Hi there. Welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are Thanks for Visiting.

Let's start this episode like we do each and every week, and that is celebrating one of you, our incredible listeners who's going, who are going to s strshare.com, sharing everything you can about your short-term rentals that we can see. Share you here on the podcast, on our Instagram account every Sunday. And then who are we sharing this week?

This week we are sharing @blythetrailwaycabins. And you spell. Blythe, B-L-Y-T-H, again @blythetrailwaycabins. And the reason we wanted to highlight Blythe today is it's a really great lead in into our episode today and specifically, is that I see that Blythe Trailway cabins has been partnering with Blythe Ontario. Uh, they're doing, they were doing some collaborations ah, on workshops in their town. And so the Blythe Ontario was sharing that the workshops that were coming to town and Blythe Trailways was talk was, um, offering up stays for people that were coming in for These said workshops.

Smart.

So I just want you to take a look at, um, at her Instagram, something else that just literally. Was hilarious and I had to share is she does this super imposing of famous people like by her cabins and she calls it, um, fake Guest Fridays. And like I just thought it was like she had a very, it's like famous hockey player. She act like Kate Middleton stayed. Like I don't always just kind of stopped me in my tracks when I was scrolling through and I loved it 'cause it shares a little bit about her personality, but, uh, really wanted to share. And you'll also see. Her pinned comments. She has also worked with influencers, and you'll see the reels. One of her reels has almost 30,000 views because it was in collaboration with said influencers. So if you go to her Instagram, you will see. Um, some of these posts with these influencers that she's partnered with, and you'll see the type of content they've produced as a couple enjoying the cabin, and you'll see how they have done those posts collaboratively.

Because here's the thing, you're gonna get that DM sooner rather than later. Hi, I'm an influencer. I'd love to collaborate with you, and you're like. First, you're a little flattered. You're like, wow. Like they reached out to me. And then you're like, well, I don't know. Like, 'cause they'll start asking questions whether it's they want a free night's stay or, or whatever that might be, and you're just like, ah, I don't know. And so we hear this question all the time from hosts talking about partnerships and influencer, and you have to remember at the end of the day that it is marketing. And so today we wanna talk to you about what we consider before saying yes. To any influencer partnership, whether you're being asked for a free stay or maybe exchange content for that free stay, they want paid, or maybe you are actively seeking. You've seen some people just like Blythe, Trailway cabins has worked with influencers, and you're like, I wanna see what that could do for our property. So you wanna actively reach out to influencers, and you of course want to reach out to them. With an agenda, with topics to discuss about how to make this partnership successful. So today we're gonna go through some things about how to vet them, how to set boundaries, define goals, avoid common traps. So let's dig in. we're gonna break down exactly what we do when we're either working with an influencer or they reach out to us requesting a collaboration.

So it might range anywhere from a free stay. Mm-hmm. In exchange for content, or you might be actively seeking influencers to help you boost your marketing. So we need to set boundaries with them. We need to vet said influencers, we need to have shared goals. And then also there are some way, there are some things that we wanna avoid. Common traps. If you're working with an influencer. First, number one, we wanna start with what is the goal of this partnership with the influencer? And this should actually give you, um, some calm and peace right now. There are multiple goals. It doesn't just have to be, you know, to your bottom line, increasing your bottom line. And so when you think about influencers, it's influencer marketing. And marketing can have several. And, and should have several goals, but before you even reach out to someone or you get reached out to, we do just want you to kind of sit back, think about it like what do you want these partnerships to bring your way, and you might have different partnerships for different times in your business. What are some of those goals, Sarah?

