A screen shot from Getting Away Together's episode in Kissimmee.

A new reality show highlighting the trend of sharing a vacation rental with families and friends is now airing on PBS. The show, Getting Away Together, is a part of a Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) initiative to showcase the trend and raise awareness about vacation rentals as a growing alternative to hotels.

The show is expected to generate great publicity for the professionally-managed vacation rental industry and the thousands of managers across the nation. Boise-based LiveRez, the vacation rental software Gold Sponsor of the VRMA, works with more than 500 professional vacation rental manager partners from across North America and beyond.

“This show allows America to see firsthand what staying in a vacation rental is all about,” said Tracy Lotz, founder and CEO of LiveRez. “With Getting Away Together, the VRMA has done a great job documenting not only the value and quality of vacation rentals, but also the bonding friends and family experience when staying together.”

VRMA President Steve Trover said a lot of parties have been involved in getting this show on the air.

“Getting Away Together has been a collective effort of VRMA staff, board, and members, industry supporters and sponsors, and PineRidge Television,” Trover said. “It is exciting that so many PBS stations have picked up and started airing the show.  Getting Away Together strengthens VRMA's Discover Vacation Homes consumer awareness initiative, as millions of PBS viewers will be introduced to vacation rentals.”

A screen shot from Getting Away Together's episode in North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The show will follow groups of real vacationers as they experience all that vacation rentals have to offer. Cameras will follow the travelers as they enjoy the many local activities, dining opportunities, history and scenery of these great destinations, as well as showcase the variety of amenities offered by the vacation homes where the travelers stay.

“Trips taken with friends, children, grandparents and extended family represent one of the only consistently rising types of travel. As this ‘togethering’ trend continues, people are selecting vacation rentals for multi-bedroom accommodations and a sense of comfort under one roof,” said Steve Ingram, executive director of the VRMA. “Unlike other travel shows, Getting Away Together is the first reality travel series to focus on this trend. Each episode features a new group of travelers as they unwind with meaningful travel experiences in fun locales, with vacation rentals as their home base.”

And, if its producer’s track record is any indication, the show could see considerable success.

“The series is being produced by the Emmy Award-winning PineRidge Film & Television Company, which has proven travel series success with Great Hotels, Great Vacation Homes, Passport to Europe and more and is made possible in part through support from TripAdvisor®, CSA Travel Protection and our dynamic travel destination partners,” Ingram said.

The first full episode – which takes place in St. Augustine, FL – was posted online January 18. You can view a preview of the episode, along with previews of future episodes, embedded below. To check air times, visit GettingAwayTogether.com.

The show’s first season features thirteen episodes including popular destinations, such as St. Augustine, FL; Kissimmee, FL; Central Oregon; the Outer Banks of North Carolina; and Oceanside, CA.

Show Previews

Central Oregon

Oceanside, CA

St. Augustine

Outer Banks

Kissimmee

To learn more about the show, visit GettingAwayTogether.com. And, for more resources on vacation rentals also check out VRMA.com and DiscoverVacationHomes.com.

Learn More About LiveRez

LiveRez is the fastest growing vacation rental software provider for professional vacation rental managers. The company’s cloud-based, end-to-end platform offers fully integrated solutions for reservation management, trust accounting and online marketing, with high-ranking, high-conversion dynamic websites and an extensive affiliate marketing program. The company is a proud Gold Sponsor of the Vacation Rental Manager’s Association (VRMA).

Visit LiveRez.com to learn more:

• Take a Demo
• View Features
• Read Testimonials

Last week TODAY aired a segment on a number of vacation rental scams, highlighting the importance of booking your vacation through a professional vacation rental manager.

Just last week TODAY highlighted yet another reason to rent from professional vacation rental managers. The segment (see video below) detailed a number of vacation rental scams where criminals listed and took payment to rent homes they did not own. In many cases, there was no way for the victims to recover their money, especially for those that wired funds or paid with a check.

