Building a successful company requires using social media to market your vacation rental. However, in today’s world of hyper-connectivity and constant content exposure, it’s critical to utilize social media to market your product smartly and logically. In other words, the secret lies in picking the appropriate channel and publishing good material that your intended audience actively seeks out.
Your vacation rental home may be promoted via Pinterest, which this tutorial will explicitly show you how to do. The days of haphazardly posting about your company on social media in the belief that it would somehow produce results are long gone. This guide will assist you in achieving your objectives, whether they include growing your brand recognition, increasing the number of reservations you get, or increasing website traffic.
Pinterest: What is it?
If all you know about social media is Facebook and Instagram, you may be wondering what Pinterest is.
Essentially, Pinterest is a free social network that doubles as a search engine by letting users publish and access all types of material for ideas on any subject. The network is built on sharing photos—known as pins—or saving other people’s photos to boards, collections of pins that often share a category or aesthetic motif.
Having said that, for many of us, the mention of Pinterest instantly conjures images of ornate theme boards for destination weddings and vegan cupcake recipes. Of course, if that’s what you’re searching for, you’ll find a tonne of both of those things in its archives.
Why is Pinterest Vital for the Vacation Rental Industry?
The vacation rental sector needs Pinterest as a marketing tool for several reasons. The first is that users of Pinterest are particularly attentive since they are often looking for a certain item. In other words, the likelihood that these engaged users will become visitors is higher. The second factor is the astounding volume of traffic that Pinterest generates despite its relative underappreciation in this field. Every pin has a link, so using it to drive more visitors to your website or blog articles is a terrific idea. The ability to connect your Pinterest account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts allows you to advertise your Pinterest with no effort, which brings us to our third (but not our last) reason.
How to Increase Your Vacation Rental Business Through Pinterest
Even though we all like a nice mood board, there is much more to this social networking site than simply looks. Many people make the error of underestimating just how potent of a marketing resource and tool Pinterest has genuinely become over the last several years, but the figures speak for themselves: Pinterest currently has a staggering 416 million users every month.
Unlike, for instance, Instagram, which is mostly used by millennials and Gen Xers, the majority of those users are women of various ages. As a result, this already creates a tremendous potential for vacation rental companies that specifically target middle-aged travelers and newlywed couples.
There is no denying that Pinterest has promise for the vacation rental sector. To provide innovative travel itineraries for every price point, interest, and desire, Airbnb and Pinterest announced their partnership in March 2019. As a result, it’s one of the numerous methods that experts in vacation rentals should employ to grow their industry.
Discover what draws people to Pinterest and how to use it to your advantage for your vacation rental company by using the following advice.
Create a professional business profile as the first Pinterest marketing tip
You may open a business account on Pinterest, which will give your profile far more legitimacy with visitors. Don’t worry if you already have a standard profile. Additionally, you might turn your current account into a business account. This gives you the chance to add important details about your vacation rental company that visitors may look up and locate.
Include Your Logo
Having your logo, which you can upload to your Pinterest company page, is the greatest option if you want to develop and improve your brand awareness online. Future visitors will be more likely to remember your brand if you use it consistently throughout your website, social media platforms, and even business cards.
Compose a perceptive summary
Depending on the information you include in the “About You” part of your profile, it may make it easier for tourists to locate you. You should thus be careful how you pick your words. Your Pinterest profile will be much more likely to appear in other users’ search results if you include pertinent keywords in your description, such as the name of your vacation rental company, the city or town where your property is located, and the kind of home you offer (such as a beach house, mountain lodge, or city apartment). The same holds for adding your vacation rental property’s location to your account.
Take Control of Your Website
You may declare your website on your Pinterest company profile as well (should you have one). By including a link to your vacation rental website in your account, everyone who visits your profile will be able to visit it. This will enhance the professional image of your company and aid in its promotion by directing visitors to its website.
Tip #2 for Promoting Engagement and Visibility on Pinterest
Increasing exposure on Pinterest is a piece of cake! Of course, if you want to develop a loyal and active following on your Pinterest page, you will still need to put in some time and work. Fortunately, there are just a few easy measures to do that have a powerful impact.
1. Determine What Interests People
With its simple search feature, Pinterest makes it easy to determine what kinds of material are now most popular among its users. Simply search your most relevant term, such as your area or the kind of rental you provide, to get started. Right under the search field, the results will include relevant tags, allowing you to quickly see which queries are most often associated with your vacation home. You may begin collecting these tags and utilize them to create Pinterest boards filled with motivation for followers. That’s how simple it is!
2. Make Use of Tools to Ahead-Schedule Your Content
As a proprietor of a vacation rental, it’s possible that you already have a full schedule and a long list of other things to complete. Therefore, scheduling time throughout the day to add fresh pins to your Pinterest page may not be one of your top priorities. Don’t give up on the concept altogether just yet, however! You may arrange and plan your pins using practical tools.
The Schedule, a Pin feature on Pinterest, is useful if you have a business presence there. This presents business owners with the ideal option since, with the right setup, you can make sure that your followers are exposed to a consistent stream of information over the week or month rather than barrage them with a large number of pins at once.
On Pinterest, you can plan one pin at a time, but you can also schedule up to 30 pins.
