empty dates in your calendar: a ready-made Instagram and Facebook post in a few clicks

It's October, and there are gaps in your calendar: three midweek nights, a long weekend at the end of the month, a week in November. You know you should post something on Facebook or Instagram. But you have to come up with the text, check which dates are really free, find a good photo and add a booking link. So you put it off until tomorrow. And the dates go by empty.

what a post you didn't get round to writing costs you

First, money. An empty night doesn't come back. Once the date passes, that income is gone, however good the rest of the season looks.

Second, time. A good post isn't just "we have free dates". It needs exact dates, something about the property, an invitation to book and a link. When you do all that from scratch every time, half a morning can easily go, and outside the season you have other jobs around the house and apartment anyway.

Third, mistakes. When you copy dates by hand, it's easy to post a date that someone has meanwhile booked through Booking. Or you forget to add the link, and people ask you in messages how to book at all.

how livvi solves this

In Livvi you create a post for free dates in the marketing part of the app, under Share and promote. You choose the "Fill open dates" template, the property and the unit, and Livvi shows you the free dates with labels such as "Soon" or "Gap". You tick the ones you want to fill.

Then you decide how the post should sound: format (e.g. Instagram post), tone, length, call to action and language. If you like, you add a discount code, switch the price display on or off and choose a photo of the property or your own. Livvi writes a ready-made text with hashtags and a booking link.

If the text doesn't feel right, you don't write it from the beginning. With the buttons "Shorter", "Warmer", "Premium" or "Regenerate" you get another version, and "Translate" comes in handy when you're writing for guests from abroad.

The post goes to your Instagram or Facebook. We don't put ourselves between you and the people who follow you. A guest who books through the link pays online, and the money goes to your Stripe account.

For free dates to be really free, it helps to have your calendars connected. Livvi then sees bookings from Booking and Airbnb as a blocked date, and we described how to set that up in the article How to avoid a double booking when you have Booking, Airbnb and Livvi.

how to do it

1. In the app, open Marketing → "Share and promote".
2. Choose the "Fill open dates" template.
3. Choose the property and the unit.
4. Tick the free dates you want to promote.
5. Adjust the format, tone, length, call to action and language. If you like, add a discount code, the price display and an image.
6. Click "generate" and refine the text if needed.
7. Copy the text, download the image or copy the image link, and post it on your profile.

The whole process is in the guide How to promote your accommodation on social media.

when to add a discount code to the post

Outside the season, a small discount can be the reason someone books exactly your free days. You create the code in Marketing → Discounts, limit it to the stay dates you want to fill, and switch on the "Public / for sharing" option so you can put it in the post. The steps are in the guide How to create a discount code, and we described how to use a code for returning guests in the article A discount for returning guests without negotiating in messages.

Other marketing tools are on the page livvi.io/marketing.

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