It's not your imagination -- social media is getting bigger every year, and 2013 will see a big push by vacation rental owners and managers to use the Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media as a major marketing channel.
Whether
or not social media results in bookings is a question to be answered, but most owners and managers plan on using social media ahead of paid or
organic search. In fact, social media will rank behind only free and paid
listing sites as a marketing channel.
That's
one of the takeaways from Perfect Places Vacation Rentals 2013 MarketingSurvey, conducted January 24 - 28. Another
is that people are expecting 2013 to be better for bookings than 2012. What's
more, they report that 2012 was better than 2011, so overall things are warming
up in the vacation rental climate, even if it's slower than what we'd like.
In
response to the question, "What online marketing channels are your focus
for 2013?," 37.3% chose social media. Email marketing was close behind at
33.3%, while organic and paid search came in fifth and sixth at 19.6% and
14.7%, respectively.
Perhaps
not surprisingly, the more properties managed, the more reliance on social
media. Property owners and managers with at least 50 vacation rentals and
$10,000 in their marketing budgets plan on using social media the most in 2013.
See
the full results of the survey here, and watch for more surveys in the future.
If you'd like to be a part of them, be sure to get your name on our email list
below. And since we're discussing social media, be sure to Like us on Facebook, add us on Google +, follow us on Twitter, and connect with us on LinkedIn.