Yeah, so for example, do you want. Do you want revenue? Do you want bookings? And if so, how are you going to track the success of the partnership? Is it via a special link or a code that you give this influencer to give their followers so that you know that that's a direct ROI from that partnership? Maybe you are looking for some brand awareness. Okay. This influencer has an audience that you want to be a part of, and so honestly, just them being in your space, tagging you, creating content. But let's see if that partnership, does it increase impressions for your social media or for your website? Are you gaining followers from that? Right? What are those metrics you're gonna track to see if this partnership was a success? Maybe you need content creation. Mm-hmm. Maybe you want. Some content creation for your Instagram or your TikTok, even if you wanna put it on your website and you the photos. Yeah, love photos. You love their style. And so how many videos are you going to get? How many still photos are you going to get? Who's gonna be in them? What are they gonna be of? Again, if you're gonna have them in your space where you can't have another paying guest, you wanna make sure that your goals are defined. You know, both you and the influencer know how you'll track that success. So that when the partnership is over, you can say, wow, that was really great. It was win-win for both parties. Number two, vet the influencer. The discussion that you have with the influencer, whether you're seeking them out or they've messaged you, you wanna make sure that this is going to be a successful partnership and they're not just looking for a free place to stay. They might be. Getting their feet wet as an influencer. And so that's not, not a deal breaker in some cases, but they'll have to understand that you need to see some proof in the pudding when it comes to coming to your property and having a partnership, especially if there's gonna be any sort of compensation or a comped night or things of that nature. So the number one thing you wanna understand from an influencer, they obviously. They need to be influencing human beings to do something. Mm-hmm. Right? In some way, shape or form, some way, shape or form. So how do you know if they have good engagement? And it's not always follow or count. You wanna make sure they have good engagement from the people who follow 'em. There is an equation, okay? Engagement rate is total likes plus comments divided by their follower count. And then you'll multiply that by a hundred. And you wanna look for influencers who have about a 1% engagement rate. Anything more than that is pretty exceptional. As we all know on social media, like these posts are fleeting. So those skilled influencers who can hold the attention and start a conversation on social platforms, those are the ones that you want to work with. So don't get lost in follower count. Mm-hmm. Really understand that engagement process and then you wanna review their content.

Yeah, you wanna make sure that it's in alignment. Um, you know, it's, I just to use some specifics here, we have, um, we've done a lot of work with, um, whether it's on our podcast or YouTube or just having them. In our ecosystem. Like if you have someone that's outdoorsy and you have a cabin in the woods, there's probably a fit there. You know, it's like the, you wanna think about the content that they're creating on a daily basis, because it needs to be, uh, there needs to be consistency there. That's the first thing you wanna see if this influencer, are they being consistent and is there consistency, a through line through what they are, um, what they're bringing to their community?

I've had influencers reach out who, and you look on their feed, you can tell they are con, they are skilled at creating content, but then in between different brand deals, it's like. It pictures of their dog and like, I don't know what they ate for breakfast that morning, and then it's like they got another brand deal and it's like it's not consistent. I don't know that I wanna be a part of that. They might have a follower base or an engagement rate with the people who find their life interesting. But will it convince them to come and stay with our property or engage with us on, at our property. Um, unless their photography and videography skills are exactly what you're looking for, and you actually don't need them to tag you or leverage their account, you're just looking for that content, then maybe. But that's the kind of thing you wanna look for is what they post consistent. Do you know. What you're gonna get. Mm-hmm. When they're on your property, it's not a crap shoot.

And who is their audience? Like, you could have a extremely great partnership with an influencer that might be, quote unquote, a micro influencer, but they are, they're a drivable distance to you or they, they're. Following is so loyal, they want to travel to wherever they've been. So also, don't get lost in that overall follower account. Understand not only who the influencer is, but who their audience is. And you can also, while you're doing the spending. Please ask for referrals. Say, have you ever worked with another host before? Or if they haven't worked with another host, have they worked with another brand? And they should either, A, be able to get you in contact with them, or B, even on their, um, media sheet, give you some testimonials from past people that have worked together. So make sure you're going like that one extra step for people that have worked with them previously. You know, did they deliver on everything that they said they were going to?

The content that they've shared on their platforms, you can also see who is liking it and what are they saying. Are those conversations, conversations you wanna be a part of? So again, dig in, vet the influencer, make sure this is going to be a good partnership for both of you.

