Airbnb Social Media Strategy

1. Taylor Webber
May 22, 2017

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Social Media Audit
Social Media Objectives
Online Brand Persona and Voice
Strategies and Tools
Timing and Key Dates
Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
Social Media Policy
Critical Response Plan
Measurement and Reporting Results

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Our major social media priorities for 2017 will be growing our online
following and increasing our engagement with current followers.
The primary focus will be to draw more traffic to our website by
sharing engaging posts relevant to our customers in order to build
relationships with them.
Two major social strategies will support this objective:
 1. A plan to increase relevant and most engaging content we publish to our social
profiles.
 2. Encourage conversations and followers to share their experiences to create a
community between hosts, guests, and those wishing to become involved.

4. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT
SM Assessment
 The following is an audit of Airbnb’s social media presence to date. It includes an
assessment of all social networks, web traffic, audience demographics, and a competitor
analysis.
 Social Media Assessment (Data as of May 22, 2017)
Social
Network
URL Follower
Count
Avg. Weekly
Activity
Average Engagement
Rate
Twitter https://twitter.co
m/airbnb
597,000 6 posts/
week
25%
Facebook https://www.faceb
ook.com/airbnb
6,429,959 4 posts/
week
17%
Instagram https://www.insta
gram.com/airbnb/
1,900,000 12 posts/
week
Avg. Interactions per
post: 106
LinkedIn https://www.linke
din.com/company
-beta/309694/
362,518 3 posts/
week
0%

5. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Social Media Assessment:
 At present time, the highest number of interactions per post occurs on Facebook
(engagement rate cannot be calculated at present time.) Little to no interactions
occur on LinkedIn and closing that page should be under consideration as we move
forward.
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
Follower
Count
Chart Title
Twitter Facebook Instagram LinkedIn

6. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Website
 Website Traffic Sources Assessment
 Timeframe: Monthly average, March 2017 to May 2017
Source Volume Percentage of
Overall Traffic
Conversion Rate
Twitter 5,100 unique visits 8% 3.2%
Facebook 117,000 unique visits 40% 8.7%
Instagram NO DATA NO DATA NO DATA
LinkedIn 400 unique visits 1% .043%

7. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Website Traffic Summary:
 At present time, Facebook is by far the biggest driver of traffic to our website. The
conversion rate is behind Instagram at 8.7% and 3.2% respectively. Although no
direct traffic data is available for Instagram, many social interactions occur on this
network.

8. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Audience
 Audience Demographics Assessment
 Survey distributed in April via email. Total applicant responses: 3000
Age
Distribution
Gender
Distribution
Primary Social
Network
Secondary
Social Network
Primary Need Secondary Need
40% 18 – 30
30% 31 – 40
20% 41 – 55
10% 56 – 80
65% Female
35% Male
65% Female
35% Male
45% Facebook
35% Instagram
15% Twitter
40% Instagram
30%Facebook
10% Twitter
Finding an
affordable
location for
traveling that
feels like
home.
Family friendly
accomodations

9. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Audience Demographics Summary
 Most of the survey respondents are in the 18 - 30 age group. Facebook and
Instagram are their main social networks. Guests seek living spaces close to their
travel destinations that still provide family friendly and affordable accomodations.
Company energies should be focused on further developing Facebook content and
promoting engagement.

10. SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT CONTINUED
Competitors
 Competitor Assessment Summary:
 The above analysis focused on three major competitors with a strong social presence on Facebook, Instagram and
Twitter, respectively. Visually pleasing and consistent content is a strong throughout their profiles and hashtags
are used to expand their reach however, they could improve their two way communication and engagement with
their audience.
Competitor
Name
Social Media Profile Strengths Weaknesses
Tripping Facebook:
https://www.facebook.co
m/tripping
Visually strong: offering
pictures and videos of
places to visit
Not very engaging
FlipKey Instagram:
https://www.instagram.co
m/flipkey_vacation/
Visually pleasing and
uses multiple hashtags
to expand its audience
Attempts to engage
with followers but
not very effectively
HomeAway Twitter:
https://twitter.com/home
away
Strong utilization of
both visual and written
context
Inconsistent
hashtags.

