The Social Media Strategy That Generated $50K in Direct Bookings

0:00So right now we have a couple products. We have a mentorship program and a mastermind program. And the mentorship program essentially you purchase the course and you have some group calls and but then the the mastermind is it's limited to eight people. You do a call every other week. There's one-on-one time with me. Basically making sure that you are successful in the program and and that yeah that you get to the end and making sure that everything that you're happy with everything and that also that you're finding success with the with the playbooks and that's our current program right now.

0:42We work with people. We're, you know, considering maybe in the future doing a done for you service, but that's still sort of in the making. And yeah, it's it's videos, so it's about 90 videos. Makes up the eight playbooks. And was yeah, a lot of recording. It's very indepth, very detailed. And I've had some people come to me and say, you know, this looks great and I want to learn all this, but I don't think I have the time. You know, some people they still have their W2s or they have several properties.

1:14So I've had two people now purchase the course and give it to their VAS. So they're hiring a VA and they're saying, "I want this VA, you know, to do all my social media for me." They give them the course. So this VA becomes basically an expert in social media for short-term rentals and they can then work that much better for them and promote their properties. So that's one option that some people have been choosing, you know, because it is I will say that it's going to be you need to put some time into it.

1:46You know, you need to watch the videos and put the time into creating content, especially if you are a newbie to content creation. But again, well, this is where influencer marketing comes in, right? If you live really far from your property, there are a few situations. You live really far from your property. You can't go there to to collect the content yourself. Or you don't know how to collect content. You're like, I don't I have a phone, but I cannot shoot videos. Or you don't like creating reels, you know, creating videos and editing and picking the music and the text and all of that.

2:23So, all of those scenarios are great as far as collaborating with influencers. And when I say influencers, I use the term somewhat broadly because, you know, some call themselves content creators, some call themselves influencers. They're sort of the same, but basically travel influencers or people that are great at creating beautiful content. Okay? Because you might have an influencer who has 500,000 followers and you're going to think that's the one I want to work with, right? They have a huge audience. But what if their content is just so so?

2:55Or what if their audience is not the same as yours? It's going to do almost nothing for you. You know, I just to tell a quick story about that. I had an influencer approach me sort of early on and it was it was like this. She had almost 700,000 followers. She said, "I'd love to come to your place and create some great content and take some photos and share it all with my audience." And I was so excited because this is my first time collaborating. Like, I can't believe I scored a one with 700,000 followers this first time. You know, I hadn't agreed to anything yet, but I went and looked at her content and it was a lot of, you know, shots in her bathing suit, you know, in different scenarios and, and I, you know, I go, "Oh, well, you know, this is a

3:43Family-friendly cabin. I I I should probably check the audience." So, I went and checked her demographic, her audience, you know, cuz I could see it on this on this platform. And the breakdown was I think like 85% men and then like 15% women or something like that. And I thought, well, the majority of my you guests are women and have families. And I thought, I'm not sure this is actually going to be a great match. And so I ended up not working with her. And having worked with several influencers now, I can tell you that the one I worked with that had the most followers, it was about 500,000.

4:19She was sort of my demographic, but still not right in the zone. Okay. And then I had so someone I worked with who had the least amount of followers. I think she had something like at the time 26,000 or something. And she had the best results of all the influencers and the one with the highest number but the lowest match I would say of the audience had the lowest results. So this gal with the lowest following, she created an amazing reel to a song called Stareyed, which I'm like, "Oh, that's perfect." You know, she she dialed it in.

4:58She she traveled there with her family. She had two kids, a husband, a couple girlfriends with her, made this amazing reel and it had so much engagement cuz that's what you want, right? Views are views and they're great, but it can be vanity metrics, right? You want the engagement. You want people commenting and saying, "Hey, where is this?" or or messaging you or so that's really what you want out of an influencer partnership because it can be tricky to measure the KPIs with that, right? It's not like you you collaborate with them and then you get a booking right away.

5:31It's more like over time people are they have discovered you now and now they're thinking about it and they'll consider you consider you for their next vacation. So all things to keep in mind when collaborating with influencers. I know I kind of went on a tangent there. As far as the playbooks, but I I did want to get that in because it's important. I think it's such a a crucial part and it can save you a lot of time, too, right? That's another thing if you just don't have time to create all of this content, which most of us don't. And they can be fabulous for creating the content for you.

6:07And then if you also request all of the B footage, all of their footage, not just the real, then you can, you know, negotiate to use that footage for creating future reels. So it's very powerful to collaborate with with influencers. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that's one of one of the eight playbooks and I want to just go a little bit deeper on that before we talk about the others because I think people hear that like work with influencers and 99% of people probably have never done that before. Or it sounds like kind of intimidating like somebody with 500,000 followers like that's a famous person or something like that.

