How to increase your bookings with Instagram with Natacha Parmantier S7E9

Here's a question. When you have a guest come to stay at your property, do you know what recent studies have shown is one of the first things that they look for? Take a guess. Say out loud as you're listening to this with me, the WI fi code. That's crazy. But it's the time that we're in. Now tell me where do you keep your WI fi code? Let me know Ostleruk on Twitter, get in contact on Instagram, Facebook. You know how to find me. I bet it's in a little welcome guidebook that's nicely waiting on that kitchen table as the guest enters. That's where I have mine. For our family business, we took the time and effort to add in places to visit, eat and drink in that little welcome. But look, but you do know how many times over the years I've had to replace that thing because of things going out a day or people walking off of them. So at the start of this year I set out looking for something better. A good friend of mine, Danny from Optimize Airbnb, told me about a company called Hostfully. They design and lovely little digital guidebooks that can be accessed on any device, tablet and and it was super simple to create. I've even recorded a video of how I created a stunning digital guidebook with Hostfully. If you want to watch that video little over the shoulder video, head over to boostly.co.uk hostfully h o s T F U L L Y the cool thing is that Hostfully lets you create one digital guidebook for absolutely free. So you can go over there right now, hostfleet.com, create a free one and then if you need more for different rooms or properties, then you can upgrade for a low cost. I loved it so much that I got in contact with David, Brad and the gang at Host Fleet to see what they could do for Boostly listeners. And they've come back to me and I've got a little special treat lined up for you. So when you go to hostfleet.com, you create your free one and if you wanted to upgrade, all you need to do is put in the the code boostly2M. So b o o s t l y the number 2M and you will get two months free of their premium service. You can't say any further than that. If anything Desire deserved a little five star review for this podcast, then I think that should Paula Butler, Boostly Academy member, posted in our Facebook group that after creating her digital guidebook, her guests actually started to comment on how impressive they were. So that's not only improving the her guest experience, but she's now generating talk triggers and this is all done for free. What I like as well is that you can also print off these guidebooks so you can still have them on the kitchen table when a guest enters your property. So that link again, Hostly.com, boostly2M is your coupon code for two months off a premium service. Right, let's get on with the show.

Welcome to the Boostly podcast. We are in season seven, episode nine and in this episode we're talking on about Instagram. Now in this episode I've invited Natasha Parent here based in Valencia, has two properties that she rents out and has got plans to create a glamping site. Natasha has traveled the world. She is now also helping other short stay accommodation owners in her own Facebook group, which is lovely, titled Airbnb. More direct bookings, marketing tips for vacation rentals. We go on to talk about hashtags, we go on to talk about stories. She shares a lovely little tip that will help get more traffic to your website from Instagram. And then we start to talk about some direct booking tips. So without further ado, let me pass you on to Natasha. This is the Boosted podcast. Please make sure before you leave you rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello. Welcome Mark, and thank you for this opportunity. I'm very happy to be live with you today. Both of us in Spain. So it's perfect. So yeah, to reply to your first question, where I am based, I'm in Spain. In case you don't notice it from the accent, I'm French, but I left France 10 years ago. I have lived in different countries. I think it's six countries right now, Spain. And I have been hosting, hosting. When I was in Germany and it was just when I was traveling, I would rent out my room, I would go travel and basically it would pay for my trips. So it was not too bad. And then when I came to this flat in Valencia, Spain, I decided to rent a few rooms, my flat. So I'm doing home share in this flat and I have another flat in the countryside. Because when I got pregnant I thought, okay, I have to do the normal things I never had. Like since I decided to go travel around the world, I never had a normal life. What we would call when I got pregnant, I thought, okay, I need to go back to normal life. So. So I thought I have to buy a flat. So I bought a flat in the countryside because with my budget, I could not afford like a flat in the center of Valencia. I have one in the countryside. I went to live there for a while, but after getting my baby, she was I think two or three months old, we decided, no, we are going back to Valencia to have a normal life. We are only in our early 30s. Let's go back to life. So and that's how I decided to instead of long term rentals, which would have like bring very little money in a village in the countryside. Plus they are like, according to me and according to what I was talking with people, it's kind of dangerous in Spain because you don't know the risk. People can pay one month, they give you the deposit and then basically like they occupy your flat and they just don't pay you. So we decided to do the same as we were doing here in the flat there. And yeah, it's going good. There are festivals. It's not like super like rented all the time because it's like small village, but there is mountains, there are a lot of things to do around. So yeah, that's the two accommodations that I have. And my plan for the future is to have a glamping site. So I want to have a glamping site with Utahs or small, like tiny houses with vegan food, with a garden so that people can come back to nature. So that's the goal for the future, for accommodations.

