New Facebook Group - Book your Holiday direct with the Owner

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GRL
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Post by GRL »

Since I started this thread on [url=ttps://www.facebook.com/groups/bookholidaysdirect/]Book Your Holiday Direct with the Owner[/url] the admin on the group have introduced several new initiatives to help owners get those all important direct bookings:

1. We made the group Public - in this way anyone can see the group without having to become a member if they don't want to. They can view the posts and albums of properties etc and so contact owners directly without having to put out a request on the group. It means our membership may never be as high as closed groups but we are likely to reach a larger audience and get owners those all important direct bookings.

2. We have created an interactive map - properties are included on the map with a link to their website. This map is publicly viewable here: http://bit.ly/2jxyetU

3. We have a twitter account @BookHolsDirect. We RT publicity posts from the owners on BYHD

4. We organise the Twitter hour #HolsDirect, Monday 7pm UK time, when owners can showcase their properties and holidaymakers can see the advantages of booking direct. This hour regularly reaches between 50,000 and 100,000 twitter accounts - that is a lot of potential guests. Details here about our Feb 20th #HolsDirect hour on our blog

5. We have featured properties on both the FB page and our Twitter page.

So if you own a cottage, gite or villa in the UK, Ireland or France and would like more bookings direct with guests please do come and join us - https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookholidaysdirect/
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GRL
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Post by GRL »

A quick update to say that Book Your Holiday Direct with the Owner now has 441 properties on our interactive map from over 300 owners and more owners are still to be added. We therefore have somewhere around 2500 potential holidaymakers on the group and today for example we had requests for properties up 4hrs from Essex, 3hrs from The Wirral, South Lake District and a UK beach holiday.

If you have a cottage, gite or villa in the UK, France or Ireland and want more direct bookings please do come and join. The group is now closed so you do not bombard your friends with all your publicity posts and holidaymakers can ask for dates knowing their posts are not seen by everyone.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookholidaysdirect/

You can see our map here although please note it is not interactive on iphones and you will need to use another phone, tablet or computer to get the links to work http://bit.ly/2jxyetU

Thank you :)
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GRL
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Post by GRL »

Our map has now gone over 500 properties - 520 to be precise - meaning Book Your Holiday Direct with the Owner provides a significant resource to holidaymakers wishing to book holidays direct with the owner. We further spread the idea of booking direct via our weekly Twitter Hour #HolsDirect, every Monday at 7pm UK time. Come and join us and promote both your properties and how good booking direct is for owners and holidaymakers. We'll ask 4 questions through the hour and you can see them here to prepare your answers http://bookholsdirect.blogspot.fr/2017/ ... april.html
KathyG
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Post by KathyG »

Thank you Rosie, I did't know about the Twitter Hour so I'll go and look at that! :D
Kathy
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"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am."
SusanMay
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Post by SusanMay »

Hello,

I'm new to Facebook and have just set up a personal profile and holiday cottage page last week. I created a post about my cottage and went to share it with this Facebook group Book Your Holiday Direct With The Owner on Saturday. A minute or so after I suddenly got a message about suspicious activity on my Facebook account and had to submit a picture of myself. Then they disabled me. A very short social media career indeed! Anyway, after appealing (in which I had to send an copy of id), I was pleased this afternoon to find I could log back in.

You've guessed it. Straight after trying to share my post again up popped the suspicious activity message, the request to attach a picture, and I can't log back in. It's too much of a coincidence to not be something to do with trying to share my post. I would be grateful if anyone here could tell me if they have had this happen to them? Or if they have any idea why it might be happening? Needless to say I've only done the bare minimum in Facebook so far to create my cottage page and haven't done anything which could be considered at all suspicious.