3. Give Your Boards and Pins Names and Links
Make sure to include the popular tags you’ve managed to amass for your vacation rental property in the names and descriptions of the boards you make and the pins you submit to them. Your pins’ quality will improve and they’ll be simpler to locate if they include an intriguing description with catchy keywords.
Users of Pinterest are always looking for new things to learn about, therefore clickable pins are perfect for them! People are more likely to do an action if it is available.
You should also add a call to action and a link back to your vacation rental website or booking page, as we previously said, to make the most of your postings. This easy method may be effective in driving more traffic to your website, and you could even see some direct reservations as a consequence!
4. Interact With Your Fans
You should attempt to join the Pinterest community and become an active member if you have the time. It’s fantastic to provide excellent boards for travelers to follow and eye-catching pins to save, but if you go above and above and follow or save someone else’s pin, they will be much more likely to do the same for you.
This can help you expand your audience much more rapidly, and it also gives you a fantastic chance to interact with both future and past vacation rental guests! You have the opportunity to significantly improve and personalize their whole visitor experience.
5. Make the Most of Ad Posts
The fact that Pinterest is a free tool is one of its key advantages, making it particularly beneficial for house owners trying to sell their property on a tight budget.
However, if you want to take it a step further, you may employ sponsored ad postings to further boost your exposure and interaction.
You may operate three main kinds of advertising campaigns: traffic, engagement, and awareness. You get charged for each based on the number of impressions (views), engagements (repins or clicks), or traffic (website clicks) that your sponsored post receives. If you’re just starting started in the field, it could be useful.
Don’t worry too much if you don’t currently have a logo. Instead, you may easily substitute a lovely photo of your house for Pinterest. As the image will represent your company, make sure it is appealing and of excellent quality.
Tip #3 for Pinterest marketing: Use the Law of Visual Attraction
The secret to effective Pinterest marketing is to provide shareable content. In this context, shareable merely implies aesthetically pleasing. By skimming through the top pins of the search results when searching for your keywords, you can quickly get a sense of what kind of articles and aesthetics are most appealing to people.
1. Highlight Your Strengths
Because cuisine, DIY projects, and pins on home design are the platform’s heart and soul, you’re already positioned for success as a vacation rental owner. Profit from this and highlight your holiday home’s imaginative interior design. We advise setting up a board for each property you own. Make sure to capture eye-catching, top-notch images to showcase your offerings to prospective customers.
2. Think Creatively
In addition to just showcasing your home, there are several additional well-liked themes you may employ to get people to your page. For instance, you may make Pinterest boards regarding the location of your vacation rental, whether it’s in a lush forest or a crowded metropolis. Posting about what life might be like in your vacation rental house can help you reach tourists (or those who are only making trip plans in the future). List local restaurants and outdoor activities that visitors may like. Create material on subjects like travel hacks, which are more general but still appeal to your target audience, to liven it up (eg: Must-Have Travel Items).
Instructional material is another concept that is quite well-liked on Pinterest. People like learning new things with humorous visuals, so if you can come up with some intriguing subjects relating to your vacation home or the aforementioned outdoor activities, think about jazzing up your material with some humorous “how-tos”. To assist with this, there are several really basic, free applications accessible, including Canva.
Users may ultimately get up on your booking page when they follow your boards and share your pins. In any case, it will always provide your vacation rental company and brand with greater extensive exposure and engagement.
3. Improve Your Pinning
The user experience should be taken into account while creating your pins. The majority of the pins have greater widths than they do lengths if you navigate through the Pinterest post feed. This is done for a very good purpose! On mobile devices, where vertical photos are considerably more enticing and aren’t cropped by the Pinterest app, around 80% of users visit Pinterest. It’s best to utilize a 2:3 ratio when choosing your size. Your pins will be far more likely to catch on and become famous if you customize them for this desire.
You may have also seen that many high-ranking pins have unique, creative designs, such as collages of related décor items. If you want to get your pins to the top of the search results, consider stepping up your creative efforts. If you’re utilizing tools like Canva, you don’t need to be a skilled graphic designer to do this. Let your imagination soar and get some inspiration from other travel-related brands’ pins!
Pinterest Marketing Strategies for Airbnb
Here are some additional examples that you can use as inspiration for your Airbnb now that your foundation is established and you have the information necessary to effectively manage a Pinterest account for your vacation rental business:
A Sample of Your Welcome Presents
Providing a welcome package as a surprise to your guests guarantees a great first impression and enables you to make a Pinterest board that appeals to future visitors. You may share images of previous welcome presents presented to visitors along with advice for others who are interested in making their welcome baskets.
An electronic guestbook
While there are many creative methods to make a guest book, an online Pinterest guest book stands out and offers a wealth of reliable information. Create a Pinterest group board and invite previous and current visitors as contributors so they may share their impressions of your vacation rental. Consider it guest reviews in a wholly original manner.
Establish a Community
Different from most other social media networks, Pinterest enables you to build a feeling of community. Together with other persons working in the vacation rental sector, create a travel group board and invite both your and their clients. Post travel-related inspiration on this board to inspire others to see the globe and to create lasting connections with other users.
Now to You
Even if you have little prior experience utilizing social media platforms for your vacation rental home, it is strongly advised to make use of these cost-free resources to establish a reputable and recognizable brand identity. We hope that this post was able to shed some light on just how effective a marketing tool Pinterest can be for vacation homeowners and all the many ways it may benefit your company. You can get fantastic outcomes with just a little imagination.
