Facebook workshop: Basics & Advertising

Facebook workshop for hosts

In this workshop we will show you that Facebook is not "old school" at all, but a helpful tool to attract new guests. We explain what you should pay attention to in your posts and where you can find most important key figures. We also venture into the topic of Facebook advertising. And we always keep in mind that you have little time. This is why for most of our the following tips & tricks only little time is required.

Unlike Instagram, Facebook is not so popular with some of you. Even if that’s the case for you, please read on anyway! Because Facebook still offers you many possibilities, complements Instagram very well and many tips can also be transferred to Instagram.

Facebook – why do you need it at all?

In the last two workshops, we showed you tips and tricks for Instagram. Feel free to check them out again! This way -> Instagram Basics for Hosts and Instagram Workshop for Hosts Part II.

Why Facebook now? Isn’t the platform on the decline? Who uses Facebook anymore? We already have Instagram, aren’t the same people on Facebook? … you might be asking yourself.

Our answer to that is: Facebook is still important and there is, for example, only a very small overlap of readers on our Little Travel Society account who follow us on both Facebook and Instagram. So we reach a different group of people on each channel. And there are various studies that show that the 30+ generation is the main group on Facebook. So it’s exactly your target group, parents with children.

However, the use of Facebook has changed, it is used less for personal exchange and is no longer as social as Instagram. Instead, it is increasingly used as an information tool. And on Facebook, users are not looking for the perfect photo ad like on your website, but rather for the real view out of our windows. And – unlike your website – Facebook gives you the opportunity to get in touch with your guests directly and build up a community.

In this workshop, we would therefore like to give you tips on how to write a successful Facebook post, where you can find key indicators to determine which posts are best received by your followers and how to use the algorithm for your benefit. And above all, how to do it all this with little effort.

Most readers only take a few seconds to read your posts. Therefore, keep the following tips in mind:

A Successful Facebook Post – a how to

  • Include at least one suitable photo or short video in your post. A picture gets much more attention.
  • Choose a captivating, surprising headline or one with a reference that will appeal to many readers (e.g. “Do you also need a break from wrapping Christmas presents?” or “We have something new that will especially please moms”).
  • Don’t get too bogged down in detail. Sure, you know your house inside out. But  readers don’t. Therefore, general posts about your house, yourself and what you offer are better received than, for example, the information that you have now bought a third tricycle.
  • Include lots of emojis. I am not a fan of these little things, but I had to be taught better: Texts with emojis get more interaction because they appeal to the reader’s feelings and help to understand the text better.
  • Add a Call To Action or a question at the end: Ask a question that encourages readers to comment. The more comments, the higher the algorithm will rate your post and the more it will be presented to other readers. Or – if you want readers to visit your website, for example – add a so-called “Call to Action”. This means: You ask the readers to do something, e.g. “Click here for our offer!Important – answer the reader’s questions under the post as quickly as possible. After a week, some people won’t even remember their question. And of course you can also comment on posts about your house on our Little Travel Facebook page.

Step II: Fine-tuning for perfect Facebook Posts

The Facebook algorithm collects all the data and prepares it for you in a structured way. These are your statistics, which you can find in your Facebook Business account named as “Insights”. Reach, visits and posts are some of the data that are helpful.

⇒ Insights

It’s simple: if you know which post was well received and which didn’t, you’ll know what your guests want to see next time. But where can you find this?

You can find the insights as here:

⇒ The right timing

Posting when most of your followers are online is the easiest way to increase the reach of your post. Because if many of your followers are online at the moment when you post, they will see the post and interact with it. This helps the post to be classied as “interesting” by the algorithm and it will be displayed to other users with higher priority.

This is how you find this information when your followers are online: Open your Facebook page (desktop) and click on “Insights” in the column on the left.

Don’t be distracted by the many diagrams and click on “posts”. The tab “When are your friends online” normally appears first. The graph shows peaks and drops in activity. This allows you to track how many of your followers are active at each hour of the day. You can view this information for every day of the week. In our case, there are only minimal differences with regard to the day of the week. However, the differences during the day are enormous.

Regular Posts pay off

Why are regular posts important? Posting frequently shows your subscribers that you are active and interested in your guests. Outdated posts don’t give a good impression and guests may wonder if you are still open. Of course, this it is difficult to include this in your day-to-day business and it is unlikely that you come up with something great just at the time you have a free slot. This is why planning helps enormously and you can pre-plan your all your posts for a specific days and times. You can do this in the “Creator Studio” (or in the new “Meta Business Suite”). I will explain here how this process works in the Creator Studio, but the processes in the Meta Business Suite are very similar in most cases. By the way, the best way to find the Creator Studio is to log in to Facebook on your computer and simply google “Facebook Creator Studio”. This is most of the time quicker than trying to find it in your Facebook account.