Incidents like this have been widely reported in the news lately, stressing a growing concern about the security of renting vacation homes. The prevalence of these scams reinforces the importance of renting from professional vacation rental managers.

Steve Trover, CEO of All Star Vacation Homes in Orlando, FL, said that when researching vacation rentals, there are many things travelers can look for to feel confident in booking.

“Professional affiliations, such as the Better Business Bureau, AAA, VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association), and local affiliations, such as the chambers of commerce and destination marketing partnerships, show a commitment to the hospitality and travel industries,” Trover said. “Going with a professional manager gives travelers far more ability to check into the validity of the company and the property than if renting through an individual home owner or single listing online.”

According to Brooke Pfautz, of Vantage Resort Realty in Ocean City, MD, people are being too trusting of those they meet online.

“It surprises me how much research people will do when they are about to purchase an $800 to $1,000 computer. However, when they are ready to drop $2,000 to $4,000 on a vacation rental, they are willing to deal with a complete stranger that they found online,” Pfautz said.

Pfautz offered a number of suggestions for avoiding these scams, including checking the credentials of the rental company, paying with a credit card, being leery of prices that are well below the going rate, educating yourself about the company (reading reviews, asking for references, etc.) and checking the location of the property with Google Maps or Mapquest.

Steve Ingram, executive director of the VRMA, said that confidence and security during the booking process is just one of the many advantages of renting from a professional manager.

“Travelers wanting comfort and value should look for a professionally managed vacation rental to ensure consistent hospitality services and quality assurance standards, as well as professionally cleaned and managed homes, ongoing and objective inspections, and concierge-type services that provide destination expert advice,” Ingram said. “Established companies will offer an emergency guest services contact that guests can call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for questions, maintenance issues, and more.”

Mark Tolan of Seaside Vacation Homes in Seaside, OR, also emphasized service, as well as security.

The TODAY segment detailed the stories of the victims of vacation rental scams -- both guests and home owners. You can view the segment embedded below.

"Aside from having an infrastructure of office personnel and contractors to resolve unexpected maintenance needs, using established management companies offers guests the peace of mind that they will have a place to stay,” Tolan said. “Not risking being homeless on vacation should more than make up for the minimal additional cost –  if there is any – for passing on that homeowner-managed property and going with an established brand.”

Tolan argues that properties that aren’t professionally managed may only appear to be a better deal, but upon further inspection the level of service far outweighs any additional cost.

“One of the biggest things vacationers take for granted is the service management companies provide,” Tolan said. “It is easy to shop for a deal online and ultimately go with what APPEARS to be the best deal – one that values physical product and price, and discounts or ignores service. Experienced travelers realize that established companies provide service, which holds significant value alongside the physical product.”

Like Trover, Cheryl Taylor of Ventura Properties also operates in Orlando. Taylor, whose company has been in business since 1989, said that her business has suffered over the years because of the general public’s concern with vacation rental scams – like the ones highlighted on the TODAY segment.

She says travelers will want to ask rental companies how long they’ve been in a business and verify online that the companies are not only licensed to do business, but also submit the required sales and resort taxes. You can verify business licenses with the state or county – or in Florida, at SunBiz.org.

Paying taxes may not seem like something that would directly affect guest experience, but Kevin Kirby of Five Star Vacation Homes in Celebration, FL, says it can definitely come into play – both in terms of security and the difference in price offered by those that don’t pay taxes.

“This figure of 13% (in Florida) is a big difference in price,” Kirby said, “but the largest difference is being worry-free that a county or state official isn’t going to knock on the door of the vacation home and evict the guests from a home that is illegally rented, leaving (the guest) with nowhere to go and a headache to sort through.”

Like Tolan, Kirby says travelers often overlook service in favor of a lower price. In making the case to his guests about the advantages of professionally managed properties, Kirby often shares this quote from John Ruskin:

“The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

A good resource for those looking to learn more about professionally managed vacation homes is Discover Vacation Homes, a VRMA initiative that details the benefits of vacation rentals and professional managers and offers resources in helping you plan your next vacation.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When VRBOs don't pay transient occupancy taxes on their vacation rentals, they can often rent their vacation home out for a lower price, which often creates a competitive disadvantage for professional vacation rental managers and even other VRBOs who follow the law.