Number three, knowing and understanding the true cost of this partnership. Again, this can be very exciting. Someone reaches out and you start to just like spitball and look at dates and go through it. But you really need to understand the impact because story here is we, um. I know a few hosts who have blocked off peak season weekends for influencers, and they flaked because they got a better property. Oh yeah. They, or somewhere they really wanted to go over yours and they were, they were stuck with, um, they canceled last minute. It was peak season on the weekends. So you wanna make sure that you're protecting yourself there for, for sure. But understanding that cost. So, you know, there's the nightly rate that's involved. There's probably gonna be more communication between you and the influencer. 'cause you're gonna have deliverables, you're gonna wanna discuss those things. Uh, also there's, think about the cleaning fee. You're not being reimbursed for that. This, again, depending on how you're shaking down this deal. But overall you wanna think of, you know, nightly reservations, your cleaning, your communication time involved, and then not being able to rent that space to, uh, potential paying guests.

Yeah. Do the math. So the value of the nights, whether you're comping them or if you're not comping them, maybe there is a, a discounted rate. Maybe.

Maybe you are paying them.

I've actually worked with influencers who are Right. Incredibly influential. And to be able to have them at the property was you know, an honor. I don't know what the other words to use. Like they've got a busy schedule, you know, and they're planning out ahead of time. I will say that too. It's a little bit of a red flag when they wanna come, like next week or in two weeks. A lot of these influencers who truly do this for a living, they plan out their stays. And so if you, people ask us all the time, like, should I pay for them to come? Should they pay me? Again, you've gotta, as we, as we go through this list, kind of understand what that means for you. But if you understand when they're there, what that cost is, if you are not getting paid or they're not paying you mm-hmm. That is gonna put you in a good spot of just knowing what that investment is for. Like a Annette said that marketing and you should have a marketing budget set aside each year for your property. Remember, it is a business and. There's no right or wrong here, and sometimes you just have to make decisions. Yeah, and try it out. See how it goes. But just make sure you understand how you're going to measure the success of this partnership and include the costs of those nightly rights and the cleaning fees and all of those. Things with the outcome of it, track it all, then review it when the partnership's over and you'll be armed with even more experience and understanding for that next opportunity. But I love that story you told about the, the influencer who canceled. Mm-hmm. So that is why it's also things, things, even if you're gonna the, you're gonna pay them to come or they are getting a comp stay, maybe you have some sort of refundable deposit. Mm-hmm. So that they do cancel. It's, I think that's what, yeah.

Some skin in the game then.

Yeah, some skin in the game.

Okay, number four, you wanna define your deliverables. And again, I wanna share like this might be a micro influencer that's maybe a one night all the way up to a week stay, you know, so even if you think like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be a lot of work for influencers. It should be a lot of work. It should be worth it. And, and if you don't define these deliverables, they're gonna have come to your space, left your space, and it's gonna be crickets. Okay? So you wanna make sure that ahead of time, you've defined, let's say for instance, they are on Instagram. How many are they gonna post stories while they're there? Are they gonna post stories after? Are they gonna produce reels? Are there gonna be stills? Are there gonna be carousel posts? Like exactly. What is the content you're gonna be getting? And again, you wanna get granular, like Sarah and I do, do, um, brand deals and like if we say we're gonna do a story, it's how many story clips? You know, three story clips, four stories.

What's the call of action.

Exactly. You really want to get, define, are they gonna be tagging you? Are they gonna add you as a collaborator? It matters again, like are they, you know, are they a blogger? Are you gonna be on their blog? Are they gonna back link to your site? Also, when you're defining these deliverables, it's like, when will you receive these deliverables? Because I will, I will side with the influencer on this. You know, if you're doing photos, if you're creating reels like sometimes. That's gonna take you some post-production some time afterwards. And also you might not want all the content at the same time. You might want to, um, you know, leak it out over a couple of weeks or a couple of months. But you really wanna think about what are those deliverables that you are wanting. And again, maybe it's just a content shoot for yourself, you might require. Hey, here's the shot list. I want you to take photos, uh, lifestyle photos, outside, inside, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, drinking coffee at the hot tub, like really giving them a shot list of the things that you want and desire from that relationship.