VIDEO: How-to for planning a Post in the Facebook Creator Studio

In this video, we show you how to create a post in the Creator Studio:

Now you might be thinking: I’ll never find the time for that. Then why not using this hack:

When you post on Instagram or upload stories, you can automatically share them on Facebook. All you have to do is make a small change in the settings.

How to Post Instagram Posts automatically to Facebook

  1. Check that you have the latest version of both apps on your phone
  2. Open the Instagram app
  3. Click on your profile picture in the bottom left corner
  4. Tap on the three bars in the top left corner
  5. A long list appears. Select “settings” (gear icon) from the list.
  6. Select the “account” section
  7. Open the option “share in other apps”
  8. Click on Facebook
  9. Make sure the two sliders for “share automatically” is blue

This way, Instagram posts and stories will always be shared on Facebook as well. Good to know – you can change this setting at any time when you share a new post or story.

This is how it works:

Facebook Advertising even Works with a Small Budget

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram is a great way to reach exactly the right people (so called “target group”), even on a small budget. In your and our case, families who want to go on holiday. Facebook, or rather the company Meta, offers a wide range of very sophisticated options for this. In order to get an overview of this jungle of possibilities, even workshops are offered in a four-digit range. And Facebook itself also offers a variety of help on its site and offers support by phone.

With advertising, your subscribers, likes and comments will increase and your posts will be shared more often. This will also increase your visibility and attract the attention of more people willing to travel. It is impossible to show you here the whole advertising universe but we hope we can inspire you to give it a try.

The Easy Way to Advertise on Facebook

Facebook recommends that beginners use the big blue button “promote post” below your posts to start with advertising. It is an easy way to advertise as Facebook will take care of all the settings for you and you will get only a limited selection of key figures you can view directly in the app.

Here´s how:

Choose a post that resonated well with your followers. This is your organic content. At the bottom right of this post you will find the button “promote post”. Click on it and decide how much you want to spend. For a start, 50 euros is enough. And don’t worry, Facebook will never exceed the set budget. In this way, organic content is converted into paid content in one step. Facebook will show your post to users who don’t follow you but are interested in travelling or holidays. By the way, we have had the experience that we reach more people with less budget through advertising on Facebook.

By the way, you don’t need professional photos or videos from an advertising agency. On the contrary, seeing a private mobile phone video, the follower thinks: “Cool, among all this advertising I finally see a holiday video from a friend” and clicks on it.

⇒ Dos and don´ts for videos in your advertisement:

Extra tip: Even if you include subtitles, don’t overload your video with text (this also applies to images). Facebook claims that ad images with less than 20% text are more successful. And by the way, you can also add a call-to-action to your button (e.g. “sign up now!”). Use it! This little psychological trick works wonders.

Boom! You made it. With your advertising, you attracted interested people to your webpage, the so called landing page.

The landing page should be very tidy and easy to navigate. This is where you should be on your best behavior. And it looks most professional and coherent if the branding of your landing page (appearance, impression and style) is a continuation of your advertisement.

We hope we were able to shed some light on the Facebook world with this workshop. And we promise we will prepare another workshop for you next year. If it were up to Antonia,  the next topic will be “Canva” and its variety of design possibilities. Or would you like us to go into more detail about advertising on Facebook and/or Instagram? Just let us know!

This workshop was put together for you by our Instagram lady Antonia. She takes care of our Instagram account and reposts your pictures and stories if you tag us. If you have any questions about the workshop, please send an email to antonia@littletravelsociety.de.

Yours, Antonia from the Little Travel Society


Survey 2020: Family friendly features in an accommodation

Survey among Little Travel Society readers - what makes an accomodation child-friendly?

We wanted to know what German families particularly value when staying with children in accommodation. Is it the diaper pail or rather the fall-out protection that makes toddler parents happy? We also asked our readers about their no-gos. It seems that sometimes it's the little things that make a vacation for families perfect...

What do German parents expect from a chield-friendly accomodation? This is what we wanted to know.

