Need a place to show your guests why they should pick your vacation rental over another? Social media platforms like Facebook are the ideal start.
So, you’ve listed your short-term rental on Airbnb and a couple of other channels. Maybe you’ve even got your own website. But somehow, you’re still missing a place to really connect with your guests. What’s the best place to show them why they should pick your rental over your competitors’?
With 52% of travellers look for recommendations on social media when planning a trip, and 42% of posts on Facebook relating to travel, it comes as no surprise that it is an integral channel for you to connect with your guests.
Facebook is an ideal platform to strengthen your brand, build trust, share stories and – yes – get bookings.
In this blog, we take you through how to get started with setting up Facebook for your vacation rental in five easy steps.
Set up a Facebook business page
To get started on Facebook, you need to first create a Facebook business page. A business page is different to your personal page and has a number of benefits, including:
- Adding a prominent call to action at the top of your page
- Inviting guests to make a booking via the page
- Getting online reviews
- Displaying your vacation rental’s details and features. It’s like your website on Facebook
- Don’t forget to add great photos, especially in your profile. Fill in all requested details and definitely provide booking links
Once the Facebook page is created, move on to creating an Instagram business page
Make sure to connect your Facebook and Instagram pages for maximum benefits.
Connect and share your vacation rental listing to Facebook 
Photo Credit: Relax its Done, NZ
Now link your Facebook and Instagram business pages to your vacation rental listings
Once linked, share your listing via Facebook with your connected friends.
Content planning: tell rich stories
Use your Facebook and Instagram pages to tell authentic stories that help your guests connect with your brand. It’s important to remember that guests who choose to stay at a vacation rental instead of a hotel are looking for authentic, original experiences instead of cookie-cutter stays. So, focus your storytelling on the aspects of your business that are unique to you. Some stories that you can tell via your content marketing strategy:
- Why you started your vacation rental
- Quirky things about your property or stories of how you decorated it
- Stories about your location – what makes it so special
- Special places around your location
- Stories of guests who have stayed with you (if they have given you permission to share)
- Post lots of photos of your property and destination
- Report online reviews by guests
- Share discounts and promotions from time to time. Don’t overdo this as you may put off some followers with constant book messages
- Encourage your guests to share their stories. Create a hashtag to bring it all together
Run Facebook ads
Support your organic growth strategy on Facebook with some ads.
Facebook has some great guides to help you get started
The key thing to remember about Facebook ads is to build the right target audience set. This can be done by people who visit your website or those who have interacted with your Facebook page. Next, you can broaden this audience by creating lookalikes of them – people who have similar interests to those who’ve already interacted with your brand. You also have the ability to build completely new audience sets using Facebook’s demographic and interest-based targeting.
To hook the perfect audience into action you need great creativity. You can boost the posts you create or set up ads from scratch. You can also set up multiple ads to see which ones get maximum results.
Remember, when your goal is to push out your vacation rental listing on an OTA, link back to them from your Facebook posts.
Review, revise and improve
Facebook is not a load and forget tool. You need to keep optimising your content to get maximum value.
The secret to good Facebook marketing (or any digital marketing for that matter) is tracking. The only way to truly know what is performing well is to crunch the numbers and find out. When you track what posts are successful, you will be more informed about what your audience is looking for and thus post better content.
Parting words
With a little more research and some time, you could give yourself an incredible boost this year by diving into Facebook ads for your vacation rental. There’s a lot of potential for success. Don’t knock it until you’ve given it a try!
This article was originally published by STAAH. For more hotelier tips, trends, and news please click here.