Please note: to use the Facebook integration with SuperControl you must have more that 2000 likes – this is a rule set by Facebook.
This is the first in a three-part series of articles looking at the Facebook tools available to you, and how you can use them to benefit your holiday rental business. In this first article, we’ll show you how to target your posts in Facebook.
Social media should play an integral part in every self-catering business’s marketing mix. It’s a great way to connect with guests (past and future); increase your brand awareness; and boost your bookings (find out how to add a Book Now button to your Facebook page with SuperControl booking and management system).
And, the benefits of being active on social media are only set to grow as the number of users grows – by next year, it’s estimated that there will be around 2.67 billion social media users around the world. With more than 1.71 billion users, Facebook is ahead of the pack in terms of scope and reach – and it comes with some great free marketing tools that you might not be aware of.
Targeting posts
Targeting posts is essentially the same as posting an advert on Facebook – except it’s free! This means you can save money on your advertising budget, but make sure your message still reaches the right people.
Originally, you could only target paid Facebook ads. Now, this handy tool has been rolled out to include organic posts as well.
The aim of targeting posts to demographics is to increase engagement and reach. If you target your post to people who are more likely to engage with your content, then Facebook will learn that people are interested in your self-catering property and show the post to more people.
Setting up post targeting
- 1. Go to the Settings page on your property’s Facebook account:
- 2. Then, click on Audience optimisation for posts:
- 3. Tick the checkbox next to Allow preferred audience selection:
- 4. Then, click Save Changes.
Now when you write a post for your page, you should see a small target icon:
Click this icon and a dialogue box will open giving you your targeting possibilities – you can target by age, location, gender, interests, occupation or any number of combinations.
For example, if you’re posting to advertise late availability for dog-friendly short breaks in the Lake District, you could target people interested in dogs, hiking and walking trips within 50 miles of the Lake District. You can also exclude people from seeing your posts and these options are more general than the targeting options. For example, if the majority of your guests are over 40, then you can exclude anyone under 40 from seeing your post, or vice-versa:
Have a play around in the preferred audience options and see which combinations describe your ideal guest best, then get posting!
Look out for part two of our series on Facebook tools to find out how to create custom audiences for your adverts; utilise your customer data effectively and make your Facebook ads work harder for your business!
Read the next article in the series
