Content Tips for STR Hosts

Thank you. If you're tuning into the podcast or if you're watching on YouTube, you are listening to the Boosely Podcast. This is a podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training, but most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookends. My name is Liam Caravan, I'm Mark Simpson's co-host, and today we've got the Spotlight series which shines the spotlight on people, businesses, and services that you as a short terminal host need to know about. And today we've got Kelsey Shumway from repurposedhouse.com. We're going to be talking all about how you as a short-term rental host may be sabotaging your social media and the things that you should be considering when putting out content. So welcome along Kelsey. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. So get started. Can you give an introduction into what repurposedhouse is and anything you want to share about the company? Sure. Repurposedhouse has been around for about five and a half years, our intention with kind of creating it was, you know, we would end up, our CEO was a videographer and she would end up creating a lot of this content for people who wanted some additional video content. And after those assets were created, they'd go on YouTube or something along those lines and then the question was always, all right, great. Now what, you know, what do I do with this now? So the idea of repurposing kind of came to be because of that need, you know, how else do we utilize this content? We not only spent time but money and resources investing in. So from there, not only do we repurpose video content, we repurpose any text, any audio. So we work really a lot with with podcasters, a lot with people creating video content to hopefully bring more people down and funnel that way. That's kind of how we came to be, but my specific role at repurposedhouse as the director of strategy is to meet with content creators, meet with people who are physically making the podcast, making those blog posts, making that video content and talk about ways that we can better show up on social media. Talk about where we're missing the mark. It sounds like that's what we're about to dive into. So excited to share some of that with you guys today. That's amazing. I'm really excited. And we were talking obviously just before we hit record about so many of our hosts who are listening into this. We're encouraging all the time to make videos of their short term rentals, walkthroughs, talking about their local market, why people should come and stay, but also many people listening are going to be short term rental managers. So they want to encourage more people to take their service. And I know myself, I'm guilty of this where we need to create more content talking about why somebody should take our services, what makes us the key person of influencing our local area. And all of that can be done through video. It's just a lot of people don't know where to start or how to start and that side of things. So I'd love to dive on in. So yeah, did you want to share what is the first way that people are sabotaging their social media? Yeah, I would love to dive in. Liam, you made a really good point to you about, you know, sometimes people just don't know where to start. And if I can make one suggestion to even jump us off, make video content just see in front of your phone, get some authentic video app, because that's what people respond to. Video gets 1200% better engagement rates and standalone images do. So then in that instance, you know, where do I start? What are people asking you? You know, when people ask you about your business, what are the questions you answer most often? Those are great pieces of content to showcase on social. And then to lead in to the first thing that we're missing is, is, you know, when you are creating this content, a lot of the times when you find yourself just talking about something that you really understand, you're going to end up creating long-form content, long-form content. And my definition is really anything that's above five minutes, because anything lower than that is going to be too hard to cut up. So any any piece of content you're creating, you miss the mark, miss missed opportunity one is not repurposing that content. Not going through it, not picking the best minute to two minutes, even shorter, even, not looking for those little segments or those little highlight reels to use on social platforms, like Instagram, like TikTok, like YouTube Shorts, that really prioritize short-form content and have monstrous amounts of people on those platforms, right? So if I want to get the most digestible, the most short form, the best performing pieces of content, I'm going through what I have long form, I'm clipping those pieces out, and then I'm using those to help me, you know, get off that handser wheel of content creation, you know, a lot of the times people think content creation means create a post, post it, create a video, post it, create a video, but that's not always the best way to utilize their time, you know, and a lot of times people don't have time for that. So going through what you currently have, utilizing a tablet you're wanting to achieve now, is a great, great, great, or a great way to continue to show up on social. That's cool. One of the things which I've picked up from that is is posting regularly, and I used to do this both in my company and personally, I used to post every day, at least something, but the engagement wasn't huge, and that's because a lot of what I was posting was very poor content to be honest. So what would your advice be around somebody who, would you advise somebody's just post, you know, regularly daily, or is it a case of this long form, and then to be split up and to utilize just better quality, but maybe not less, not as often? Yeah. What the algorithms tell us is that