GMAJay,

Great question. I'm no expert, but I know enough to recommend five things to help you get started:

1. Setup a Twitter account for your vacation rental
2. Spend some time researching Twitter for business. You could start by reading the Google/Bing results for "using twitter for business" and go from there
3. Read the following article: How to create both a channel and website social media strategy in travel
4. As a follow-up to point 3, understand that the primary purpose of social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tout and others....should be to drive traffic to your website. Then your website needs to be setup in such a way that people can find what they are looking for and can inquire and/or book easily. I'm not quite to this point yet, but that is what we are working on doing.
5. The 80/20 rule applies to effective social media strategy, just as it applies to anything else. What does this mean? Your "tweets", "posts" and "updates" should be 20% on sales/promotion/marketing and 80% on delivering valuable content, information or any other "non-sales" and "non-marketing" activites. For instance, you want to engage people and not scare them away with constant sales promotion. You can invite past guests to post photos or to list their top 5 favorite things to do in the area or places to eat, etc.

It helps to learn as much as you can and then to just do it, be creative, have fun with it and make adjustments as you go along.

Good luck,

Murdock Vacation Rentals

"A better way to stay"

Some examples of what we've done so far...it is a work in progress:

http://twitter.com/murdockvr

http://www.facebook.com/murdockvacationrentals

http://www.linkedin.com/company/murdock-vacation-rentals

http://www.yelp.com/biz/murdock-vacation-rentals-kapolei

Hello gmajay,

Have a look at Michael Stelzner ( SocialMediaExaminer), and Mari Smith, both on Facebook, as well as Curt's page.  They provide lots of informative posts for people such as myself who are just starting off in Social Media.  I'm sure there are others who offer plenty of additional tips too, but I have limited reading time!

Like murdock vacation rentals, my efforts so far are a work in progress, and there is lots to learn.

I would really like to change the linkedin link from a company number to our company name.  If anyone can tell me how to do it, I would appreciate an explanation of how to go about it.

Lizzie

http://www.cairnsholidayhomes.com.au

http://www.linkedin.com/company/2247086

http://www.facebook.com/cairnsholidayhomes

http://www.twitter.com/cnsholidayhomes

Here is more grist for this mill :-)   An article about how to get vacation rental guest leads from Twitter.

Curt Tudor

CEO & Founder

Rentallect Vacation Rental Marketing