Lay My Hat

Bonjour everyone. For those of you with cottages, gites or B&Bs in the UK or France this may be of interest to you. A group of holiday home owning friends, including myself, have got together to create a new Facebook group called Book you Holiday Direct with the Owner. Owners can promote their property and holidaymakers can search for holidays and dealing direct with you, the owner. No middle man. No commission/booking fees. No annual subscriptions.

I have written a bit more about it in this blog - http://bit.ly/1FKicSw - or just pop on over and read the About section on the group:-

https://www.facebook.com/groups/330425836972747/

This format has worked well for those of us on a similar dog friendly group so we felt it wasa good direction to head bearing in mind the changes afoot with OD and the other big listing sites.

Time to claw back a bit of control!

Good idea - well done.

Any plans to include Portugal ?

Lol the format looks like I might just have had quite a lot to do with that. I'm an admin on a certain dog friendly group who brought in the albums and once a day postings.

I've sent my request

Once I'm in I will be blogging about both groups!

Oh, well done Rosie ... I have to confess I've had rumblings to do the same but have been a bit iffy because of the tone of some of the postings on the dog-friendly (hah!) group. (And because I have more than enough to do to be an admin, having just retired from being admin elsewhere).

Request on the way

Request sent.

Looks good, best wishes for a successful site.

It is a small world and getting smaller. I looked at the site and the first person I noticed was someone whose blog I read.

Brilliant Rosie. I will be having a good look at this asap. Am in France now visiting grandchildren and rather tied up with bath time etc....

I requested to join but have just realised it doesn't include USA - is there a reason it is restricted to certain countries?

Yes I'd agree Arkvilla; to promote growth there's no reason to exclude other countries. I'd love to see it do as well as the dog group which is about to hit 16000 members. These last few months has seen its growth go stratospheric!

I know you've just changed the name of the group but I'd also suggest making it shorter and snappier? Holidays Direct with the Owner perhaps? I don't know if you can change it again as I assume fb limits this? It's also connected to the number of members too - I think it's 250.

I like the fact that caravans are excluded too. It's the one thing I dislike in the dog group. They can take over the timeline and yet there are so many caravan groups out there for them.

Nemo wrote:Yes I'd agree Arkvilla; to promote growth there's no reason to exclude other countries. I'd love to see it do as well as the dog group which is about to hit 16000 members. These last few months has seen its growth go stratospheric!

I know you've just changed the name of the group but I'd also suggest making it shorter and snappier? Holidays Direct with the Owner perhaps? I don't know if you can change it again as I assume fb limits this? It's also connected to the number of members too - I think it's 250.

I like the fact that caravans are excluded too. It's the one thing I dislike in the dog group. They can take over the timeline and yet there are so many caravan groups out there for them.

It's easy to create albums for each country and with the internet the world is a much smaller place

I am cynic when it comes to social media in general but I do see the benefit from a business point of view of a group like Rosie's.
I have pressed the "Join the Group" button on the site as ESSARHOLS.

Other on here maybe be surprised to learn that I have a fb account & page and even a twatter account. However, I am not a real contributor I can never think of anything to add and I certainly won't ramble ala Stephen Fry (pointless celeb).

Essar yes you have surprised me! The only thing I would warn you that facebook do not like you using a profile that's isn't in your own name as it breaks their rules. They shut profiles like that down without warning.

Nemo wrote:Essar yes you have surprised me! The only thing I would warn you that facebook do not like you using a profile that's isn't in your own name as it breaks their rules. They shut profiles like that down without warning.

It's a business page not me as a real person; that would be a step too far!

UK and France? How do I place my rental in Spain or is that not possible? I have joined but will be interested to see how it develops.

Essar wrote:

Nemo wrote:Essar yes you have surprised me! The only thing I would warn you that facebook do not like you using a profile that's isn't in your own name as it breaks their rules. They shut profiles like that down without warning.

It's a business page not me as a real person; that would be a step too far!

A page can't join a group though?