That is super interesting. And the plans for the future sound amazing. Hopefully one day while I am in Spain we'll be able to come up and come and check it out. I think the kids will absolutely love that. So yeah, we're going to talk about Instagram. As we said in the topic and the title. Now, out of all the social media channels, where does Instagram rate on your favorite? I know, me personally speaking, I love Instagram. It's the only app that's on my phone. I do use Facebook a lot, but I tend to use Facebook more on my computer and I leave Instagram on the phone just because I really enjoy using it and interacting with it and just learning all the new tactics and tips on there. So where does it rate for yourself, Natasha?

So for me the best one is Facebook. Right now I'm using much more Facebook. Before I was using much more Instagram. Right now, in fact, in my group I advise on the different channels and also in my paid groups I advise on the different channel. Why? Because I think it's good to know all the strategies and I love marketing. So for me I studied all the strategies. And I'm learning like we are all. It's a growing process, so I'm always learning new things. But it's also good to know all the strategies and to know, okay, which one is working best for me, which one is giving me like the highest percentage of conversion? Because it's like no point to spend time on something which is not giving you the highest return on time spent. So what is the best for me? Two platforms for me for my business is Facebook and LinkedIn for teaching people how to have better online visibility for their vacation rental is those things. So that's why I'm spending more time on this. But I love Instagram for my personal life. I'm checking all the time, especially like for places to stay. And as I said, I love learning marketing strategies. So that's why I know a lot about Instagram, but that's not my top one for myself.

Well, we're gonna circle back to the Facebook group layout because I'm a part of it and I love it. And it's really interesting just to delve into a few things that you see said that you use Instagram for your personal and look for places to go and stay. And I have definitely noticed this more and more over the course of the last 18 to 24 months now, is that people use Instagram as a mechanism to decide on where they're going to go and stay. And we're definitely going to go into this topic a little bit more, but I wanted to start off and just ask you the first question, which is what do you say? See is the most common mistake that short stay accommodation owners are doing when it comes to getting started with Instagram. So just to caveat that. So Natasha now has built up two properties plans for a glamping site. And what she's also doing, which is what I love, is she's giving loads of help and advice and tips to other people from around the world on how they can get started as well. So you obviously you've got coached a lot of people. You work alongside a lot of people. So what is the most common mistake that you see them make when they get into Instagram?

Okay, so there are a few, but the first big mistakes, I think in the hashtags, people are putting in the hashtags basically Airbnb host, Airbnb super host, vacation rentals, whatever, what it's bringing them, it's bringing them followers which are basically their competitors or not like, we will say like collaborators, partners in other places, which is good. It's Always nice to know other hosts, but they are not your target markets. Your target market is like who is coming to your place in general. So you have to think when you're thinking about hashtags instead of putting what you are, because this is not what we want to focus on who you are. It's good, but you want to focus on who they are. So if you know that most of the people coming to your place, for instance, I have one of my students, she has a lot of people coming because they love like bike trials, then I advise her to use those kind of hashtags. Find the one which is working for her, her target audience, not herself, them. It's like, find the right hashtags for them.