6:44Like what what's the rule of thumb that that somebody should expect? Like how do you how do you hire influencer? You just like send them a message and say, "I want to want you to come to my property. How much do you pay them? And then what type of results should you expect?" Because it feels very nebulous. Yeah. No, that's a great question. And I actually I want to address this too. We have one member currently and she had said at one point she said, "You know how I feel like sometimes I look at all these influencers and I think why would they even want to stay at my place? You know, I see all these incredible places everywhere and why would they, you know, choose my place to stand?

7:21But, you know, it's it's not as nebulous as as people might think. And I think, you know, yes, I guess you could consider them celebrities, but they're really just people. And I like to start with, first of all, following them, you know, finding influencers, even if they're not in your area yet, and you'd be surprised how many influencers are willing to travel pretty far distances to to do these collaborations. So, you don't necessarily have to narrow yourself down to just people in your city or just people in your state. You know, they're they're willing to travel. Now, as far as the typical situation, it's usually two nights and like that's that like for it's the you're you're trading the two nights, right, in in exchange for them creating content for you.

8:05And some of them will charge an additional fee on top of that. Some of them don't. It just it depends on how popular they are, how often they do this specifically, collaborating with short-term rentals and properties because if they do that specifically for a living, they'll probably charge a little bit for for a reel. And this can range from like $300 to, you know, $800 usually. It can be within that range in terms of how much they charge for, you know, one reel, two to three. It it just depends.

8:37And we actually have an agreement. It's part of the playbook. So, a sample a template agreement very detailed for people to use and also with all of the all of the deliverables to ask for because people are like, "What do I ask for?" You know, can you please come? I had, you know, one gal who she had an influencer come stay at her place in Hawaii and she was super excited about it and it was her first influencer. We looked at the content at the end and it was just footage of Hawaii and nothing in her property.

9:09And so, you know, it's very important to establish these things. Like, she stayed in her place, but she just got a bunch of footage of Hawaii and she goes, "Oh, you can use this for your property, you know, and she's like, I'm not a, you know, Hawaiian travel agency. Like, this is for my my property." So, you do need to clarify those things up front just to make sure you know exactly what you're asking for. And some people say, "Oh, should I charge him a cleaning fee?" I never charge a cleaning fee. That's sort of standard practice. You know, it sort of depends on what your nightly rate is and then how many nights they're staying.

9:41But there are different ways that you can negotiate. If they're traveling really far to come to your place and they're a really really great influencer, then maybe you stretch it to three, four nights. You know, it it it you kind of it's sort of case by case basis. And and as far as after the collaboration, it's really great to leverage the collabs somehow. So either you do a giveaway, so they they post the reel and then you do a giveaway right after and then they can promote the giveaway in their stories.

10:14Hey, you know that place I just posted about, they're doing a giveaway right now. Or they post the reel and and they say, I just stayed at this incredible place. If you want to get 10% off, use the code, you know, Jess 10 at checkout. So they have their own special code and people get a discount if they use it. And that's sort of that creates that sense of urgency too, right? You know, more urgency to book. They could even say with if you book within, you know, this next week and use my code, you'll get 10% off. So, there are ways to also really leverage the the timing of the collaboration and what you're, you know, with with discounts or giveaways to make sure you're getting the biggest bang for your buck.

10:55Awesome. Awesome. No, that's super helpful. Because yeah, it's something that probably most people wouldn't think about doing, but it can make a huge impact. Yeah, so that's that's one of the eight playbooks. If you can just maybe go just mention what the other eight are and then I'd love to just kind of talk about some of the lowest hanging fruit maybe. Because I know obviously there's 90 videos, you can't go through all of the the content here. This has been super helpful so far, but I'm sure there's other things that maybe somebody listening right now could go implement today or implement this week that that might have a result.

11:32Yeah. Well, gosh, let me see if I have these memorized, you know, in the correct order, too. I'm like, I know they're So, okay. I mean really the first couple I think are it's it's the branding creating that brand identity and then it's content creation, social media marketing, there's influencer collabs, email marketing, creating the direct booking website, Facebook and meta ads and then giveaways and giveaways, right? Which we kind of kind of goes with the influencer marketing too. Yeah, I mean again we talked about sort of in the beginning with with branding and theming.

12:07I think well it I know it's incredibly important to create some kind of brand for your place and some kind of name. If you're just say you know Surfside Retreat that doesn't mean anything. You no one's going to that doesn't pull any emotions. It it's not clever. It's not memorable. You know, coming up with a name that matches your theme. And again, the theme doesn't have to be complicated or crazy. You know, it can be subtle, but branding is is very very important.

12:38It builds trust. It makes people remember you. It makes them want to associate with you. It also helps with influencers, too, right? You It helps with everyone wanting to be associated with you, staying at your place. And I do have to say the reason we start there with branding is because in many ways the branding and the theming is a prerequisite to for any of this working. So if if you came to the program and you you just bought a place and it has no branding and no theme and and it's sort of mediocre, right?

