It’s very easy to assume that everyone who uses social media sites is intimately familiar with how each one works.
However, that’s not necessarily the case.
Some people may have set up an account with their preferred site or sites, only to do absolutely zero with it. Others may not even have got that far.
But of course, when marketing your holiday rental online, you should really be using all possible channels available to you.
Which includes social media websites to help spread the word.
If the mere thought of this fills you with something close to fear, don’t worry. You can start in the smallest possible way and go from there.
Set your hurdles nice and low
If you’re anything like me, you probably sit and marvel at Olympic athletes when they tackle the hurdles. Each hurdle is 3.5 feet high – just over a metre each. How on earth do they get over them?
Suffice to say, they wouldn’t have started hurdling at that height. They would’ve got used to tackling lower hurdles when they first started out in the sport.
It’s the same with social media.
Why demand too much of yourself to begin with when it could put you off doing it altogether? So instead of trying to post two updates every day of the week, try just one or two across the entire week.
Set the hurdle lower and you’ll find it easier to clear.
Grow your confidence
Starting small means you can gradually grow in confidence as you get more used to each social media site.
After all, joining these sites might be easy, but you then have to set up your profile and create a page with content so that your visitors get value out of visiting them.
What you need to do will differ between sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, so it may take a while to figure out what you need to do in each case.
This is a good reason to give yourself ample time when setting up and creating each profile.
Remember the objective – to have another tool to help market your holiday let online, to increase those bookings.
So, take things at a speed you can keep up with to build your confidence, and you’ll stand a far better chance of maintaining it.
Get inspiration from others in the same business
It goes without saying that you can’t, and shouldn’t, directly copy anything your competitors in the holiday rental business are doing.
However, you can be inspired by them.
Find a few who are getting social media right and make notes, create ideas and grow your confidence that way.
Often, the reason why people are scared of things in life is because they have little to no knowledge of it – it’s true when people say ‘knowledge is power’, because you won’t feel as nervous when you know more about it.
This applies to social media too.
To successfully promote your holiday rental online, start by choosing just one social media site (in addition to your own dedicated website) – one you think you’ll be able to stick at – and go from there.
If you end up sticking with just that one and go no further, that’s absolutely fine – as long as you make that one work.
So go at your own pace, share valuable information with your followers – information that will make them want to holiday there – and watch how those small regular endeavours, can lead to big things for your holiday rental.
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