We have brands that. We work with, thanks for visiting, where they, they have their own brand voice too, and so they want it to come from us authentically, but they're like, but if you could make sure that you use this word and not this word, like it matters to their brand. The same for you. You know how you create your own brand voice when you're talking to your guests, and so that's why it's really hard for you to pass on messaging to someone else. Mm-hmm. The same thing with influencer marketing. So if there is maybe a word that you use or, uh, something about your property that's really special that you wanna make sure that they're highlighting or really speaking to, maybe you wanna make sure that if they are doing stories, they're selfie stories and not just like them. Pointing the camera at the thing with text overlay, like, really? You can't get too granular. You really can't. And then how about. Yes, they're posting it and maybe they're tagging you or they're adding you as a collaborator, but can you, can you have the raw content? Can you repost it? Can you repost it, and how long can you repost it? Let's say you did this, you did this partnership here in 2025, and you have the raw content and it's relevant in next year's, I don't know, summer season 2026. Can you use it again? Like these kind, we have photographers that we've worked with and our time of using their content that we paid for is limited. Mm-hmm. So it just depends. And make sure you ask these questions, and we'll get to this in the next tip here, but you wanna make sure it's in writing Number five. Contracts and protection. And this is not just for you. Mm-hmm. This is for the influencer too. And if they are really taking their business seriously, they probably already have a contract ready to go and they have an addendum where they really dial in the various pieces that make this partnership with you unique and special.

So this is kind of reiterating everything that we went over, right? Like what defining those deliverables, what is the timeline like? Let's state the time of the stay. This is where you wanna bake in that cancellation policy. Mm-hmm. And heck, like, um, thinking about the cancellation policy too. Like, if I know I'm gonna show up, I don't mind putting a deposit down, you know, like what's the, what's the big deal in that? You might get some pushback there, but having something in writing, if for some reason they can't make it. What happens, you know, is it, do they rebook at a different time? Um, just want to get ahead of that one for sure. And then most importantly is usage. How, you know, how are you able to use the content that they're creating for you?

Do they have a certificate of insurance? They're gonna be in your property doing commercial work and getting paid for it. You wanna make sure, ask your insurance company how you should be added as additional insured on their insurance. And you wanna make sure that they're insured. Mm-hmm. If they hurt themselves on the property or something else happens to their equipment, anything at all. They should have their own insurance if they are true business, and they are, they should have their own insurance coverage and you wouldn't be additionally insured on that.

And for instance, one, uh story I wanna share here is, I just had a friend, he had a podcaster reach out and he wanted to podcast live from his property while he was like traveling through town. Well, I was like, okay, well is it a video podcast? Like, are you gonna be tagged? And it's, it's a lot of podcaster audio, so I'm like, visually, are they gonna get anything for you? Well. It, his property was downtown. It was a loft. And once I kind of dug a little deeper, I was like, oh, okay, so this podcaster needs to bring eight of his friends to, uh, downtown for a Friday, Saturday night to podcast. And I just like sniffed that out of like, wait a second. That sounds like him and his boys want to have a weekend out downtown. Like that's where I would say, Hey, work with him. Like maybe he can come for free, but like. The other eight people are staying. So that's again, in the contract you wanna say like, okay, is it the influencer and the influencer's whole family?

Right.

Is it the influencers and their friends? Like who is actually going to be on the property too, on that reservation?

Yeah. Outlining all of that in the contract and having it, getting it signed, giving it to both parties.

But let's flip. We know we can talk about this. Flip the script, Sarah, to the local influencer that you had today that brought her family for a family vacation. But she was like so entwined. In the local like mom group that she got a ton of reservations because it was photos of her and her family. Yeah. Enjoying the space. It was a quick drive and like that was worth it to have the whole family come for a family vacation and really just document their stay. That was the deliverable

because family stayed at that property.