consistency is key, and even furthermore, video content consistency is key. So what I would suggest is that as often as we can show up on social with video content that is highly produced, I would definitely suggest that. Now when I say highly produced, I mean, you know, we're doing our best to eliminate the sounds that potentially are in background because people audiences are forgiving of bad video, but they're not forgiving of bad audio. So that would be one of the first things I'd suggest, but truly, the clients that I see get get incredible results. A lot of times people think this means I need to go hire a videographer, or I need to buy really incredible camera equipment. No, I mean, what works best is the authentic feel of what it looks like to grab your phone out of your pocket and just record that way. What would you say to somebody, and we've met many hosts, and there'll be people listening to this who are kind of going, yeah, that's me. I don't want to be in front of the camera. I don't want it to show myself. What advice would you have around that side of things? And for those people, is there any, is there any kind of tricks that they could use? There is audio podcasts are a great thing to do. Honestly, if my intention is to create video content for social, I can take your text content. So any blogs, any emails, any PR releases, anything along those lines that you have written in are using to help kind of achieve a goal. I can take that text, turn it into text, motion videos. So a lot of the times people think I have to be in front of a camera, and that's simply not true. I can repurpose any of that text content that might exist. And I also can work with any audio content as well. So no, I don't think necessarily if, when you think of video content on social, you have to think, I have to record it myself. I think you just have to think about what pieces of content are my, is my audience going to find valuable? How do I make that like an attractive image or attractive asset for social media? And just go from there. One of the questions I know that comes to mind, and I know, well, I get asked quite often from hosts is, do I need to be on all the platforms? Do I, do I have to be on the places which I don't necessarily want to spend my time? Or should I focus on, on one in particular? I think to start, it makes sense to be omnipresent, right? You just never know what the right hashtags. And that's another thing I don't want to dive into. What hashtags are you using? What keywords are you using? What SEO components are you using? Are you, are you just missing the mark on potentially writing copy? Because a lot of the times you hear from people who say, I've attempted to be on every platform and just this platform or this one just does not work for me. I'd want to do a dive and see why that was the case. Because, you know, I'm sure with, you know, regards to your business that your audience does exist on every single platform. It might be smaller than other, other platforms, but nonetheless, it does. So my, my mentality is that well testing gaming marketing definitely makes sense to be omnipresent. And by that, I mean, create this piece of content, maybe shift the size around for different platforms, but use that piece of content across every platform. Because this is the way that we find out where the audience doesn't, does not lie. After a while, if I wanted to focus my intention on a specific platform that I knew was performing, that I knew I did all that I possibly could in terms of hashtags and keywords and copywriting to get in front of, then yeah, by all means, I would, I would definitely scale down from there. However, I would come back and test those different platforms probably every four to five months just in case that group or that audience section has gotten larger. And, and we have a better way of attempting to find them. I would, I would definitely circle back. If you're struggling on how to get direct bookings and overwhelmed on where to start, then I recommend you go and book in a call with Boosley and our team right now. We can walk you through exactly what we're offering, how we can help you and give you a portfolio of websites that we have worked with that are matching not only on niche, but could be in your location as well. Boosley has helped over 2000 hospitality businesses all over the world, increased their direct bookings. And if you are interested, then all you need to do is go to Boosley, B-O-O-S-T-L-I dot co dot UK, Foy slash call and booking an appointment with one of our sales team. I'm really enjoying this because obviously, first of all, we're solving the problem where many hosts don't want to get in front of the camera. Well, that's not a problem. They're worried about different platforms. Again, not a problem. Just produce the content and test out on on the different the different platforms. And also knowing what content to post, you know, what, what questions do you get asked from either your guests or other, you know, property people, you know, or potential people that you can manage for or co-host for what kind of questions you get. And that's your content is what you're saying is use that as the basis to create bits of content. So let's say I've done that when I create that bit of content, is it literally a case of just should I have notes and just answer it or should I just literally record and just just to my best of ability answer question on the spot. Is there any kind of tricks around that side of things? I mean, I would definitely suggest you do what makes you more comfortable. If having someone of a scripted answer makes it easier for you to get in camera and front of camera, absolutely do it. But, you know, ultimately, what I typically suggest people start with is if you had to write down the most, the 10 most frequently asked questions and then make, make somewhat of like listicles