Yeah. One of the stats that I came across when I was preparing for my talk last Friday on Instagram was that when you use a hashtag, it gets 16% more engagement for those that don't use any hashtags. Which is really interesting. And I think you really did explain that well, because what I see a lot of people doing, and I was culprit to this when I first started going on Instagram all these years ago, is that I would do real short keywords. Now, for example, you did a good one there. Just Airbnb. Airbnb means nothing. So you've got to delve into it a little bit more. Now, we're not saying just go on an absolute rant of a hashtag because then nobody's going to be doing it. But I think what you're saying is absolutely right. And it all sort of circles back to who are your target audience? Who's your ideal guest? Like, what is the majority of them? What would they be looking for? And I think like a real cool one specifically in the UK is the farm stay hashtag. Farm stay family friendly. If you, I mean, speaking from personal, we've got a family farm stay business. It attracts a lot of families. And so those are the ones that we would look to interact with. Have you got any tactics and tips? Because what I find is really funny is that loads of people say get on the hashtags, but then there's no follow up advice. So if you've got any really cool little short little tips that you could advise on, what's the best way of going around and finding a hashtag that they could look to take advantage of in terms of when they're posting and things to use.

So. Well, there are different things when you're on Instagram, you go to the search tab on the top and you write, you write what you're thinking of and then you will see. Instagram will tell you, oh, this hashtag there is like over 10 million posts. This hashtag is like 100 posts. So as you were saying, you don't want a hashtag which is too small and that you will be the only one there. It's not the point. But you also don't want one which is like overcrowded because you will be one in a sea of people and they will never see you. So this is the first thing, like find a hashtag which is like not too widely used and not, not too little news. The second thing, what I advise, look for your competitors. Look for the competitors or look for the hotels. While look for the hotels. Don't use the hashtags which are just for hotels. Look for the hotels. They have a big, usually they have a big team. They have more money than you for their marketing. So they have a team behind them who are doing the research on what hashtags they should use. So look at what they are using as hashtags and again, click on each hashtags and see, okay, is it a too big hashtag or not? Check. You have to do a little research on your competitors. And then also if you know some of your past guests, check their accounts, check what they are using as hashtags. Because if they are using this, they are your ideal customers, then probably the other ones are using it as well.

I think that's really good. And again, it comes down to time and we spoke about this on the Boostly podcast when we were chatting to Taeger about outsourcing. And if you haven't got the time to do this, this is a super simplistic task that you could actually outsource and have somebody help you do because totally get it. Busy accommodation owner, you know, busy with life and life and you know, and all the things that are going on. So if you haven't got the time to do this and you're thinking of a task that is going to be essential for your business in 2020, but you're not sure what to outsource. It comes to things like this, you could easily take this, find somebody on one of these outsourcing websites and get them to do that. Do that for you. Okay, so hashtags are key.

We get that.

We know that we don't want to go on the, on the, on the super engaged ones. You don't want to go on the super short ones. You want to try and find that nice little medium and Then you're going to start using them and engaging them in them. Let's just quickly then move to Instagram Stories now. Instagram Stories is cool. It's probably where I spend a lot of my day. I no longer scroll up and down. I scroll right and left because I just find that it's such a cool way to keep in touch and keep following and keep on tabs of what people are doing in the industry and just like, friends and whatnot. When it comes to Instagram Stories, I still think that it's so new for a lot of people. I love to play around with it. I've got loads of apps. I like to engage and just sort of test out and things. But when it comes to Instagram Stories, and if someone wants to get started, do you have any advice that you could pass on when it comes to using Stories? Is there any sort of like, little top little tips that you could pass on here?

