It’s not just your kids and the younger generation who are Tweeting, Youtubing and Facebooking these days! Many vacation rental property managers and owners are getting into the game too. To be sure vacation rental directories and sites that cater to vacation homes by owner are an important source of leads, but social media is also driving travelers to consider renting a vacation home or villa rather than staying in hotels.

As an owner or manager you may want to consider some free online services that require little or no money and can give you a competitive boost. Twitter is an online community that allows you to follow and be followed in areas that you have an interest in – like vacation rentals. You can post specials and links in your tweets (140 characters or less instant message snipets).

For example, we follow Heather Bayer a.k.a. CottageGuru on her blog and she has an excellent post that will give you the TWITTER low down better than we can. Because we follow CottageGuru we can keep up with her and any new info or news she has to share. We can be one of your first twitter followers – check us out here!

Your Facebook account is another area where you may want to post pictures of your vacation home, area info and perhaps a link to your Twitter account or your personal website. Better yet, you may want to consider a free blog where you can give extra details to visitors about who you are and why your vacation home is a great choice.

Check with our friends at Gofurnished.com – Got Blog? and How to set up a blog video tutorial series for some excellent tips on starting your vacation home blog today.

And lastly – Youtube. Posting a Youtube video is easier than you think. Many digital cameras today have a “movie-mode” and you can shoot a simple movie of your vacation home and post it to Youtube for visitors to see. We will cover Youtube in more detail in our next few posts. Until then get out there and do your Social media thing!