Nine: Strengthen your brand and online presence with social media

A lot of people claim that social media is the ultimate marketing machine that can make your business to go viral and become an overnight success. Don’t believe the hype.

Yes, it’s true. That sort of thing does happen to people in the music business, or the movie business, or the people in the funny blogosphere. But every industry is different. And for those of us in the vacation rental industry, that sort of thing just doesn’t happen.

But what social media CAN do for your vacation rental business is;

1) facilitate promotion and create more visibility, and
2) strengthen your brand. 

Both of which can help increase your bookings. 

And that all depends on the right strategy.

But if you don’t know what you’re doing, social media marketing can very quickly become a MASSIVE waste your time. There’s a fine line that just shouldn’t be crossed. So we put together a detailed strategy guide to give you the step-by-step plan that will help you get the most out of social media with little effort. 

Since you’re already here, here are the cliff notes:

1) Facilitate promotion by giving your site’s visitors the ability to easily share your business and properties with their friends. For example, take a look at our sidebar on the left. Or if you’re on a mobile device, take a look at the bottom of your screen. All you have to do is click on one of the icons and you’ll be sharing this article with your friends. - It’s that simple.

Not only do social media shares have decent SEO benefit (helps your site rank better in Google), they can generate sizeable visibly to all of the person’s friends or followers. 

You’re probably not going to go “viral” or anything. But when its optimized, it’s easy promotion that works for you, so you don’t have to.

2) Strengthen your brand by creating social media accounts that you’ll actively use for their individual intended purposes.

Every social media site has its own strengths & weaknesses. And neither of them should be used for the same reasons, or as often. 

Google +, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter. These are the big four in our industry. And maybe LinkedIn. But anything else is a most likely going to be a huge waste of your time.

With the right strategy, they will strengthen your brand and solidify your credibility for those that find your social media pages.

The Bottom Line
Together, both strategies build links that give your website more authority in Google, and help to control your brand image on the first page when someone does a direct search for your company name. Ultimately, driving more of that first page traffic right back to your site.