This is why we asked our readers in November 2020 on Instagram, Facebook and in our newsletter to answer a few questions about childcare and child- friendly equipment in accommodations. Readers could participate directly in our Instagram story or via an online questionnaire

639 participants answered our questions on the following topics:

  • Childcare
  • Baby and toddler friendliness
  • Vacation with older children
  • No-Gos in family-friendly hotels

Child care Requirements: Mix of Family and Me-time as well as Undisturbed Dinners

The majority of respondents (63%) use childcare in accommodations. However, most parents also want to spend time with their children on vacation and therefore do not need all-day care for their children. 84% said that it is enough for a hotel to offer a children care program only from time to time.

Therefore, a mix of children’s programs and parent-child programs is rated as ideal by most parents (91%).

Only at dinner parents would like to have some peace and quiet to finish their meal while their children are being looked after. 57% of parents mentioned this, making it the most important childcare time. Surprisingly, only 26% of parents prefer a children’s meal before the adult meal.

Nice caregivers are the first priority for parents when it comes to childcare

Considering the number of super luxurious indoor playgrounds in large family hotels it surprised us that 64% of the answers about childcare referred to the staff. The equipment hardly played a role, 18% referred in their answers to the program.

 

Mainly the soft skills of the caregivers were important to the parents – mom and dad want to see their children received with a smile and have the feeling “she/he is a nice person”. However, some parents also mentioned the formal education of the caregivers as an important criterion. Trained and competent staff is an important prerequisite for many. When it came to the program, it was particularly important to our readers that the children were mainly outside in nature and could express themselves creatively.

A clean playroom with lots of light (but without a TV) is a basic requirement for many parents

What are the no-gos for parents? Our readers are most annoyed by dirty playrooms (77%). Furthermore, many parents do not like when children do not have enough space to run around and play (68%). Late mealtimes – as is often the case in southern countries – or inflexible mealtimes that often don’t coincide with their offspring’s hunger are also a problem for the majority of German parents. In addition, a TV in the playroom is for nearly half of the parents not a good idea (46%).

Families with young children actually have quite simple wishes

Baby parents often arrive on vacation particularly tired. That’s why as many as 40% of parents with children under the age of 3 would be happy about infant care.

We were surprised by the fact that it’s often the little things that make life so much easier for toddler parents on vacation. At the top of the must-have list for toddler parents are: bed railings (85%), window blinds (81%), socket protection (70%) and a washing machine (63%).

Also an interesting result: children’s bikes and child seats are in much demand by many parents. 82% of parents would be happy to receive children’s bikes and child seats for bicycles (77%). A baby monitor with sufficient range to the restaurant (73%) and handcarts (59%) are also very popular with parents.

Childrens´ crayons and paper for the restaurant are easy to find for the hosts, but make parents and children really happy (89%), high chairs are an absolute basic (90%). A play corner is also well received by parents (86%) and “somewhat earlier meal times” for small children are again mentioned as helpful (64%).

For older Children the focus lies on the experience

What do parents of older children want? 38% of parents believe that their schoolchildren will be happy with a specially varied action program. Parents want their older children to do sports, handicrafts, horseback riding and experimenting instead of watching TV. Furthermore, parents feel that enough space and an interesting equipment are more important for elder kids than for younger children. Suggestions were: A cool chill-out corner for teenagers, pump tracks, soccer fields and climbing walls. However, some parents also mention that it would be helpful to have other children of the same age at the hotel so that their offspring can quickly make new friends.

Ideas from parents for even cooler accommodations: How about a ball pool in the room?

In an open question, we asked our readers: What have you ever found in an accomodation you found really great?

The following featurs were mentioned several times: Toys in the room, play corner in the restaurant, babysitter during dinner, night light, kettle, baby monitors, baby carriers and tumble dryers. But they also mentioned special features such as “ball pool in the room”, “nice breastfeeding room with daybed, chains of lights etc.”, “playpen by the pool”, “family beds” or “diaper service”. What is also relatively easy to implement: stool in the bathroom, bibs and wet wipes in the restaurant, children’s cutlery or a child seat for the toilet.

No-go’s for parents in family-friendly accommodations – no French fries on the childrens´ buffet, please!

In another open question, we asked our readers: What have you ever found in an accomodation that, in your opinion, is not acceptable? Boring, bad children’s food – consisting of mainly French fries and chicken nuggets – is no longer acceptable for most parents. Poorly soundproofed rooms, an unsecured pool, a lack of stair protection and window-darkening, a dirty playroom, late mealtimes (there they are again, the mealtimes!) and “the feeling that the children are a nuisance to others” are also absolute no-goes for German families.

By the way, if you want to know in more detail what our readers answered, here is the link to all the survey results.