Last Friday, The Desert Sun newspaper of Palm Springs released the latest in what seems like a string of articles nationwide about local governments cracking down on individuals operating vacation rentals and not paying taxes. Similar issues have already been raised in Colorado, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and more.

But this issue goes much farther than cities collecting the taxes due to them; it goes straight to the heart of a competitive advantage these tax evaders have over vacation rental managers that pay taxes.

Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet told the Desert Sun that the effort wasn’t just about raising revenue from TOT (transient occupancy tax) funds.

“It levels the playing field for rental agencies and hotels,” he said. “It gives the city oversight over who is renting the property and how it's being managed.”

Professional vacation rental managers (VRMs) in the area know this situation all too well.

Jim Pearce, who manages 200 properties as the owner and operator of Fairway Vacation Rentals in Palm Springs, told the Desert Sun that individuals who don’t pay the tax can undercut the prices offered by legitimate management companies that do pay taxes.

Another manager, Mike McLean of McLean Company rentals, told the Desert Sun that he operates at a “distinct disadvantage.”

“It's very competitive out there,'' he told the Sun. “We're all chasing the same travelers.”

Oversight Another Issue

In addition to the competitive disadvantage the situation creates for many legitimate vacation rental managers, the lack of oversight created by the issue may be actively contributing to yet another issue facing vacation rentals across the United States. Many cities nationwide are actively trying to increase regulations on vacation rentals, arguing that they lead to noise complaints and pollution, and can bring down home values, among other things.

Professional vacation rental managers counter the argument by contending that much of problem is coming from a few bad apples that rent out their property without properly establishing a code of conduct for renters and rarely check in on the guests using their vacation homes. Many VRMs strongly promote a good neighbor policy. And, they further argue that their guests actively contribute to the local economy through their patronage of local businesses while on vacation.

Further oversight on the part of the cities may help quell some of the issues surrounding trouble-causing vacation homes and the individuals who manage them. Conversely, outright regulations or even bans on vacation home rentals will likely hurt only the legitimate business and the local economy, and not those operators that “fly under the radar,” which are more likely to continue their practices despite regulations.

Support VRMs

LiveRez actively supports VRMs. In fact, the company has chosen to work exclusively with them because it feels that VRMs offer guests a more secure and consistently positive experience. If you’re looking to rent from a professional vacation rental manager that meets LiveRez’s stringent code of conduct, you should visit RezSecure.com – Trusted Vacation Rentals. Trusted Vacation Managers.

Learn More About LiveRez

LiveRez is the fastest growing vacation rental software provider for professional vacation rental managers. The company’s cloud-based, end-to-end platform offers fully integrated solutions for reservation management, trust accounting and online marketing, with high-ranking, high-conversion dynamic websites and an extensive affiliate marketing program. The company is a proud Gold Sponsor of the Vacation Rental Manager’s Association (VRMA).

Visit LiveRez.com to learn more:

• Take a Demo
• View Features
• Read Testimonials

Learning how to use Twitter isn't complicated. A simple overview can put you on the fast track to social media success.

Twitter is a strange bird (pun intended). Many people, especially those used to Facebook, can have a hard time picking up Twitter and utilizing it to their fullest. But, it doesn’t have to be confusing. In fact, once you learn a few basic concepts, Twitter is actually really easy to use.

It’s a great place for sharing content, getting advice and giving advice, and following the news. If used correctly, it can be a great tool in your marketing arsenal, both for disseminating your messages and for listening.  In the following blog, I will attempt to briefly describe Twitter and how to use it.

