagram
Instagram is the most popular choice for promoting a vacation rental. It has all of the necessary features for this type of business. You can post appealing photos and videos of your homes, gather information from your audience via polls, and interact directly with your audience through your stories. The downside to this platform is also caused by its popularity: there is already a lot of competition on Instagram since many similar businesses use it as well.
2. Facebook
Securing your presence to establish a strong connection with the audience is essential if you want online success. Facebook has both advantages and disadvantages when compared to Instagram. Facebook offers more features, but it is not as focused on photos or videos, making promotion harder. Nevertheless, there is a lot of helpful information on this platform, and its tools for advertising are comprehensive compared to those of Instagram.
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is not a very popular network among vacation rental businesses, but it can still be worth trying. Although your profile won’t be able to be created with user activity there, LinkedIn still might work as a marketing tool for listing advertisements on the platform. You can use several types of ads on the site: sponsored messaging and dynamic ads.
4. TikTok
There are two options for promoting your vacation rental business on TikTok. You can either start an ad campaign or create a dedicated account for your property and use the website’s algorithm to promote it. Making clips takes time and effort, but you can quickly generate a significant amount of traffic if you have engaging videos, leading to a significant increase in bookings.
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