Oh what a great response! Thanks folks 🙂 I'm going to do that big long reply thing where I respond to a few of the questions that are buried in here... so bear with me.
@Ann72 that sounds awesome. I had never considered employing a professional Instragrammer. What a fantastic idea to add to the list (hence the bold)!! High quality images are never a bad investment, as near as I can tell. They work on Google SEO and Airbnb SEO... plus they recommend holding a pile of images back and not releasing them all at once. Some people drip feed them through your IG or FB pages to keep up follower interest and 'likes' and so on... thanks so much for your contribution to this. I'm guessing not many people will have thought of this approach.
@Huma0yeah the Twitter thing was weird. I have basically no followers so didn't get any benefit from tweeting to my followers. What happens is different - Airbnb SEO itself detects that you have tweeted and moves you higher in search results within the Airbnb platform. I don't know why it does this, but it does. I mean, I can tweet and have basically nobody on the internet notice it.... but Airbnb rewards me for doing it. To do what I did, head to your listing page and preview your listing. On your page you will see the "Share" button. Click that link and select "Twitter". It generates a pre-written Tweet message that includes both your listing "preview" plus an [at]airbnb tag, in a way that works on twitter. By using this layout, including the listing link and the [at]airbnb, somehow alerts the Airbnb SEO that you have tweeted your listing... if anyone shares that tweet, you'll get a second boost in Airbnb search results.
I found it also really helps if you start posting into already watched and popular hashtag groups. People will see your post, like it, share it and sometimes follow you. So it's not all about your direct followers on Twitter, it's an indirect engagement system. Personally I found this easier to use than Facebook.
As for restaurants, ya know I'm actually not in a touristy area either. We are in a small village on the outskirts of the city, tucked away in the forest. We have maybe 2 good restaurants and 1 decent cafe. Since we like eating there (it's amazing) we decided we wanted to support our local businesses and encourage guests to eat there instead of driving into the city. Local businesses are also the ones that are the most willing to promote you. From our favourite spot we've had one booking already. A family who live nearby wanted somewhere for Grandma and Grandad to stay, when they visited from Australia. They saw our place was just around the corner from their house and immediately enquired. Long story short... they stayed for a week and are likely to be repeat guests next year. Again, I think this was the best thing we've done... free meals and bookings... just brilliant.
@Inna22 Heya - in terms of Twitter, I've just posted some brief instructions above to Huma. If you follow that guide you'll have no trouble. Wife and I made a twitter account called [at]ThePauaCottage to match our business name. So far so good... though I wouldn't say we're pro's at it!
@Rebecca181 That's very good advice. I think if I were constantly at the top of Airbnb search results, I wouldn't bother with much direct marketing either. The site has enough traffic to maintain a constant stream of bookings... if you're at the top 🙂 That is so lovely about your local business owner support. We are getting a little of the same reaction here too. Other businesses are welcoming us right in to the community, as they know accomodation brings money into our local village economy where it is needed.
Hey thanks for the tip about Google advertising. We actually have Google advertising as an "in progress" active experiment at the moment, however we have been delayed as Google would like to verify our address by posting us a "card" in the mail, which will take about a month to arrive in New Zealand (rest of the world takes 15 days or so). Until we verify, they will neither create a business page for us nor advertise our business. So it's a bit of a hold up. I'm quite keen to use this one and compare to how the others perform.
@Michelle-And-Michael0 Hey thanks for contributing. I definitely think having some printed media is a good idea. We spoke to Airbnb about making a printed card and they were fine with it, so long as all the traffic was being directed to their platform (which it is). We bought a custom domain name becuase it's easier for our guests to remember it than the long airbnb website address, but that domain name is automatically redirected immediately to the Airbnb website. If you follow it now, you'll see what I mean. It doesn't point to an independent website. I don't mind the questions at all 🙂
Hahah yes! I would make sure your local restaurants are at least... aware... of what business is coming their way from you. One restaurant has said if they arrive and say they are from our cottage, they will get a complimentary glass of fruit punch on arrival (alcoholic or non alcoholic). They say this is working well for them, plus then they know how much business we are sending them. Our current guests have apparently had breakfast 4 times and dinner 3 times at one restaurant down the road from us.
@Sudsrung0 I agree, a Google business page is something to consider, but I recommend being careful with this for security reasons. If you make a Google business page it will ask you to specify your exact address and it will show it on a Google map thereafter. This will allow people to learn of your address prior to receiving a booking confirmation. Just something to be aware of.
I think that brings me to the end of the list! 🙂
~ Ben