So first, I would say that, yes, as you were saying, doing Instagram Stories is the way to go right now. This is what you want. Instagram Stories is you. You cannot not do it. And sorry, I just got distracted because someone is ringing at the door. But hopefully someone will answer this. So what I. Yeah, what I was saying is you want to do this, and I know a lot of people are afraid. So if you're watching this live or if you're listening to the podcast and you're afraid of doing it, we all have to go out of our comfort zone. This is something. If you want to grow, this is something important and why Stories is very important. As Mark was saying, people don't like a lot of people. We don't have time. We don't go to the feed anymore. We just go to the Stories. This is at the top. Airbnb, Instagram and Facebook are pushing this. The Stories is what they are pushing. So that's where you have to go. The biggest tips that. In fact, I have two tips on this. The first one, in our world, in our society right now, we are missing the human connection. We are missing there is a brand, there is like, we don't know people. So just be real, just be yourself, as Mark is doing. In fact, if you haven't checked his account, you can. He's doing daily vlogs. He's showing all his life on Instagram. So I know that some of you are, like, resilient to show all your life. You don't have to show your life. Just show a little bit something like behind the scenes. We all love Some behind the scenes. So you're like, if you're the one cleaning your place, maybe you're cleaning it with. In fact, I'm cleaning it sometime with my daughter. Just like, you know, a little video. Like, this is something which will give you a lot of engagement. People will, like, connect with you. This is very important. They want to relate, they want to connect. One other tip would be to put one hashtag. In each series. You have the possibility to put a hashtag. And because you have just one hashtag, this is really helping you to see which is a good hashtag and which one is not working. Because you can then go to the insights and they tell you how many people saw your story because of the hashtag. So this is like a good indication for afterwards for your field to use this hashtag, hashtags. And then the third one that I thought about and that I'm forgetting right now is ask for engagement. Ask for, like, people like to, like, give their opinion. This is something like they like to do. So you can ask a question or you can do a poll. Like, what do you prefer? What's your favorite season? Like summer, winter? Any questions that comes to your mind. Asking for engagements. Again, because they will reply, it will go to your personal messages and then you will reply to them. You will create this relationship. That's what I'm talking a lot in my group. Like, relationship, create relationship. In our society nowadays, this is the most important. If you want, like really your business to grow and in a right way to have your ideal guests coming back, to have like repeat guests and things like this, you have to think about the relationships. And those are the three tips. Like, go live, show behind the scenes, your personal life. Put one hashtag. And the third one, ask for engagement.

Yeah, I like that. And just to add in a number four is when you do Instagram stories, you've got the ability to add a location tag. So you can add in a location. So I'm in Javier. You can do Javier. And what the cool thing about that is that when someone's on Instagram, in the Explore feed of Instagram, they click on where they are. That is Javier or Valencia or wherever. You can click on the story. And what Instagram does is it pulls in some of the most popular ones from the past 24 hours and you're able to watch and engage. Now, if you're going to think about this for like a location basis, that right now, if I was to go onto Instagram and if I was to type in Vegas, I can watch all of the last feeds from Las Vegas in the last 24 hours, all the parties and things going on. But if I've got somebody that knows that they're going to be. They have a really like an area, think about going to an area and say that you've done a location tag and they come and look at your area for an accommodation business. If you're showcasing who you are and what you do. Now, a really popular hashtag is room with a view. So if you're watching this or you're listening to this and you've got an accommodation that you know has got stunning views from your property, add that little hashtag in with the location tag and then people will tune in. And don't forget, this is disappearing content, so it will leave after 24 hours. But if they tune in on that time, they could discover your property. And then the next obvious step is that they'll come onto your account, they'll come onto your feed, and you just go from there. Now, one thing I really wanted to talk to you about because I know you've mentioned this before and I love this service. It's linktree. Now, as we all know with Instagram, you cannot put web links anywhere in your post. It's just not clickable for obvious reasons. But there's a really cool tip and bit of software, a bit of website out there that is free. And I want Natasha to just explain a little bit more about what linktree is, please.

So in fact, that's a tip that I was sharing in my group and that Melissa commented on your post. So linktree is enabling you. It's a freemium service, so you can use the free or the premium version. I'm using the free one to have different links. Why is it good? Because maybe you have different accommodations. Maybe you have like your book Direct, which marks is good to talk about this, your book direct link. Then you can have like your book direct link. Your like different accommodations links. If you have a blog, you can link your blog. If you have like Facebook, you can link your Facebook. If you're doing Airbnb experiences, you can also share your Airbnb experiences. Basically you can have the different links there and it's amazing. One thing, this is for people who are not tech savvy. Linktree is perfect because it's very easy to use. Then if like Mark is recommending, usually if you have your own direct website, then I would advise you to do the same on your website. This is very easy to create. It's one page. You have it created and you have more traffic coming to your website. People spend time, they go from one place to the other. This is helping you rank on Google. So if you can do it or if you have a developer doing it for you, then having such a page is also amazing because you have different links. Your bio on Instagram, which usually leaves you with one option. So this is perfect.

