The Perfect Post: Social Media Engagement

Quite simply I can say that building social media business pages, for your short term holiday rental accommodation, is a complete waste of time, energy and money unless you build a page worth following.Here are some tips on how to build content (posts) that your prospective holiday rental accommodation guests or audience are likely to engage with;MAKE AN EFFORTUse images or a design that presents well. No fuzzy pixelated images or film. Presentation is EVERYTHING when you are selling an experience online. In fact presentation is EVERYTHING always.ORIGINALITYSharing other pages posts is like a quick fix or a half attempt to engage. When you share someone elses post where are they going if they click on it?  - they won't be visiting your site so they really is no point. Be a little selfish and make a rule that you will only provide links, from your holiday rental social media posts, to your own website. If you must talk about some other external thing then build it into a blog article and provide contact details (not links).INTERESTING"The feeling of a person whose attention, concern or curiosity is particularly engaged by something".  (Dictionary.com) Nuff said yeah?!REAL & UNIQUETell the truth about what you're selling. Focus on the experience so the really special spaces in your holiday rental property or the really awesome tourist attractions in your Australian tourism region. Those really unique attributes are what makes you stand out from your competitors.PROMPT ACTIONMake sure you subtly prompt some action by ending your written post with your contact details or a link to your post on your website. Your level of engagement will depend on how you word the written component of your post (copy, text). For example, ask a question to prompt a reaction or engagement (like, share, comment).TIMEA well thought out post is the best post. Trying to whip something up on the run is mostly going to be ineffective. I know because I've tried this approach.ANALYSE Keep an eye on the level of engagement for each post. You want to aim for high organic (unpaid) engagement. So the reach (how many feeds it appears on) and most importantly the number of likes, shares, comments and click throughs. Over time you will realise what works, what your audience are valuing.Of course there are other ways to prompt higher engagement through paid advertising (Social Media Marketing or SMM) or you might consider running a promotion.Something for nothing is quite effective, and enjoyable for most authors. Consider a blog post with tips on the best free public places to visit in your region or where to find the best coffee or the best playground for young children. A link to your own personal blog posts is Da Business! - it doesn't get much sweeter than that.If you have enjoyed this article maybe you'd like to subscribe (free) to the Welcome In e-news. I try to publish these every few months to a community of holiday rental managers in Australia. I encourage you to make contact with me if you have any queries about any aspect of your holiday rental management journey. If I cannot assist you I can certainly point you in the right direction. I am well connected with niche industry holiday rental stakeholders in Australia.