The main distinguishing feature of Twitter is brevity. On Twitter, you can only post in 140 characters or less. Because of this people mostly use their Twitter posts (called tweets) for short one-line updates, or use their posts as a headline and then insert a link that people can click to learn more. This makes Twitter a great place to get a breakdown of the “news” you care about. Now while many journalists are now breaking stories online, I use news in a more general sense. If you want to see what’s going on in the world as it relates to some topic, Twitter is one of the best places you can go…if you set it up correctly.

Let’s say I’m interested in the travel industry. I’d want to start following people important in the industry: journalists, brands, thought-leaders, etc. If I follow enough people, I’ll get a good idea of what’s going on in the industry all throughout the day. Not too many big things happen anymore that don’t make it on Twitter.

Twitter Lists

Now let’s say I’m interested in multiple topics, and now that I’m following so many people from so many industries, it’s hard to keep up with my feed. For example, if you follow 1,000 people, you’re likely to get a new update to your stream every few seconds. Twitter anticipated that and they created a list feature. Now, you can put any one of your contacts on one or more lists. So, if I want to follow only people in the travel industry, I’ll just go through and put those people on a Travel Industry list. Using programs like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, I can view those lists in separate groups making them easy to follow. And, for people who don’t want to spend the time making a list, they can just follow a list someone else has made. Listorious.com is a great place to search for these Twitter lists.

Hash Tags

Let’s say you want to follow just one topic or one event. Twitter has what they call a hash tag. To make a hash tag, all you have to do is enter a # before a string of characters (without spaces). This is a great way to follow conversations about a certain topic, even if you’re not following everyone who talks about it on Twitter. You have to be careful with hash tags, though. Hash tags are at their best when a group of people designate a certain hash tag for a certain topic. For example, the hash tag for this year’s 2011 Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) Conference was #VRMA2011. Anyone tweeting about the conference could include that hash tag in their tweet and then anyone following that tag could get their update, even if they weren’t following that person.

Mentions

Another cool feature of Twitter is an @ mention. Let’s say your tweet involves someone else on Twitter or might be important to a specific Twitter user. You can mention them in your tweet by including the @ tag and then their Twitter handle (for example, @LiveRez). That person will see that you mentioned them in your tweet when they check their mentions. It also creates a link back to that person’s account from your tweet.

ReTweets

ReTweets are a quick and easy way to share a tweet from someone you follow. All you need to do is hit the retweet button below their post and the post will be sent out to all the people who follow you. Good content on Twitter is often retweeted, and sometimes will even go “viral” because it becomes so popular.

DM (Direct Message)

If you want to send a private message to another Twitter user, you can do that through a DM (direct message). This type of communication is not used as much on Twitter as it is on other social networks.

How Twitter is Different

Twitter was designed to be more public. It’s more about sharing with the world, than sharing with your friends. You should know that everything you do on Twitter is public (besides DMs), unless you protect your tweets. If you decide to protect your tweets, only the people following you will be able to see your tweets, and people will only be able to follow you if you allow them to. However, very few people protect their tweets, especially if they’re trying to use Twitter professionally.

So, there you have it – the basics of Twitter. Do you have any advice for using Twitter? Have a question? Leave a post below using our Facebook comment plug-in (oh, the irony). And keep an eye out for an upcoming blog, where I’ll discuss the top 10 ways to grow your Twitter following.

Most blogs and news articles have a place at bottom where you can comment. This USA Today article uses a social plugin from Facebook that actually lets you comment on the article from your Facebook account. Make sure to include a link back to your website when you comment on blogs and news articles. It can help your SEO efforts.

Adding comments to news articles (and blogs) related to your industry is a quick and easy way to give a boost to your SEO strategy and create awareness about your company.  Commenting on these articles will help you create back links (links back to your website) for both SEO and marketing purposes.

You can find these articles through searches or just keep tabs on them through a comprehensive Web monitoring strategy. Once you find the article, scroll down to the bottom. Many news articles will have a place where readers can leave comments. They might request that you sign in and create an account. Once you’re approved, draft a comment that is related to the story and make sure to include a link back to your website.