out of it, like the top five ways I am doing this or the top five ways you can be taking advantage of X, these are the things people want to know. Also, listicles perform really well too. So to not to not take your content and come up with bite size pieces of maybe a quick list people could take advantage of is a missed opportunity as well. But yeah, I would start there. I would create that list. I would if it helped it, if it helps you create that script by all means, please do. People also forget though that a video makes you uncomfortable. Make that a blog post. Make that a post on social either way. Let's take that written copy, turn it into video format so that, again, you can take advantage of the better performance video gets even though it's still that text content. I love that one of the things that we get people to do because at Bruce Lee, we create that erect book and websites for many of our short-term rental, you know, sort of listeners. And one of the things we always say to do is the frequently asked questions. You can actually go and Google the frequently asked questions and at the bottom it'll come up with the other kind of questions around that. So you don't even have to, as long as you can think of one, it'll suggest the other frequently asked questions at the bottom. Oh, true. Yeah. You can just use that. And the great thing is that that is what content we need on the website. And if hosts do exactly what you say in there, which is, you know, create this, whether it's a blog form, whether it's a video, whether it's audio, the more you get on your website, the more likely you're going to get people come and visit it, which is so important. What are your thoughts around? There's a lot of AI tools at the moment, creating a lot of content. What is your advice and thoughts around that those tools should hosts be using those? I think AI can definitely shorten the amount of time you spend searching for copy or content, creating content. AI definitely can, I don't know, everybody is using chat GPT. It sounds like these days. Yes, I definitely think that that can shorten the amount of time that you spend creating those initial assets, where I tend to stray away from AI is when it comes to monitoring social trends. So I think in terms of content creation, AI definitely is a benefit. When it comes to posting and when it comes to monitoring trends and knowing how to apply the lens of what creatively works on social, but also analytically what's going to perform, those things don't necessarily always get done correctly by AI. So that is where I would introduce some kind of person who understands digital marketing or social media on a more detailed, more adaptive level. I would want to know that this person was monitoring trends, that they understood how to kind of get the best action or traction on social media, and that I know AI will eventually be able to do, but there is that learning curve right now, right? And they're always going to be kind of a step behind. So that's where I would advise against using AI, but content creation wise makes a ton of sense. That makes sense. And for all of our listeners, I know one question which is in their minds, which is, should they be using these platforms, which allow them to post on multiple places at one time? I mean, I've used one myself content studio. There's many of them out there as public. There's so many, I think there's one called listify or something like that. There's loads of that. Should they be using those or should they be natively posting towards each social platform? I think either is okay. I think you know what, at the end of the day, if your goal is to build your business, is finding out that the nitty-gritty details of scheduling tools, the most important thing you can be doing with your day. And it's not necessarily right? That's something where I would suggest you potentially utilize a scheduling tool. There are a couple and I have heard from clients in the past that scheduling tools have docked performance on social. From what I can tell you based on the tools we've used for years that has not been the case. Nonetheless, I think if I was going to use a scheduling tool, I would want to monitor that. I would also want to see, are the times I'm posting the best possible times it can be posting? Is it copy? Is it hashtags? Because the likelihood is, if we're blaming a scheduling tool for bad performance, I would take a look at one of those three things before I would look at the scheduling tool to really evaluate where the performance misses are, if that makes sense. That makes sense. You mentioned hashtags there. As somebody who's looking to post more on social media, I, when I post on social media, are using hashtags which we use time and time again for my hospitality business. I've picked out things like short-term rental, things like the things I think apply to my area. Is there any way that I'm either sabotaging myself or any way that I could be doing better than just picking ones which come to mind? I think, like I said, social media really benefits you when you're building traction and you're posting consistently. Seeing that short-term rentals is a hashtag you utilize multiple times, you're more prompted if we are posting video content consistently to show up as one of those first results, if that consistency exists. When people search for that hashtag, that's the goal and we, we achieve that goal by posting consistently. However, I think we miss the mark when we hone in too hard on those kind of specific hashtags. What you see performing really well on TikTok or YouTube shorts right now is when people are, when there's a trending hashtag, I don't care if my video isn't relevant to that, I need to take it under the performance or if there's a sound that's really giving incredibly well on social as well. Even if it sounds funky with my video, I'm adding that