And if you don't have a website and you're listening to this and you're trying to find somebody to go to, just go to booster.co.uk websites. There's amazing services there. I had to segue that in. Okay, so we've gone through hashtags, we've gone through stories, we've gone through link tree. So loads of little cool little tactics and tips to get started with there. Now let's go in to talk about direct bookings because we are going to finish talking about your group because I think it's an amazing group and we are going to really do a nice little picture of that later. But when it comes to direct bookings, what is the one bit of advice that you seem to be passing onto your members time and time again when it comes to people saying, right, I want to increase the amount of owner bookings, I don't want to spend commission, I want to get my own coming in, what is the one bit of advice that you find, Natasha, you are passing on time and time again to your members?

Well, of course as you just mentioned, having your own website if you want direct bookings, it's helping. Second one, be on Google. Be on Google. My business page. This is like a lot of people are not on it. So your competition is not on it. Mostly the hotels are there, but there is not this kind of like more personal accommodations. They are not on Google. But when people are looking for accommodations they are also looking at Google Maps. We are all using Google Maps and having this little pinpoint on the map is helping you with after you can have your direct website linked to it and then they go there. Another tip, in fact you are like the one saying it I think in your academy or in your group is to on Instagram because today is the Instagram thing but also Facebook on the highlights to like put that book like joins a VIP list or book direct to get like the best rate or things like this so that it's like it's written, you know, they know. Okay, you giving people need to know what to do. Like we are give them the call to action what they have to do. They have to book Direct. In fact, people, we are all looking for booking direct. We just don't know sometimes how it goes. So another tip, book direct to have your own name for your place so that when they look on one of the ota, they will find your name and then they will go on Google, look for it, they will find your direct website. They will go book on there. Those are the tips.

I love that one because you're right. I think so many people don't realize the benefits of booking directly with the owner. And this is probably down to the fact that Booking.com Expedia, Airbnb, you name it, spend millions and billions getting the right marketing message across where they make out that they should be booking via them because they are actually booking direct. And that's, you know, it's one of our jobs is to say, listen, no. Booking direct means coming straight to the property by phone call, email, website. And these are the benefits of doing so. And you've got to relate this hundred percent. Now, let's talk about the Facebook group. Let's talk about your Facebook group, first and foremost. What is it called? What was the idea of creating it and what are the plans for it?

So it's called Airbnb. More Direct Bookings, Marketing Tips for Vacation Rentals. I think I'm sharing it sometimes why I call it Airbnb when I say direct bookings, because basically it's very mainstream. Everyone knows Airbnb, especially on Facebook. Most of the groups are about Airbnb. So I put this keyword. I'm all about keywords. And why I created this because I noticed there are a lot of other groups of Airbnb hosts which are focusing more on the hospitality side, like how to host well, what to do, which kind of sheets to have, what to do for the cleaning, whatever, but. And some like will be on the wish listing thing, which I don't believe in. But this is only my point of view. But they don't think about other ways, marketing ways or for online visibility. They are like so much like so many more things than just being on a website like Airbnb and just waiting for, like passively waiting for one booking to come. You have other ways. And people were not like really aware of those ways. So that's why I have a business background. I studied marketing and I went out, I worked two years in corporate and then I just left this corporate world. So I built businesses, I did mistakes and from that I learned. So I know that online visibility is like the most important. Marketing is very important. And from All I learned, I could see that I could share a lot of things that for me, in a way, were just obvious and easy. But for a lot of people, it was not because they didn't have this background. A lot of people who are doing vacation rentals don't have a background in marketing. And that's why I decided, okay, let's. Let's create this group and let's share, like, the old ideas that I have and the things that I know with people who are interested in being active on getting bookings and having a business, not just a hobby. With Irving.

