Your rental business on Social Media: 10 tips to get you started!

Boating is certainly the beautiful life. Who doesn’t love to spend an amazing day on the water? So creating a social media presence with an enthusiastic following is a great opportunity to expand your reach. With our experience in the business, we’ve compiled a list of 10 tips to get you started.

Strategy

1.
It takes some
time

Before starting your journey on social media, be aware of the time it takes to grow a presence online. Like any other form of marketing, growing an audience, creating the perfect content and increasing engagement in your company can be difficult. Don’t expect success in just a few months.

To gain the following you dream of, start by creating a social media strategy with your own content plan and goals. The most important aspect of your strategy should be the ‘’why’’ people should follow you. Luckily in our business, creating enticing-looking content shouldn’t be the biggest challenge.

2.
Choose your platform(s)

There is a huge world out there of social media platforms all awaiting your service, promotions and story. They all seem equally appealing and seem to offer a great way to spread your company name.

But platforms such as snapchat or Instagram require vastly different content to a platform like LinkedIn. Unfortunately, your time will be limited so trying to cover as many social accounts as possible is a sure way to get lost on the road to success.

To counter this, we suggest focusing on just one or two platforms, those best suited to your business. Write content that is specific to these platforms, find out what works best for you and your company, and you will be at the top in no time.

3.
Build a
connection

Take a minute to think about your own social media usage. Why are you following certain brands or people? Odds are, you feel engaged in their stories, lives, and activities. In order to be interesting, your business needs to show off its own personality. Connect with your clients and share their stories on your social media, showing the human side of your service.

Content

4.
Video Marketing

One of most exciting ways to expand your reach is by sharing video content. In our experience, people love to see a slice of boating life. Create content aboard or show the general vibe at the dock. Videos that get the most engagement are between 60 and 90 seconds, closely followed by 30-60 seconds, so keep yours short and to the point.

5.
Focus on quality
over quantity

Be sure your posts offer value. If all you do is pitch and sell, people will have little incentive to follow you. Instead, engage your audience with useful, high-quality content instead of merely spamming your service.

A general rule of thumb is to post at least once a week, preferably at a time when your audience is most likely to be up for it. For our boating rental business, this is during lunchtime on Fridays or at the weekend. Experiment with times/days to find out what works best for you. 

6.
Social
listening

Track your social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your service. Analyze them for insights and find the right opportunities to either interact with your audience or take action to improve your business. Social listening is a two-step process:

• Step 1: Monitor social media channels for mentions of your service, competitors’ services, products and keywords related to your business.

• Step 2: Analyze the information for ways to put what you learn into action. Respond to customers, or shift your entire branding position.

Social listening is the difference between simply monitoring your social statistics and acting on what you’ve learned.

7.
Encourage engagement

To expand your reach, you want your audience to engage with you. So invite them to. Ask questions and use your content to suggest they tag their friends.

A few useful ideas to boost engagement are:

• Giveaways

• Partnerships

• Sharing your milestones

• Responses to local and/or national events

• Sharing content from your customers

8.
Invest in paid promotion

Once your presence on social media is established, consider promoting your business through paid advertising. Define what your promotion is trying to achieve and hone your advertisement to this goal. It is likely to be either making a sale or expanding your follower base.

Once again, we recommend using video marketing to show potential customers just how cool it is to be out on the water.

9.
Use
Hashtags

Hashtags are fundamental to growth on all social media platforms. Don’t miss out! Hashtags help your service get found by an audience likely to engage with your content.

You need to be a bit more sophisticated than most, however. To get maximum benefit from using hashtags, take into account the following:

• Avoid using generic hashtags like #love or #happy. These tend to only draw bots to your posts instead of real people.

• Aim to use 2-5 of the best-suited hashtags (according to this study): so #don’t #hashtag #every #word.

• Switch around the hashtags you use with every post to find out which keywords offer you the biggest bump in engagement.
  
  

10.
User-generated
content

The short cut to getting your audience engaged and saving yourself a ton of time creating the perfect content. It’s exactly what it sounds like: content that your users create themselves.

Host a Q&A session, run a local contest for the best picture of one of your boats or invite clients to write the funniest review. A sure-fire way to have fun with your audience and boost engagement!