13:13If it's like one-bedroom apartment in, you know, Boston that's not decorated or that's just for travelers going to conferences or something by the airport, something like that, right? Then the social media stuff is probably not going to be effective for it. I'm just going to, you know, say that that it's not like it just works for any place. The place has to be great. You have to make sure that the product is there. You know, no amount of yelling on Instagram is going to make people stay there if it's not awesome. So, that does need to be figured out before you apply these strategies because you have to make sure the place looks great and it's well branded and you've picked a name.

13:52So, we do, you know, teach the branding, theming, picking a name, starting the Instagram account, creating the bio, all of that in the program because that's a very important core component to start with. One one one question on that, too. Could you turn that Boston one-bedroom into a fully branded Instagrammable place? You absolutely could. Yes. Okay. That's that's when it's time and fun to get creative with it, right? How could I make this place that maybe is sort of mundane or or boring?

14:27How could I make this like the go-to place to stay when you're going to conferences? What if it's conference themed? I don't know. Of Tony Robbins pictures everywhere or you know it's something like you could make it you could make it something right or even if you as the owner if you you know niched down and you made just really comedic content or something you know people would remember that has to be something though you know that makes it stand out otherwise it's just you could post a picture here's the living room here's the bedroom nobody's going to care unless it's you know has a nice brand themed and you're presenting it well And then getting into content creation, you know, we we walk through this completely in terms of what to film, how to film it, and emphasizing that you don't need to be a professional photographer or videographer

15:16To capture great content of your place. I have no experience in videography and I just captured everything on my phone, almost everything. My husband happens to have a drone, so he did the drone footage and and we just filmed ourselves, you know, especially in the beginning. We thought, well, I guess we're the demographic, right, of who stays here because you do need to figure that out, right? You have to figure out your your guest avatar, who is your, you know, ideal guest profile, your ideal customer profile, and to make sure that all of your branding and your messaging speaks to that.

15:52And we said, "Well, we'll just film ourselves here doing all the amazing things." And what's kind of fun about that is because is going up to the cabin for me, it was always, you know, a lot of work. And I'm going, "Oh my god, going to the cabin. Great." But it's it's it was always so much work being out. It was always something to repair and fix and renovate. And we went there to film. We're like, "Okay, let's get some shots in the hot tub." So, we went in the hot tub and I'm like, "Oh, this is kind of nice." Oh, this is a nice hot tub.

16:23What a great view. Usually not having time for that. I'm like, "Okay, let's go play some foosball. That would be great to have in the footage." So, they're playing foosball and it was a blast. I like never played foosball before and I I go, "Wow, this is really fun. Let's do yoga on the deck." You know, thinking about all the great things about your space and and and living it out to its capacity, right? It's what people would want to do. And I think that's so important in your content is to emphasize the experiences that people can have there because that's so much that's so much what travel is these days.

16:56It's not just a bed to sleep in or a kitchen to cook in. It's the experience that people have while they're there. Mhm. And I think showcasing what makes that different, whether it's like being in nature or having a, you know, built an arcade or, you know, a mini golf course on your property, whatever it is, you know, that people can experience while they're there, you definitely want that in your content. So, that's kind of a perk to doing the footage yourself, right? Is that you can experience all the fun things and you know it's nice to to make make sure that the footage is stable.

17:31There's certain just really best practices. F film it vertically if you're doing Instagram because it's a vertical platform and so we we cover that and then the social media marketing is really about you know creating that profile getting your handle and putting the bio together and then how often to post and what to post and what to say and what what should be in the captions and which hashtags to use. You know, there's so many things people they come and they go, I just I can't stand social media.

18:04Like, I'm on it all the time, doom scrolling, but I kind of can't stand it as far as like creating the content. So, we walk through, you know, step by step every, you know, every step of how to do that. And I I also tell our members just to warn them that when you are when you do start Instagram for your property, the Instagram algorithm will become familiar with you and we'll become familiar with what what type of content you're posting and what type of content to feed you. They're going to start feeding you content of other vacation rentals.

18:35So, and it's like I forget the name of the principle, but it's like if you are shopping for a white car, you suddenly see white cars everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And it's similar in that way. Suddenly, you're seeing all these incredible vacation rentals and you're going, "Oh my gosh, everyone has a vacation rental or oh my gosh, everyone's place is amazing or everyone's on social, everyone's collaborating with influencers, and you start to feel like behind. You get the imposttor syndrome." And it's so important to first of all give yourself a timer when you're on Instagram for your property so you don't get lost in the scroll. You know, do the 15 minutes or whatever with engaging and then get off and because we all know the effects it can have there, right?

19:12Yeah. You don't have to be a slave to social media just to make this work. But to remind yourself, my place is great and I'm doing it anyway. That's what I say all the time. I'm doing it anyway. So and so is already doing this. I'm doing it anyway. You know, you just you just keep going. You just keep doing that. A little little therapy there for everybody because I understand how how that goes.