Yes. It pushed those bookings. Yeah, so there can be, there could be a lot of people on the guest list. It doesn't mean it's not a good thing. You just need to know what's going on there.

Number six, I'm using air quotes here. Is this influencer worth it?

And we don't have a crystal ball. And you can do the, you can do the list of everything that we just said. Okay. And some might be a huge success, some might be a bust. And guess what? You might have a paying guest that ends up giving you like going viral with them. But here's the deal. What is viral? What is worth it to me? You, this is all sales and marketing. You are building your brand. So is this person, is this relationship a part of like the future of your business? Could they introduce you? To other people. So I really instead of just like worth it, looking at their follower account and what the guest, you know, stay is like the dollar amount. You really need to go a little bit deeper than that. You know, we do, so we do sales, we're all doing sales and marketing every single day. Even being on the OTA is marketing, even you talking to your friends and family. So again, we don't want you to over think it, but we definitely do want you to test some things too, and try it and don't overlook the micro influencers and you know, be weary of the super large influencers too. So you have to do what's right for you.

Yeah. And if you're not sure. I say try it. You're a business owner. You have to fail faster. Mm-hmm. You have to get your, your sea legs as they say. So if you haven't done it yet, you've listened to some content. Mm-hmm. This is a piece of content about this. Yeah. Nothing replaces it though, with actually doing the thing. Mm-hmm. So do it. Track it, take notes. You'll get better the next time.

Number seven. Here are some like bonus ideas for you. Don't sit back and wait for that influencer to DM you. Let's go out there and get it. Could you do some local giveaways with some other businesses? That could be an influencer partnership.

How about influencers Who they're influencers, yes, but they're really just content creators and their, their specialty is called UGC. You might hear the young people talking with this acronym, user generated content so they can create something maybe their face isn't in it, but they are really skilled at making it look so cool. Using your hot tub, using your coffee maker and the content they create and the way they position it. And then you can really use that in your social, uh, channels like or accounts. That kind of content is really powerful these days, and there's some people who are really good at it, they're creative. The way they spin it, their eye on it is super cool. And I, I highly recommend, uh, user generated content.

Also, the, the thing that we, I think we don't even, we forget about too, is like, be your own PR to like old school publications, like, do you have a magazine in your town? Sarah and I have reached out to every newspaper magazine in our town, and if you give them the story, a lot of times they're a lot more apt to include you and, and write about your story. So don't, um, like travel bloggers, actual print magazines in your town. We wanna challenge you today. Like actually you go out instead of sitting back and waiting for partnership. We want you to go out and create a partnership for your property.

And we talk, this is about influencers, but, and you kind of hit on this a little bit, Annette, of SEO search engine optimization is not dead. All right? AI has come out, things are changing for sure. I been going to acknowledge that, but I still go online and quote unquote search it up. Mm-hmm. Which means there has to be something going on with new content online for there to be searches that come up, that answer the question that I have. And some of those questions are. Where's the best place to stay in Phoenix, Arizona. Mm-hmm. What is the coolest short term rental in Phoenix, Arizona? So don't discount the quote unquote influencers who are bloggers. Mm-hmm. Right? Who are used, their content lives on a website and not just an application like Instagram or TikTok. That is not dead yet. And there's a lot of value and a lot of power in being involved in bloggers who have a great following too.

So let us know if you've had a successful influencer campaign.

so we have a special. Document for you in the show notes. It is our list of what to watch out for, what to consider with influencer partnerships. So go ahead, download it. It's completely free. And if you wanna keep the education going, we've got a great video that y'all have loved. So if you haven't watched it, get on that bandwagon. It's about this one setting that you need to have turned on. It can help increase your bookings by 300%, I mean by a huge amount. So make sure you go check that out. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I'm Annette Grant, and together we are. Thanks for visiting.