Best Social Media Strategy for Short Term Rental Business

The biggest mistake I see Short term rental businesses face is they don’t use social media marketing to promote their space.

Even worse, they don’t take social media seriously.

They buy a vacation home or a work space, then they post it on social media believing the lie, “If I post it they will come”

Errr wrong try again.

That’s just not how social media marketing works. Actually, it’s not how digital marketing works. When you’re running your business in the world, you can attract whomever you want to.

But once you enter the online world, you need to be specific about who you are targeting and have a solid social media strategy.

Without a social media strategy you’re pretty much invisible. 

And I’m sure you didn’t start your short term rental business just to be invisible. NOPE!

So in this blog, I’m gonna walk you through a social media strategy for short term rental business. This blog is especially helpful for those of you who are just starting out on Instagram or TikTok and looking to grow your following and increase your booking rate.

I’m sharing 3 major steps that will help you grow your following and then convert those followers to customers on Instagram or TikTok. And ultimately blow your competitors out the park.

Warning, These steps will lead to overbooking and increased exposure. So get ready for the overflow to pour in.

FYI, if you’re more of a visual learner you can select this link HERE to watch the video instead or just scroll up. Same information just a lot cooler on Youtube 😎

Step 1: Social Media Marketing Target Audience

I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, you’ve gotta identify your ideal customers. And of course you’ve hesitated cause you want to be open to everyone so you don’t miss a sale. But the reality is if you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. Why?

Because there are 1.4 billion users on Instagram and 1 billion people on TikTok. About 30% of the users are business owners, just like you, vying for the attention of your customers. If you put out content that doesn’t have a concentrated message or target audience then you’ll sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher Womp Womp Womp Womp.

via GIPHY

Exactly. No one understood her, so they won’t understand you.

But if you put out content that specifically targets your audience then growing and being seen on social media becomes a piece of cake.

So, how exactly do you identify your ideal customers?

Answer this simple, but loaded question,

“Who are you called to?”

If you’re a Christian, then you’re answering the question,

“Who is the group of people that God laid on your heart to serve?”

For me, it’s entrepreneurs and business owners over the age of 40, who wants to use Instagram & TikTok as their marketing tool, but are struggling with video content that attracts and converts their followers to customers.

You can dive deeper into this by asking yourself who would you like to work with. Make a list of their qualities including:

• What are their goals and values?
• Do they have a family or are they traveling alone?
• Why do they need a vacation?
• What do they like about going on vacation?
• How much money do they make?
• What’s their biggest issue with vacationing?
• Do they like Air bnb’s or hotels?
• Do they work from home?
• Do they prefer to work in their living room or an office?
• Are they fast paced or slow paced?
• Do they drink wine with their dinner or do they prefer a soda?

This part of the process will take some time to think through. But it is essential to the growth of your business online. Once you have this part detailed then you can create content that speaks directly to your audience. When you’re using their language they then feel seen and heard and then guess what? Ca-Ching Ca-Ching. 

Now if you’re someone who’s already been in business then when it comes to choosing your ideal customer you can follow these steps.

• Look at your current client base
• Consider their habits
• Identify their goals
• Identify their fears
• How do they make their buying decisions
• How much money do they make?

Once you identify your ideal customer then creating content for your customer becomes so simple. Because now everything that you put out will specifically target them.

Step 2: Social Media Marketing Bio

You ever hear people say you gotta go where your customers are? So not every social media platform is for you? Well that’s a lie! And it’s an antiquated way of doing marketing.

The reality is your audience is everywhere. Just cause you don’t know how to find them doesn’t mean they’re not there. During this day and age it’s so important to be everywhere. You want your vacation rental to be everywhere and you can accomplish that with your content. And if you want to take your social media marketing for short term rental business to the next level then you need this.

Also, I have to say this, please note I’m not telling you to join every social media platform at right now. Nope! That’ll overwhelm you. It’s important to master one platform before moving on to the next.

So, the real question is which platform will you dominate first?

Is it Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Youtube??? There’s so much. No matter which platform you choose it’s so important to establish it in a way that your clients will come to you.