Thanks,
Susan
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

I can assure you it is a genuine group, and nothing to do with suspicious activity, I'm advertising on there myself, and added a post just this morning.
SusanMay
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Post by SusanMay »

Hi, yes I didn't for one minute think it wasn't a genuine group. I just wondered if anyone more Facebook savvy might have seen this before, posting to this group or any other, or indeed doing anything else in Facebook. I'm feeling picked on!
Hells Bells
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Post by Hells Bells »

Sorry, I misunderstood what you were getting at.
Not seen it before, but I assume FB doesn't have sufficient proof you are who you say you are. Have you verified your account using your mobile number?
SusanMay
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Post by SusanMay »

Yes, and now they've even seen my driving licence. Trouble is it seems to be impossible to communicate with them in any way. They didn't tell me why I was disabled and they didn't tell me that I was allowed back either, just found I could log back in. And now it's happened again. If I get access back I'm not sure I should risk trying to post onto the group again but that was the whole point of my foray into Facebook :cry:

I was rather hoping that someone else on this forum had had the same problem as I didn't see I could be doing anything unique, or someone who knew a bit about Facebook's ways. Looking at their terms and conditions the only think I could think I may have broken is the fact that I am advertising. But only my cottage in a way that everyone else seems to do without a problem!

Never mind, thanks for replying.
africanpenguin
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Post by africanpenguin »

I think the problem is that you are behaving exactly like a scammer would, and the bots are picking this up and blocking your profile. Setting up a new profile, uploading minimal information, associating a business page, joining groups and then trying to advertise - all really classic scammer behaviour that FB is trying to prevent.

I think that if you want to use Facebook you will need to put more time into growing what looks *to the algorithms* to be a genuine profile. So friend people you know who have Facebook profiles, post regularly to your own and business page, like other pages from your personal page, have a reasonably complete profile.
SusanMay
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Post by SusanMay »

Oh gosh really. All these years I've deliberately kept away from Facebook as I know I could easily spend much too much time pottering around in it (I have to fit in twitter, instagram, lay my hat etc etc!) and now it looks like there is is no escape (if they ever let me back on that is). Thanks africanpenguin!
COYS
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Post by COYS »

SusanMay, I suppose africanpenguin could be on the right track, however my own experience suggests otherwise.
I have only a business page, fairly new, occasional postings etc. I have never used a personal profile (only for setting up the business page) so it remains inactive, devoid of personal info, friends, posts etc. This doesn't appear to affect my business page as far as I can tell. I have been able to build share & circulate my page, 'like' other pages & comment on posts (as my page) & generally do with it what I intended to do without being asked to produce driving licences, fingerprints, DNA ......
However, I'm not certain, but fairly sure after previous advice here that you have to join groups as a person rather than a page so maybe this is your issue?
Have you tried getting in touch with the page admin rather than FB admin just to make sure it's not something so simple?

Anyway, stick with it, as although I started as an ageing sceptic & remain so on a personal level, for a purely business page I am beginning to see its usefulness alongside other channels.
This time next year Rodney, we'll be millionaires.
SusanMay
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Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:23 pm
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Post by SusanMay »

Yes thanks COYS. Before I started I read online info about setting up a business Facebook page and they said if you haven't got a personal account just set one up first, all you need is email, name and date and date of birth, and off you go, so just like you have. I can only presume Facebook has very recently become more aggressive to try and ensure new users are going to use the personal side of things too but googling doesn't find other people in the same boat as me which is a bit strange. It does make me cross that the company can just do these things to their users with no explanation.

I did join the group as myself rather than as my business page so I don't think it can be that. I was also trying to share my business page post to the group as myself (I think). I can't see anything now anyway as I'm "disabled as a safety precaution" while they check out another photo I've uploaded. They'll have an album soon :roll:
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GRL
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Post by GRL »

I am sorry you are having problems SusanMay and it is certainly nothing from our admin end of BYHD. However you might want to start a new thread about this problem in the social media section as that way you may get some more specific help from those more in the know.
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GRL
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Post by GRL »

.... and whilst I am here I might as well mention that BYHD now has almost 600 properties on our interactive map offering a wide range of quality accommodation to our members. Please do come and join us if you want to work towards getting more direct bookings .... and let all your friends and family know. We may never beat the big boys but we can provide one alternative for those owners who want to go it alone.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookholidaysdirect/

We also now have an Instagram account and share photos from owner members - https://www.instagram.com/bookholsdirect/

and our Twitter page from where we run the #BookHolsDirect Hour every Monday night at 7pm UK time and share some of our owners' tweets - https://twitter.com/BOOKHOLSDIRECT

... oh and our FB page (as opposed to the closed group) where we further promote properties, interesting holiday related posts and the book direct message - https://www.facebook.com/bookyourholidaydirect/
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