Facebook Success: Episode 2

Hey there. Welcome back to the savvy host podcast. This is episode two for a vacation rental marketing. Foundations Facebook success. And I just wanted to start out with a couple of questions that I received. And nobody that had questions wanted me to share their names. So I'm not going to do that. But one question that I have is, which is best Instagram or Facebook, if you're just going to have one, which one should you concentrate on? And that is a very hard question because it really depends on you how much time you have and how much how much content that you have. If you're going to be using Instagram, then you need to either have content that you've created on your own. And by content, photos. Videos that's you have to use photos or videos there. Or you have to have what's called user generated content. So that would be, if you have people that have stayed with you and want to share their content, I have worked with several clients who have had influencers come out and stay with them and given them lots of great content to share. Both free and paid influencers. So if you have a property that is appealing to an influencer and you want to reach out to an influencer and have them stay. And create some content for you remember these are professionals i'm not talking about just somebody with A bunch of followers that wants to stay in your property so talking about Someone who has worked with other vacation rental hosts and who does this ma basically for a living They create amazing Content. And you can you should negotiate a deal where you get At least some of that content and that's a very important part of user generated Content strategy. Strategy Is getting content from influencers or others who stay at your property so um You might want to offer a discount to someone If they will take some great Photos and videos for you you can also share content from other local businesses. That's a way to share content. What you can't do if you're using Instagram is you can't really just use quote graphics or made up graphics. So if you don't have that, and if you don't have the bandwidth for that, Then I would suggest you start with Facebook now, even if you have an Instagram and you're, you decide you do want to concentrate on Instagram, you should still have a Facebook page. It doesn't have to be fully active, but you should go through and optimize it. Like I suggested in Monday's episode. But what you want to do is make sure that it's there in case somebody on Facebook finds it or sees it. And then you can still share some content from Instagram to Facebook. So you can connect the two, you can connect your Facebook to your Instagram so that when you share something on Instagram, It will go to Facebook. I don't advise doing that a lot. I still think you could probably come up with, another 10 minutes once or twice a week to post something on Facebook. However, I know that's hard. So the answer to the question is it depends. If you're more comfortable with Facebook, you feel like Facebook is the thing for you and your audience then definitely concentrate on Facebook. If you're going to do that, though, you have to remember that you have to concentrate in and work hard. Getting followers and getting people to come back to your Facebook page. It's not as easy as it used to be. And so you have to go out proactively and engage with people. You have to follow other businesses, engage with their customers, follow other vacation rentals, and engage with their customers. Follow your local newspaper or CVB or Resorts anywhere where you can go out and answer questions and help people, and then bring them back to you. You should also be using your personal profile as much as possible to share your knowledge in Facebook groups and to share your posts with your personal community. That will help you get some traction going. One thing you want to know is the Facebook has an algorithm. If you understand algorithms, that every business has a way of determining which posts and content, even Airbnb algorithm, which posts and content show up first. And one of the things about the Facebook algorithm is that they show content to people who have shown interest. In either that person or similar content. In order for Facebook to start showing your content to people. Then other people have to show interest in it. A real quick strategy to help you with that is if you're going to post something on Facebook. Post that at a prime part of the day when people are active on Facebook. So that's usually mornings. And afternoons. So usually between seven and 8 37 and 9:00 AM, you can schedule posts in advance for Facebook. And then also again, in the evenings between six and 10:00 PM. So you want to schedule them for that time of day when people are active. And you want to share it. In other places right away. So if your post goes out at seven o'clock in the morning, You want to go into your Facebook and you want to share that post to your stories. You want to share that post to your Facebook? Your personal Facebook friends, maybe you have a group or you're in a group where you can share that post. You need to be sharing it because when Facebook sees that little bit of interaction, Then they're more likely to send that interaction to the next people there. They're more likely to show it. Another quick thing I want to mention about Facebook posts in the Facebook algorithm is they do not like links that take people off of your site off of their site off of Facebook. So do not post links to your property or to your website. In the actual post content. So what you would do is you would say, Hey, I wrote this great blog post today. It's about this and this. If you want to see it hit me up in the DNS and I'll share the link or I'll, you can say I'll put the link in the comments, but there, from what I've read, Facebook is even getting hip to that. Okay, another question is, should I be running Facebook ads? I heard that the only way to get Facebook traction is by using ads. Using ads is a great way to get Facebook action for sure. Using ads to. Or boosted posts to bring people back to your page. Can be a really great strategy. If you were to do that, I would really make sure that you highlighted tried it with posts that are really meaningful. Not just as a salesy, top pitch post, you want it to hit? People where they, it makes them want to visit. It makes them excited about your property or your destination. So you can boost those posts for 10 to $15. Maybe do that once a month and see if it helps your Facebook page grow. You just have to remember when your Facebook page is growing as it grows. You want to be. Right there creating new content, because if you do an ad. And then you get 15 new followers and then you don't follow up with anything. Then once again, Facebook sees it as static you want to be consistent with your content? So don't do a Facebook ad for Facebook growth, unless you plan on using your Facebook page, same goes for Instagram. You can do a boosted post on Instagram to get some action, but again, don't do it unless you're planning to follow up with other content. And now you can use Facebook ads to send traffic to your website for bookings. And those can be very successful. It does take a lot of practice. If you have just one or two properties, you need to be prepared for, a budget of, five to $700. To start with because you have to play around. Something, I would definitely recommend you learn more about. In my upcoming group coaching, I have an entire lesson over Facebook and Instagram ads. Okay, next question. Should I start my own Facebook group? I say yes. If there's a caveat to that, I say, yes, definitely start your own Facebook group. If you have the bandwidth to keep it going, that means you're going to be posting in it a couple of times a week. Posting images, posting content, and you need to sell that group to others. If you're going to make a Facebook group, make it public, make sure that it's public, but where you can keep people from joining you can you, as the admin have to give permission to people to join. And the reason for that is because there's so many spammers out there in Facebook land. I have several groups. And one of my groups has, I think, 17 or 18,000 people in it. And it is a, B I T C H to keep the spammers out of that group. So you want to be sure if you're going to create a Facebook group again, that you have the bandwidth to manage it. But you can make it and have it there and add some photos at a nice cover photo. Put in some about information. And then put in resources. Then you would invite some of your local neighbors, like local business owners that you may know. To join the group. And then basically the group is open for any tourists. I have a group based off of. Mature Wimberley blog. I have a group called tour Wimberley, Texas on Facebook. 3,800 people in this group. So answer your question. Should you have a Facebook group? I think it's a great idea to start your own group. You can invite your previous guests. You can invite your friends and family. You can invite your local businesses. And you can invite other vacation rentals if you want to, but you don't have to, you can be the only vacation rental in the group. Okay. So I did want to mention that I had a lady reach out. Her name is Julie she's from dragon flat trails, Texas. Dot com and she has, I think, four cabins. And she reached out to me and let me know that she had listened to the episode on Monday. She followed some of my advice. She's still working on some of it, but that she's already started seeing traction and getting a following. So I am pretty excited about that. Cabin's at. Dragon fly trail is her Facebook page name. So why don't y'all go over there and give her page a like, and maybe she'll like you back. Okay that is all for today. I hope. If you have any other questions about Facebook marketing that you will get in touch with me. Feel free to send me an Instagram or Facebook DM, send me an email. However you want to get in touch with me except for LinkedIn, because I won't see it first three weeks. Okay. Y'all have a great day and I'll be back on Monday with another episode in the vacation rental marketing foundation series. Bye.