But make sure your comment is adding value to the conversation or else your post might come across as comment spam (and the moderator might not approve your comment).

This strategy works equally well for commenting in a forum. Just make sure you include a link back to your website in your signature.

Listening to what people are saying online about your business is important.

Monitoring what people are saying about your business online is one of the most important things you can do as a company. The good news is that there are multiple tools online, most of them free, that can help you carefully follow Web conversations about your company. In the following post, I’ll go over how to use some of these simple tools to help you keep tabs on these conversations.

What to Look For

When I develop my web monitoring strategies, I like to break down my efforts into categories. Three main categories that all business should consider are: 1. Conversions about their business and their products and services, 2. Conversations about their competition, 3. Conversations about trends in the industry.

Inside each of those categories, I brainstorm terms that people would use in conversations about those subjects.

For conversations concerning your company, some keywords to consider would be:

• Your company name
• The names of any products or services you offer
• The names of company employees

For conversations concerning your competition, some keywords to consider would be:

• Your competitors’ names
• The names of their products and services
• The names of their key employees

For conversations concerning industry trends, some keywords to consider would be:

• Terms associated with your industry
• The names of thought-leaders and key influencers in your industry
• Any associations that cover your industry

After you complete this initial analysis, you’ll begin to notice some places that are consistently producing conversations you want to follow, and you’ll easily be able to follow them directly. The question is: How do you go about finding all this information?

Utilizing feeds can you a lot of time and effort in Web monitoring because you can set up all your information to flow to one place.

Take Advantage of Feeds

When you’re monitoring brand conversations online, feeds are your best friends. Most all news sites, blogs and even many search engines offer the ability for you to subscribe to a feed.  When monitoring your brand, you won’t have time to check multiple websites a day. You need the information to automatically flow to one place.

Google Alerts

If you haven’t heard, Google offers a very cool service called Google Alerts. Basically, Google Alerts lets you monitor key terms and phrases as they appear on Google. Anytime something new appears on Google, you’ll be notified – either by e-mail (you can choose the frequency) or via a feed. For example, let’s say you’re monitoring the phrase “vacation rentals.” Anytime something new pops up on the Internet relating to vacation rentals, whether it's a news article or just some new content on the Web, you’ll be notified. For important terms, I like to have Google e-mail me immediately. But for most alerts, I like to send it to a feed.

Getting alerts through feeds is easy with Google Alerts. You can specify this under the “Deliver to” option either when creating the alerts or editing the alerts. Once you switch the “Deliver to” option to feed, you’ll want to click on the orange RSS box. When you click on that box, it will bring up a new Web page with a bunch of code. But, you can just ignore all that programming language.  All you need to do is copy the URL (you know, the thing that starts with “www” in bar above). You’ll want to paste that URL into a feed reader. To learn how to do that, keep reading below.

Netvibes

There are a lot of feed readers out there (Google Reader, Feed Demon, Yahoo Pipes), but the one I use predominately is Netvibes. It’s free and it allows you to set up multiple dashboards for organizing your monitoring efforts. While it can set up dashboards for you automatically by entering search terms, I like to set up mine manually.

Adding content, such as a feed, to a Netvibes dashboard is pretty straightforward. You click on the green “Add Content” button in the top, left-hand corner and then click on “Add a Feed.” Simply copy and paste in the URL of the feed (told you I’d get to this). And finally, click on add content.

In the widget view, the feed will show up as a box below, and the feed items will show up as bulleted lists in those boxes. In the reader view, you can sort through and combine all the feeds in that dashboard. You can switch between the widget view and reader view with a button at the top of the page.

Monitor Daily

Once you have your feeds set up, you’ll want to log into your feed reader at least once a day and scan through all of items it brings up. If you find that some, or even most, of the items aren’t relevant, you might want to go back and refine your Google Alert parameters. But, you don’t want to monitor so narrowly that you’re missing key news. Sometimes, sorting through results can be like searching for hidden treasure. It takes a little longer, but finding a relevant bit of useable intelligence (especially before your competition) is well worth the effort.