to the background, I'm turning the volume all the way down to get in front of this audience because I know these things are performing. So it is a mixture of kind of both. I do want to have very specific content, content-specific hashtags, business-specific hashtags, but I also want to see what's trending. What are people who are getting great performance taking advantage of? And I'd want to jump in on that too. Nice, nice. What are the other ways that hosts or people who are posting on social media are sabotaging themselves? Yeah, great question. I think the second thing that people do that creates missed opportunity is that they leave types of content on the table. Think of the testimonials you've ever received. Think of the Facebook post four or five years ago that is still evergreen but got great engagement because people really responded well to it. Think of times that your business might have been featured in an article. Those are the things that really make sense to share. Anytime your name is mentioned, anytime you are investing time creating something, find ways to shorten that content, condense it down and use it as a repurposed asset. Again, if what the algorithm needs is consistency, I have all of that stuff to be able to provide the algorithm to be able to achieve the goal I have now, even without having to reinvest time to create new things. That makes sense. Should hosts be posting reviews and testimonials that they get from their guests regularly? Absolutely, especially the positive ones. I would say yes because think about what you use social media for. When you're attempting to build familiarity or trust with a brand, you tend to go to their socials for that social proof factor. To see other people responding well to your product, your service, your rental is a really great way to show people that what you offer is quality, that there's people who have agreed with this. There's that social proof found its way in. Yeah, I absolutely think using those testimonials and reviews are a great way to create content. Quick break from the podcast to let you know that the two Bootsley books that we brought out, the book, Derek Playbook and the book, Derek Blueprint are two of the top rated and the best selling in the hospitality category on Amazon. For just £2, you can grab both of those books right now. The foundations and the structures that you need to put in place is in the Blueprint and then for a 101 mark in tactics that is in the playbook. So go and grab a copy on Amazon. Now just type in book, Derek Playbook or the book, Derek Blueprint and we'll see you on your side. Is there a formula to what people should be posting? So for instance, if they were posting like 100% testimonials, it would get pretty dull, I guess, for the people who are following it. But is there a formula to how much we should self-promote, talk about more personal stuff, talk about sales, potential opportunities for people to come and buy, last minute deals from us as hosts? Yeah, I would hate to say that there is a formula because there's different needs for different seasons, right? God, if you were ever having an event or a conference or something like this line, I'm sure the push would be for that and to inundate your socials with that content would make sense. But I think typically, you know, a lot of the times people forget that this is a social media platform. People come to this not only to be entertained, but people are shopping on social more than they ever have. They're using social as a search engine. So think about social like that. You know, if I know people are coming to me, potentially purchasing, potentially asking questions, I not only want to sell them, I want to educate them too. I know people want to be entertained on social. How do I create entertaining, engaging performance worthy content? You know, I would want to see those three things happening on a very regular basis. And that can look like a lot of things to you. Maybe sales is 30%, maybe give 30% to the other two as well, or however you want to break that down. But I think covering those three bases consistently is a necessity because it's not just about posting consistently. It's about getting content in front of people that people actually care to see it, and if we know that that's what social is being used for, I would want to check those boxes really often. That makes sense. What I love about that is that there's no clear formula. It is about just making really high or good quality, not even high quality, but good quality content that your audience wants to watch. So really important. Now, I know you've got a few other ways to share with us how people are sabotaging themselves. So I'm going to let you run with those those those other ways, if I may. Absolutely. We we mentioned them in flight, but but I would say that the third the third area that we're missing the mark is that we're not using engaging copy. Are we asking for the next step? Are we having or do we have a call to action? What is that action? Does that action is that action clear and concise? And is it understandable as to what I should be doing? And also, are you getting them to engage with the current posts you have? What I am noticing in terms of what is performing really well in terms of copy, we are asking for an action to happen on that post, and we are asking for an action to happen after that post. So think of something along these lines. Let's talk for example, let's talk that let's imagine that we have created a piece of content about rental trends in the US or something along those lines just to make it more tailored. I would ask what trends are you seeing within your communities? What have I missed in this video? Because that right there will allow for engagement to happen on that post again, showing the algorithm that you have engagement or the content. And now not only are you creating content