That’s the whole point of social media marketing. Creating content to attract customers so that you’re not doing the chasing.

If you do not successfully establish your brand then you’ll be forever chasing your clients and will feel burnt out and exhausted not actually booking clients. To effectively establish your brand for Instagram or TikTok check out 2 free master classes I hosted on Clubhouse.

Free Master Class – Instagram Marketing for Beginners

Free Master Class – TikTok Marketing for Beginners

Ok, so back to your bio. Your bio on any social media platform should be about your customer and not you. Too many times I’ve seen bios that read like this

Girl Mom,

Superhost Air bnb

Best selling author of__________

The thing is NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU! They want to know how you can help them. After all that’s why you went into business right? To help others. So the best bio answers three questions

1. Who you serve?
2. How you serve?
3. Call To Action (CTA)?

Here’s a snippet of my bio on IG and on TikTok

You can see that I strategically use keywords that’ll attract my ideal customers so that they know I am here to help them.

Your bio is what is searchable on IG and TikTok. So make sure that you’re using keywords to help you pop up in the search results. If you’re not sure what keywords are then that’s okay, I’ll write another blog that’ll help you with this. But in the mean time, get some basics for IG & TikTok, with this Master Class I hosted, on clubhouse HERE.

Bottom line is, without the right keywords in your bio you’re basically invisible. And if no one can find you then you won’t get any bookings. This is where I see a lot of short rental business, or any business go wrong. Avoid this mistake by taking action today.

I have this saying that I say to all of my students at the beginning of a session, “Action takers are money makers, not time wasters!” You didn’t get this far in this blog just put it down and do nothing with it. No! You’ve gotten this far, so you can overbook your short term rental space.

And I’m rooting for you!

 

Step 3: Social Media Marketing Plan

And now we’ve reached the final step for social media marketing for short term rental business.

To be effective on social media and avoid wasting time you need a solid social media plan. Why? Because posting just to post will only drive your audience away. But posting with a purpose will bring them in. So how do you develop an effective social media plan?

The Best social media plan includes 

• Content Pillars
• Content calendar
• Batching Content
• Posting Strategy
• Content Goals
• Content Strategy

It’s important that when starting a new platform that you understand the language of the platform.

For Instagram it’s Reels. So posting photos won’t serve your best interest for reaching your audience. But posting reels that are original content, will work best, as that’s what Instagram is pushing right now. Also what works on Instagram are skits, how to videos, and character centered videos.

For TikTok, it’s educational content. TikTok is really big on pushing content that is teaching their audience hence why TikTok’s search engine is a lot more robust than Instagram’s. TikTok has partnered with Google, so that when people are searching on Google, TikTok video will also populate.

This is great for your business, but not so great if you don’t know how to use keywords. Because you won’t be found. And again, your short term rental business will be invisible. The whole point of social media is to boost your visibility fast and for free.

No matter what platform you choose to leverage for social media marketing, Youtube, Pinterest, Facebook, you need to understand its language so you know what to post. Posting with a purpose will cut down many mistakes and will get you right to who you’re targeting.

The last thing you need to know is that there are three types of conversions on social media and each one requires a different strategy.

This is important because a lot of times businesses start out just trying to book more customers, and while that’s our ultimate goal, it’s also important that you’re converting in other ways.

Here are the three types of conversions:

From Viewers to followers

From Followers to customers

From Followers to partners

All three are needed for success. And each one require a diff strategy.

I talk more about content strategies and help you establish your brand in my E Course Make InstaCash: How to Build, Brand, and Bank on Instagram.

or you can access Make InstaCash: How to Build, Brand, and Bank on TikTok.

If you’re ready for the next step, then I want you to take the next step to explode your social media marketing for short term rental business.

Remember, action takers are money makers, not time wasters. You have the information. Now it’s your turn to take action.

 

If you loved this blog and want to get more information for your short term rental business subscribe to my blog. So you can receive the next blog Social Media Marketing for Short Term Rental Business Content Strategies.

 

Let’s Chat: What strategy stood out most to you and you can implement today? Comment below.