Social media is a powerful tool when it comes to marketing. Major brands have gotten it down to a science and thanks to their seemingly endless budget, they can spend a ton to advertise heavily across multiple platforms. Not to mention, they hire people whose sole responsibility is to run their social media accounts.

As a vacation rental host, you may think there’s not much for you to gain by using social media to market your vacation rental home – but you’d be wrong. Even if you only have a single place and you’d consider it “nothing special,” if you’re not using social media for your listing, you’re missing an opportunity to boost your occupancy.

When it comes to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram engagement is very useful, so knowing how to use these tools to your advantage can help boost your vacation rental bookings.

If your personal Instagram profile is filled with family photos and other personal pics, create a separate account for your holiday rental. Same goes for Twitter and Facebook: you should create pages for your rental properties that guests can interact with, without interfering with your personal life.

Sharing information and photos of your rental units is good. To keep your followers engaged, add a mix of interesting things that your current and future guests can actually use. You could provide recommendations and tips on the local area. Your guests will be happy to see that you want them to have a good time, and your social media pages will become more popular.

When you are sharing professional videos and photos of your rental units, try conveying a nice experience rather than just showcasing a place. Imagine a standard real estate picture of the unit that shows how spacious and nicely decorated it is. Now, take it up a notch: imagine it’s winter, so you post pictures of your living room filled with holiday decorations, a tray of delicious hot beverages placed conveniently on the coffee table.

You want to show guests what their experience staying in your property will be like. Promoting amazing experiences is essential to being successful and receiving bookings.

Your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Pinterest handles should be included on all guest books and flyers so your guests can find them. Doing these simple things will greatly improve your online presence and you’ll soon realise that you have more accommodation requests than before.

It is very important to have as many positive reviews as possible on platforms like Airbnb, TripAdvisor and AirRentalz. Additionally, you can also encourage your guests to leave reviews on Google Maps and on your Facebook page. This will be very beneficial, especially if you don’t mind taking bookings from many different sources.

Reaching an audience who does not know that you exist is impossible. The solution to that, however, is by using hashtags and location tags. For Instance, when you post a photo of your vacation property, you should always include your location in the description and add some landmark hashtags.

If you want your audiences to engage with you, you must not be afraid to reach out, share with them, and always respond to their feedback. Technology is a great asset and used right, it can improve your occupancy rates considerably.

See also Collaborative Marketing for Your Airbnb and STR.