or copy that is getting engagement from your audience that you get to now communicate with, but you also are showing the algorithm. People want to talk to me because look at the fact people are responding, right? So one, your copy needs to ask for something to happen immediately, which I would assume is a DM or a comment in response. And then I would also assume that your copy needs to have a call to action that says to find more about what's trending in your area, go to the link in my bio where we can talk more about X, Y and Z, or there's more video of my YouTube channel that exists and you guys can learn more about X, Y and Z. Having those two things in your copy make a ton of sense because they help achieve what wanting to have happened. They achieve the communication that needs happen on that post to show the algorithm what it needs to, and it also allows you to get your next thing. Yeah, no, we'll end up picking back off of that. We kind of mentioned also the hashtag usage, right? Are we just using the same thing over and over? Are we taking advantage of what's performing? All of that's important as well, which kind of leads number five, you're just not monitoring trends for whatever reason you don't have time. You're not taking advantage of what is and is not working on social. You're not making the videos that your competition are making, which are getting them great traction. A lot of the times people think, I don't want to monitor trends or I don't want to monitor what my competition is doing because I don't want to do what my competition is. Nonetheless, you're probably talking about very similar things. Your specific spin on it is what is most valuable, right? You've got Nike and you've got a D-dest. They're both making shoes, but they do so in a different way. For you not to take advantage of the fact that while you might be talking about the same things, you have a different outlook and some people are going to respond to your style more than your competitions. That's a misopportunity right there. Those are the five. I know that we've hit on them all. That's cool. As you've mentioned those, I literally, I internalize those. Am I doing this? Am I doing this? I know there's people listening out there going, well, could I be doing more content? Could I be tracking trends? Certainly for me and hopefully many hosts out there will be listening to this, just going to sometimes things get busy. We have a busy Friday change. We just don't get the time to necessarily track the trends, but it's not ever so hard when you've just got those 5-10 minutes instead of scrolling on social media to actually just go, hey, what is the top? Let's use the hashtag which I know will get used. Let's search short-term rentals and see what comes up, see what soundtracks have been used and that side of things. It does make sense. This was some advice from another one of our guests, which was that we don't always need to be the one creating the content. If you're really short on time, you can actually share news stories, blogs, articles, things which are already out there and just put your opinion on it. Quick and easy way to not have to create the content. It's the end of a busy change over day. You share an article and a great little trick to that is whenever you see these articles, save them in your notes on your phone and later do the post. You don't need to award instantly then. Should people be news-jacking? Should they be using news stories to help drive the algorithm? Absolutely. I would definitely suggest that if I am feeling content bankrupt, I have no idea what to be pulling from because I've done the frequently asked questions. I've pulled from what works for my competition. Absolutely. If there are things that are applicable to my industry and my audience, of course, I'm not only going to talk about that, I'm going to want to stitch that video. You see happening a lot on TikTok and YouTube shorts. I'm going to want to talk about how that affects not only my industry, but how that affects my audience because that's what people care about, right? They say a lot of the times, especially when you're well-known within your industry, people are sending you that article anyway. It's like, how does this impact me? How is this going to affect our community? X, Y, and Z? Those are all the things I would want. If I was wanting to really build not only my social presence, but become a thought leader within my space, become the main person people want to go to when they're looking for a service like mine, I would want to be the first line of defense in terms of analyzing that news, right? I would want this person to break that news down for me, especially in terms of how it's applicable to me, my friends, my family. So yeah, absolutely, I would newsjack all day long. Especially right now, because there's loads of places across the US, the UK, and the rest of the world, which are bringing in regulations, which may make things more difficult for short-term rental hosts, and depending on your area and the local jurisdiction and that side of things, you could easily form bits of content as this stuff is coming in. When the rest of the competition is worried about it, you can be put in out content, which relates to potentially people that you can co-host with or manage for or investors, which would be interested in it. One quick here, which every month, we've got clients that we have short-term rental clients, which we send out a video talking about our local market and how we're doing. We always send that out. It's a short, three-minute video, which just talks about how things were over the last month, what we can expect from the month ahead. One of our clients said, do you share this openly? And I was like, why don't I share this openly? This is just a little analysis of the market, which is sent to all the clients. Why aren't we sharing that more