Holiday rental owners are yet to fully explore the marketing potential of Tiktok.
Now is the time to explore how to promote your holiday rental property to the billions of worldwide Tiktok users.
As Search and Stay is one of only a few holiday rental platforms that is zero-cost for owners and managers. This allows you to take bookings through Search and Stay receiving the same revenue as a direct booking without requiring you to buy or build a booking engine. Therefore when you invest time in promoting your holiday rental on TikTok, you can easily direct your guests to your listing on Search and Stay, and the platform will do the rest with all auto tools to manage guests, booking and payment and you will enjoy 100% of the return.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is available in over 150 countries and has over 1 billion users. Launched in China in September 2016, Tiktok gained traction in China before parent company ByteDance launched an international version in 2017. Most people know of TikTok as an online community that made a massive impact on the internet through mixed dance videos and voice-over memes and launching careers of many instant TikTok influencers. TikTok has since grown into a fully-fledged video service, with content available for all types of viewers.
TikTok for Holiday Rentals
With its personalised feeds of short videos set to music and sound effects, the app is extremely addictive and engaging and the beauty of the enormously popular social media app is that users can produce, watch and share 15-second videos easily shot on mobile devices or webcams.
Marketing on TikTok is still maturing, but a growing number of marketing agencies are very keen to help brands create the kind of quirky content that gets clicks on TikTok. Conventional advertising selling product’s features and qualities won't work but quirky, fun campaigns set to music do the work. The ultimate goal is to go viral on the site and spur imitation trends.
TikTok has yet to make extensive inroads into the holiday rental and tourism sectors but with so many billions on the app, the question isn't whether you should use TikTok to promote your vacation rental business, but WHEN will you use the app?
TikTok’s main features:
1. Video Uploading and Video Editing
TikTok lets you upload your own videos, crop them, add different effects, sounds and music and filters directly from the app in one place. You can also enhance your video’s characteristics through speed adjustments and by modifying facial characteristics (hair colour, eyes, etc) with special filters.
2. Duets
This allows a split screen where the original video appears to the right and the new video from the person creating the 'duet' appears to the left. So basically, you can create a duet with any video that allows duets. Duets are great for reacting to user-generated content, engaging with guests who share about your vacation rental, or just general content that relates to your offering.
3. Stitched videos
Stitch is a creation tool that allows you to combine another video on TikTok with the one you’re creating. It is similar to duets, but shows up a bit differently. The original video plays for a few seconds before the new video does, with no split screen. Add to this, you must have a public account to allow others to Stitch with your videos. Stitching lets you respond easily to a video or add a follow-up idea to the topic but you can only use up to 5-seconds of the original video. It is also a popular way to participate in trends on TikTok. Examples of stitching for hosts would be to show your beautiful retreat versus a stressful situation or answer a question from a guest with a video reply.
4. TikTok Stories
Much like other social platforms Instagram and Snapchat, TikTok allows you to create ‘Stories’ that disappear in 24 hours. A blue ring will also appear around your profile picture, indicating to other users that they can tap to view your Stories. If you share a story on TikTok, you will be able to see who has viewed it in a separate tab located next to the comments section. Viewers can also publicly react and comment, which will appear on the story itself. To create a Story, tap the “post” button in the bottom centre of the navigation bar and swipe to the ‘Story’ option. Then you can either record a video on the spot or upload one from your camera roll. Next, edit your video — Stories have the same creation options as normal TikTok videos. Then, tap the “Post to story” upload icon to add it to your story.
5. TikTok Sound
In addition to using audio from other TikToks, you can also create your own custom TikTok audio. Allowing other TikTok users to find the sound you’ve taken the time to create also showcases your own account. To allow others to find it, open your video with the custom sound, tap on the spinning record icon in the lower right corner of the screen. Then click the Edit button next to the title and change the title to whatever you want and tap to save.
This way it’s attributed to you, especially if your original sound has viral appeal.
6. Social Media Sharing
Saving your TikTok videos and sharing them to other social platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, is another function of the app. You can send them directly to
It’s important to note that your TikTok username account is embedded in the video when you do this, allowing other users to follow you directly.
7. Live Streaming
Once you have at least 1 000 followers, you qualify to go “live”. You tap into the “Cross” middle icon and this feature is is perfect to do live walkthroughs of your property to showcase all the unique things that make it an amazing holiday rental experience. When recording you have all the options available on the screen. On the right side, you can change the speed of the video, add beauty effects, filters and use the time
8. Added Cool Features
TikTok also lets you create your own TikTok code so other users can find you and subscribe. They also have a built-in library offering a selection of music to elevate your videos, as well as a geolocation feature to promote live broadcasters around specific regions, which could be useful if and when you create live walkthroughs.
TikTok For Your Holiday Rental Business
This platform has incredible power for community and engagement if you use it correctly. Creating TikTok videos can cost you time and money (if you're using an agency) and it's hard to be sure if it's bringing you more bookings. Using TikTok now does however put you on the front foot of growing your brand visibility and if you’re looking to reach a younger audience, the app might be perfect for you – especially because not a lot of vacation rental brands are taking advantage of it.
How to grow your Tiktok audience
1. Get to know your audience
• Analytics is a great resource to get insight into your top trending videos and audience engagement
• View your follower list, likes and video comments
• Engage with your audience by reading, reacting, and replying to comments
2. Collaborate with other creators
TikTok is a creator community. Collaborating with other creators helps your content reach wider audiences. Reach out to other interesting creators.
Some factors to consider when looking for collaborators:
• Similar content categories and genres
• Similar video format
• Similar audience size
Reach out to other creators in the community:
• Make sure you’re following each other
• Comment and engage with their content
• Chat or meet on TikTok or at creator events
Brainstorm ways to collaborate:
• Appear or make a cameo in each other’s videos
• Tag each other in captions or challenges
3. Participate in trending hashtag challenges:
Trending hashtags are a creative way to find new topics that will get your content exposed to more viewers. Participating in challenges also helps you engage with the community.
4. Post videos regularly:
Being active on the platform gives your audience something to tune in and look forward to. Posting 3-5 videos per week has proven to be successful for steady growth.
5. Connect with your community outside of TikTok:
• Post your TikTok videos on other social media accounts
• Share a link to your TikTok video with friends and viewers outside of TikTok
6. Use Hot Hashtags
All home feeds are sorted by TikTok’s algorithm, and it is heavily influenced by viral content. Driven largely by challenges that are accompanied by a hashtag, people are invited to upload their own videos.
Hosts can use personalised sponsored hashtags to extend visibility. Users can then upload their own content in response to your challenge and share it with other users. You’ll be able to access all the content created via the TikTok Ads page where the content created by users will be stored. Hashtags around peak events and holidays are a very useful inclusion.
TikTok is fun, easy and engaging but if you're going to make the most of this platform you're going to need to be creative, take time to post regularly and research ways to leverage your visibility or unfortunately, you'll just be tiktoking to yourself.
Search and Stay is one of only a few holiday rental platforms that is zero-cost for owners and managers. This allows you to take bookings through Search and Stay receiving the same revenue as a direct booking without requiring you to buy or build a booking engine. Therefore when you invest time in promoting your holiday rental on TikTok, you can easily direct your guests to your listing on Search and Stay, and the platform will do the rest with all auto tools to manage guests, booking and payment and you will enjoy 100% of the return.
NEXT STEPS:
List on Search and Stay HERE
Have our Search and Stay Team get your listing started for you HERE
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Want to talk to someone? Book a call with our Business Development Manager HERE.