Monitoring mentions of your business on Twitter is another good way to track online brand conversations.

Put Out Fires Early

If you are good at Web monitoring, you’ll quickly be able to identify problems and opportunities online and deal with them promptly. Maybe it’s a guest complaining about their stay with you or simply a prospective guest searching for more information. Web monitoring allows you to identify these problems and opportunities early, before they get out of hand. Remember, things can go viral on the Internet extremely quickly, so make sure you’re keeping a watchful eye and dealing with problems and opportunities proactively.

Monitoring Twitter

If you really want to get crazy with monitoring, you can watch conversations on Twitter. This used to be way easier before Twitter did away with RSS feeds. Now, you have to go back and modify the old RSS feed URLs. You’ll want to start with this base: “http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=”  If you wanted to search vacations, you’d add the word “vacations” to the end of the URL (“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=vacations”). If you wanted to search vacation rental software, you’d need to add “vacation+rental+software” to the end of the URLs (“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q= vacation+rental+software” ). For more complicated searches, Sociable has a great article explaining the ins and outs.

Happy Web Monitoring!

Rumor has it, adding a Google +1 button to your website could help your SEO efforts.

Earlier this year, Google introduced its own social network, Google+ – believed by many to be the company’s answer to Facebook. While Google+ is not yet available for businesses (it’s coming soon, they say), businesses can still take advantage of Google+ right now by utilizing Google’s answer to the Facebook “Like” button.

You may have noticed that little “+1” button next to the results in your Google searches. Clicking that button is roughly the equivalent of liking that page (or result) and recommending it to the people you’re connected with through your Google account. As you +1 pages, your recommendations will be shared with the people you’re connected with via your Google account. The video below explains the concept more fully.

According to rumors in the SEO community, increasing the amount of +1s your website has will help improve your search engine rankings on Google. Therefore, as you seek to grow your vacation rental business, you’ll want to put a +1 button in all the places you would normally put a Facebook like button: on your website, on your blog, etc.

You can generate the html code for the +1 button here. The video below shows how the +1 button helps give searchers recommendations, and provides instructions for how to add the button to your website. And, if you use WordPress for your blog, there are a lot of great social media plug-ins that include the Google +1 button (no coding experience necessary).

If you’re interested in the increasingly important intersection of SEO and social media, check out our recent blog on social search. And, to see the Google +1 button in action on a website, go to LiveRez.com. And, be sure to +1 us!

And the winner is….

LiveRez.com Founder and CEO Tracy Lotz congratulates Margy Roe of Ocean Properties and Vacation Rentals, Inc. on winning LiveRez.com's iPad 2 giveaway.

Margy Roe of Ocean Properties and Vacation Rentals in New Smyrna Beach, Florida is the winner of LiveRez.com's iPad 2 Giveaway at the 2011 National VRMA Conference. The announcement took Roe completely by surprise.

"I was very excited. I had no idea. I kind of forgot I even put my card in there," she said. "So, this is nice. Thank you!"

LiveRez.com Founder and CEO Tracy Lotz congratulated Roe shortly after the announcement.

"Seeing the look on Margy's face when she realized that she had won an iPad 2 was awesome!" Lotz said. "This is one of the funnest things that we do at the VRMA conference, and we are glad to have given it to such a nice lady."

Shortly after the announcement, Roe was still shocked that she had won. According Roe, her boss, Kelley, is normally is the lucky one.

"Maybe it's rubbing off on me," she said.

So how does winning the iPad compare to Roe's success in other contests?

"This is the most amazing thing I have ever won!" Roe said.  "Thank you very much!"

Did you miss our own Tyler Hurst's workshop at this year's 2011 VRMA National Conference? Hurst, along with vacation rental managers Betsy LaBarge and Colleen Almoney, presented on the "5 Fundamentals of Closing Bookings over the Phone." If you missed the presentation, you can view the slides online or check out the video highlights below.