often? So there's probably stuff that hosts are already doing. They're already having conversations already talking about this stuff. It's not that difficult to document it and post it, is it? No, and that kind of goes back to bullet point two, if you will, not doing like a full deep dive of all the things you've created or are currently creating and say, would this better serve my audience if it was posted on social more frequently? Is where you are going to miss a lot of opportunities when you're not using those kind of email blasts, when you're not using those blog posts, when you're not using those pieces of news information that have been shared, those are the kind of way that's what I really think people need to be more intentional about and utilize or repurposed content. That's cool. That's cool. I really feel that as a host, I've got a lot of information on this podcast from yourself. I know, no, that it's the quality of the content. It's not necessarily, I don't need to do long form. I can actually record one bit, but actually repurpose it, picking out the two or three minutes, which are most important and that side of things. Last couple of questions which I'd have for you, Kelsey, is the first of all, if I was a host and I just recorded my preferred format either right and down a piece of content or videoing it or just doing the audio, what is the process if we were to send it to repurposedhouse.com? What is the process? What would they do? Great question. So a purpose of house can work with you in a lot of different ways. We've got DIY options all the way to done for you plans, but what we can do is we can go through that content for you because our team does monitor the trends because our team does understand analytically what performs, but also creatively what draws an audience. We're able to go through that content for you, pick the best pieces out of there, create these highlight reels, create the designs, create things on that asset that are going to help them get better engagement, but we also can take it a step further, not only just create those assets for you, but write the copy, do the hashtag and keyword research dynamically, and then also post it for you across the main platforms, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, all those great ones. That's how a purpose house can help, but even if your issue is so much as just like I know out of my content what's going to work, I just don't have the time to do the video editing, I can do the rest. Also, we can meet you there too. However, you need help. It's one of the one of the great things about purpose house will meet you where you feel most comfortable and repurposed for you from there. That's cool. So how do we get in touch with yourself and what's the best way to follow yourself and the service? Yeah, we're on all socials at Repurpose House to meet with me to have a conversation about how we are potentially missing opportunities. If you want me to do a social media audit to see where we are missing the mark, what are the better ways we could be showing up? We absolutely can do that on our website, repurposedhouse.com. There's a quick link in the corner to schedule a call with me. On that call, we'll definitely not only dive into all of those things, but strategize ways that you strategize different ways that you could better show up on your on all different social platforms too. That's cool. I feel we normally on these spotlights, we find out a little bit more about yourself, your history and that side of things, but I feel like we've just got value value value and I'm sure everybody listening has got a lot of at least one or two notes that they can go off. And the most important thing that we always talk about, Bruce Lee, is to actually go off and just action one bit of advice, whether it is you just go away and write a blog post to bring more people across, or whether it is just to jump on a live and actually try and get people across to your socials or contact, reach out to Repurpose House with some content and look at the plans, which is there available. One way we always love to bring these to an end is to ask, is there a mantra or a saying that really resonates with you or one, which means a lot to you, Kelsey? Yeah, no, I think in the spirit of talking or focusing, I know we all know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, but he is the content or focusing king. And ultimately, my favorite quote from him is, content is king, but marketing is clean and she runs the household. So if we want to run a really great business, not just about content, it's how we're utilizing it. And that's kind of what I bring back to all the time. The content's phenomenal, but are we marketing it well? Are we using the most that we possibly can't out of it? Are we doing all that we possibly can to get great engagement out of social? And those are all things that not only we get to talk about every day at Repurpose House, but all the things that I'm hoping people learn and take value from out of this podcast episode. That's amazing. Thank you so much for spending your time with us today and for sharing all these gems. I feel like the value has been has been amazing today. So certainly I'm going to go away and action. I'm just going to produce more content, but also utilize what I already have. I mean, there's reviews. There's all so much that we could be posting and really make a plan around it. So I'm sure there's going to be lots of people who get in touch with you and we'll pop the in the show notes how to get in touch with you. So thank you so much for today, Kelsey. Was there any last moment shares before we bring things to a close? Any final thoughts? No, I so appreciate getting to be here and look forward to meeting anyone from your audience who wants to learn more. So thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much and bye for now.