11. SOCIAL MEDIA OBJECTIVES
In 2017, our main focus for our social media strategy will center on
expanding our audience reach in order to generate more traffic to our
social pages. To do so, our social media priorities will be growing online
following + community by sharing more engaging, relevant content and
building deeper relationships with our customers by using consistent
hashtags and encouraging more feedback from our audience.
Gender Distribution
Male Female
Age Distribution
18 - 30 31 - 40 41 - 55 56 - 80
0
20
40
60
Facebook Instagram Twitter
Primary Social Network
Primary Social Network

12. SOCIAL MEDIA OBJECTIVES CONTINUED
Some specific objectives include:
 1. Increase unique visitors from social properties to website by 20% in 6 months
via:
 a. Increased brand awareness through increased mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram (making
sure all social profiles are followed)
 b. Increased use of brand hashtags across all social platforms in order to be more consistent with our
brand name.
 2. Increase Instagram followers by 350,000 in 6 months.
 3. Increase volume of visual content published on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
profiles by 25% in 6 months and continue to do so.

13. SOCIAL MEDIA OBJECTIVES CONTINUED
KPIs
 1. Number of unique visitors from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
 2. Number of Instagram followers
 3. Number of weekly photo and video posts to Facebook and Instagram
 4. Sentiment analysis
Key Messages
 Different vacation styles to fit every travel need.
 A home away from home.

14. ONLINE BRAND PERSONA AND VOICE
Adjectives that describe
our brand:
 Vacation
 Diverse
 Pretty
 Green
 Sunny
When interacting with
customers we are:
 Friendly
 Grateful
 Celebratory

15. STRATEGIES AND TOOLS
Paid:
 Every Friday boost most popular organic Facebook posts for the weekend. The post must have a
minimum organic reach of 100, as well as a minimum of 100 likes or 25 comments.
Owned:
 Introduce the use of #VacayForEveryNeed to company Instagram posts. Share a minimum of 1 piece
of user-generated content per week to regram/shout out. Promote hashtag across all social
properties, email newsletters and promotional material to hosts for their arriving guests.
 When customers arrive for their stay, mention the hashtag and encourage them to use it if they plan
on taking photos of their visit.
Earned:
 Monitor Twitter for keywords and terms: Airbnb, travel, vacation, trip, bed and breakfast, and hotel.
Extend 20 discount codes to warm leads/prospects over the course of 3 months = unexpected
delight.
 Partner with the top 5 hosts and develop an influencer/advocate relationship. Co-develop a video
series “Travel Airbnb Style” to be shared on partner site and social channels. Content to be re-
posted to our social channels.

16. STRATEGIES AND TOOLS CONTINUED
Tools
 Approved Tools
 Hootsuite
 Buffer
 Rejected Tools
 N/A
 Existing Subscriptions/Licenses
 Kapost
 Vimeo
 Qualaroo
 Photoshop

17. TIMING AND KEY DATES
Holiday Dates
 New Years Holiday
 Spring Break
 Summer Break
 Thanks Giving Break
 Christmas Holiday
Internal Events
 June 29th + 30th - Community Weather Relief Drive
 December 14th + 15th - Community Food and Toys Drive
Reporting Dates
 Reporting will occur once a quarter in February, May, August and November. Precise
dates TBA.

18. SOCIAL MEDIA ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
Joe Gebbia
 CPO & Co-Founder
Brian Chesky
 Co-founder, CEO, Head of Community
Nathan Blecharczyk
 CSO & Co-Founder

19. SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY
Social media has become a huge part of our everyday lives. As a company,
we use it to spread company messages, engage with customers and
partners, and to share our personal activities, thoughts, ideas, plans and
more with our audiencce. Employees of Airbnb are expected to demonstrate
their best etiquette practices with the help of some simple rules:
 Treat everyone with respect
 Use common sense
 Don’t post anything illegal or troublesome.
 Be polite, not rude or insensitive
 Engage nicely, don’t create problems.
 Welcome strangers
 Be helpful to customers
 Don’t slag the competition
 Share with your own networks about what excites you within our company.
 Have any questions? Simply ask us if you’re not sure.

20. SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY CONTINUED
Airbnb is expects employees to be appropriate when it comes to the
use of social media. Violating Airbnb’s social policy can result in
corrective action including termination if seen as fit. Other
consequences included being subject to legal action, including
criminal prosecution. As a company, we reserve the right to take any
further action we believe is appropriate. If you have any questions or
concerns please speak with anyone on our management team.