Yeah. And like I say, it's a great group. And what I love about your group is that you pass on so much good advice and you do this a lot, you know, in the group. And it's similar to why I started the hospitality community is just to pass on advice, because, again, you just noticed that there was something missing in other areas. For me, with the hospitality community, I just got frustrated at my local area, wasn't providing online support. And for yourself, like I say, you've come in, you've got the group, and there's so much cool advice, and I can just see it every month, it's just growing and people are really loving it. So I just wanted to take this moment to say well done, because it is so hard specifically now in 2019 to get a Facebook group going, just with all the algorithms and whatnot. So it's awesome to see. One final question then, and we're just going to totally flip this back around to hashtags. It's one that I forgot to ask at the time, but it's a question that came in when I put a little post out earlier in the day saying, have we got any questions for Instagram? And it was, when it comes to it, where should you put these hashtags? Should it be in the post? Should it be in the comments? Where are we putting them? And how many should we be putting? What's your advice on this?

So this is a really good question. And in fact, if you had asked me one month ago, my answer would have been different. But I think one or two weeks ago, Instagram did a live or they shared some tips and what I was sharing before. So for people who listened to my advice before, Instagram now is changing and is saying, like, different things. So before I was saying, like, have like, at least around 30 hashtags and putting the first comment. Now what Instagram is saying is that having 10 to 15 hashtags is good and they recommend to Put it directly in the caption. So that's what Instagram is saying. So I guess they know what they are telling.

What we do know definitely is that Instagram change their mind all the time. This is key is that when it comes to looking at tactics and tips, just know that the algorithm and all these things change and everybody, I mean this is being recorded in November 2019. So by the time this goes live in December, I guarantee there'll be a big change that's happened. It happens all the time. But I think one thing that you said, and I 100% think that it is true to form for all platforms, for all marketing is what Relationship marketing. If you can build that and if you can create that and if you can build super fans, people that will love like share, recommend, then it doesn't matter what you're doing, doesn't matter whether it's a hotel, it's an Airbnb, it's rental properties, it's. It's whatever type of business that you can think of. If you can do that, then you will survive the test of time. Doesn't matter what the algorithms are. Natasha, thank you so much. Now where can people go and find you? Where is the best place? Please leave us with the best places that people can find you.

Well, the best place is, as I said, I'm spending time on Facebook. So in my Facebook group. If you have any question about vacation rental, I would advise you to go to this Facebook group, Airbnb. More direct bookings. What I said like marketing tips for vacation rentals.

For vacation rentals.

That's it.

I'm sure that Mark will put put the link to it. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a direct message. I'm like very open to this. I don't feel like you're invading my privacy and there is no privacy anymore online anyway. So just send your private message and I will be happy to reply to your question or comments on this live or on the podcast.

Amazing. Yeah, definitely. We'll get all the show notes in the links in the show notes. Sorry. And we will be definitely coming to say hi. Okay. This is season seven, episode nine of the Boostly podcast. If this is the first time that you have listened and tuned in, then you've got a whole load of back episodes to go and catch up in. This season alone, we've talked about outsourcing, we've talked about gdpr, we focused on self check ins, we've talked about digital guidebooks and so much more. All you need to do to go and check them out, go to booster.co.uk podcast please make sure you go and rate, review and subscribe to this podcast. It gets further up the charts. I want to say thank you to Hostfully who are our sponsors of the Boosted podcast. They create stunning digital guidebooks that you will wow your guests with. Go to the YouTube channel, go to the itunes, go to the Spotify, go wherever you get your audio or your video. And please come and say hi. If you want to find me on Instagram, it's Ostly uk. Like Natasha said, I do a daily vlog. I love to play around with loads of little apps, tricks and tactics and whatnot on Instagram. So you'll mostly see me there. And if you wanted to come and find out more about boostly, as always, boostly co.uk but thank you so much for tuning in and I will be back again very, very.