21. CRITICAL RESPONSE PLAN
Scenario 1 - Inappropriate Tweet Sent from @airbnb
 Action Plan
 1. When Tweet is detected:
 Screenshot the Tweet
 Delete Tweet
 Alert Brian Chesky (Head of Community). If Brian is unavailable, alert Joe Gebbia (Co-founder, CPO.)
 2. Discuss with Brian the impact and reach to determine further action.
 3. Together develop an appropriate follow up Tweet, for the rest of management team to approve.
 4. If media has picked up the Tweet, Brain will manage all direct contact. If he is unavailable, seek out Joe
Gebbia to manage all contact.
 5. Brian and Joe will discuss with the employee responsible for publishing the Tweet and see if disciplinary
action is required.
 Pre-approved messaging:
 THERE NO PRE-APPROVED MESSAGING IN THIS SCENARIO
 Messaging depends on the nature of the tweet - to be developed by Brian and Joe.

22. CRITICAL RESPONSE PLAN CONTINUED
Scenario 2 – Unready Rental, other accomodations available. E.G. Rental was
never cleaned but a similar rental is available nearby
Action Plan
 1. Site crew to alert Joe Gebbia or Nathan Blecharczyk (Co-founders). Joe or Nathan to alert Brian Chesky (Head
of Community).
 2. Brian to sync with Joe and Nathan and evaluate the number of social media mentions of the situation.
 3. If media has picked up the incident, Brian to manage all direct contact. If Brian is unavailable, Joe or Nathan
will manage all contact.
 4. Joe or Nathan to push messaging to social channel where the news broke first. Continue to monitor the
spread of the news to other social channels and push messaging there as necessary.
 5. Brian to evaluate the need for a longer statement and write one, if necessary.
 6. Entire management team is to continue monitoring the situation and bring in other support as needed.
 Pre-approved messaging:
 Twitter: “Despite the mix up, our guests have happily settled into another great property of ours. The previous l
will be closed until further notice.”
 Facebook: “We’re happy to announce our guests have settled into one of our other great properties despite the
mix up that occurred today. The ____ rental will be closed until we discuss and solve the issue with its
caretakers.”

23. MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING RESULTS
Quantitative KPIs
 Reporting Period: 3 months
 Data as of May 22, 2017
Website Traffic Sources Assessment
 Timeframe: Monthly average, May 2017 to August 2017
Source Volume Percentage of
Overall Traffic
Conversion Rate
Facebook 128,700 Unique Visits
+10% growth
50% 8.7%
Twitter 5610 Unique Visits
+10% growth
12% 3.2%
LinkedIn 420 Unique Visits
+5% growth
3% 0.043%

24. MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING RESULTS
CONTINUED
Social Network Data
 Timeframe: as of August 22, 2017
Social
Network
URL Follower
Count
Average Weekly
Activity
Engagement
Rate
Twitter twitter.com/airbnb 662,670
+11% growth
8 posts per week
+30% increase
38%
Facebook Facebook.com/airbnb 8,037,448
+25% growth
8 posts per week
+200% increase
36%
Instagram Instagram.com/airbnb 2,090,000
+10% growth
23 posts per
week
+90% increase
Avg.
Interactions per
post: 225
LinkedIn Linkedin.com/airbnb 4,168,957
+15% growth
4 posts per week
+35% increase
1%

25. MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING RESULTS
CONTINUED
Our Instagram following has grown by 190,000 in 3 months, on track to hit
the target of 350,000 followers in a 6 month timeframe. It’s important to
note that the average interactions per post have increased by 88% from 106
to 200.
The social content team has done amazing work developing visual content.
We have far surpassed our goal of increasing visual content by 25% in 6
months on Facebook and Instagram and achieved a 200% increase on both
channels. A key tactic to this growth has been our ability to track user
generated content with the #VacayForEveryone hashtag and share it on our
networks. This content is received very well within our community.
After debate, we decided to continue to use our LinkedIn profile to serve as a
community site for our hosts. To improve the page, we should consider a
greater focus on developing company culture-centered content. Look to our
successes on Facebook on Instagram and consider implementing those here.