Public Relations Strategy for Airbnb Owners with Holly Mitton

I sat down with Holly Mitten, owner of Little Bird Boston, a boutique PR and marketing agency. Holly works primarily with small businesses in the lifestyle, real estate, travel, and hospitality industries. She joined me to unpack what PR really looks like today and how short-term rental owners and realtors can weave it into their marketing strategies.

What Is Earned Media?

Holly introduced us to the concept of earned media, which sits alongside owned and paid media.

• Owned media: your website, your social media channels, and the platforms where you control the message.
• Paid media: advertising- Google Ads, digital ads, and paid social campaigns.
• Earned media: when journalists, influencers, or other external sources talk about your business. It’s “earned” because you didn’t pay for it, you gained their attention through relevance and value.

Why does this matter? Earned media comes across as more authentic and credible. Customers know when they’re being advertised to, but when they see a third-party source sharing your story, it acts as powerful social proof.

Where Should Short-Term Rental Owners Start with PR?

For many hosts, the first step is identifying where your guests are coming from. Holly explained that PR efforts often start regionally. For example, a short-term rental in New Hampshire could pitch travel writers at the Boston Globe who regularly feature getaways in New England.

Regional coverage often leads to more direct bookings. At the same time, national publications, like Travel & Leisure, offer credibility, backlinks, and SEO value that strengthen your brand’s online presence. Holly recommends balancing both:

• Local media: drives immediate bookings.
• National media: builds long-term authority and boosts SEO.

How Journalists and Travel Writers Work

Many travel writers put out calls for pitches through newsletters or industry networks. Holly shared how she often sees writers announcing upcoming trips and asking for recommendations. For short-term rental owners, responding can be as simple as sending photos, links, and details or as involved as hosting the journalist for a stay.

While hosting a journalist can require upfront costs (like a complimentary stay), the resulting publicity can be invaluable.

Why Knowing Guest Origins Matters

I couldn’t help but connect Holly’s advice to my own experience. When my husband and I lived near Topsail Island in North Carolina, I worked at a local coffee shop. I noticed so many visitors came from Ohio—something I’d never considered until I saw it firsthand.

Similarly, my sister-in-law’s New Jersey community almost exclusively vacations in Florida. These patterns matter. If you know where your guests are coming from, you can tailor your PR outreach to the media outlets they’re already consuming.

Building Local Partnerships

PR isn’t just about media. Holly also emphasized the importance of partnerships with nearby businesses. Think restaurants, activity providers, or tourism boards. By creating a packaged experience for visiting journalists, you can:

• Highlight not just your rental, but your region as a destination.
• Share promotion with partners, so the entire local ecosystem benefits.
• Increase your chances of being included in itinerary-style articles, which journalists often love to write.

When pitching partners, Holly suggested keeping it simple. For example: offering a free dinner to a journalist in exchange for being included in coverage. Restaurants and activity providers usually find the cost negligible compared to the visibility gained.

Influencer Marketing as PR

The world of influencers has shifted into the PR space too. Holly explained that working with influencers can range from affordable partnerships with smaller, regional creators to extremely expensive campaigns with national accounts.

Here’s her breakdown:

• Smaller influencers (under 10k followers): often more affordable, more niche, and regionally focused. Great for driving real bookings.
• Larger influencers (100k+ followers): expensive and less targeted. Their audience may be scattered, which doesn’t always help fill your rental.

Her advice? Experiment with different types of influencers and track what works. Sometimes two bookings from a small, local influencer can be far more impactful than paying five figures for a single disappearing Instagram Story.

Holly emphasized that fit beats follower count every time. A smaller, regionally relevant creator who genuinely loves what you offer can outperform a large account with a scattered audience. It’s not unusual to see better results from a local creator with 5–10k followers than from a 300k mega-influencer, especially when the cost difference is massive.

The process almost always starts with outreach: ask for media kits, look through their content for authentic alignment (e.g., a hiking-obsessed creator for your mountain Airbnb), and confirm where their audience actually lives. From there, test a mix that fits your budget and track the results. And remember, strong outcomes often come from nurtured relationships, not one-off transactions.

Family travel is a powerful niche, too. If your property serves both couples and families, pitch distinct itineraries and value props for each. Some creators may ask for travel costs to be covered (airfare, ground transport). This is where your local tourism board can be a game-changer: many have budgets to support influencer trips and media visits. You supply the stay; they help with flights and activity passes. Piggybacking on those resources can stretch your PR dollars much further.

Measuring PR & Influencer ROI

The most frequent pushback I hear is, “How do I prove this is working?” Holly’s playbook starts with Google Analytics set up correctly on your direct booking site so you can track:

• Referral links from articles and creator content
• Time on site and pages per session (quality and intent indicators)
• Assisted conversions and, where possible, bookings

If your bookings run solely through Airbnb/VRBO, your visibility into source traffic is limited—making a direct booking site invaluable for attribution. For influencer partnerships, use unique tracking links, discount codes, or contest mechanics (“follow for $50 off”) to trace outcomes. Then, remarket to high-intent visitors with Google and social ads to capture those later-stage bookings that PR often seeds.

Mining Your Brand Story (Yes, You Have One)

Plenty of owners say, “We just bought an investment property—there’s no story.” But there almost always is. Holly’s advice: talk it out with someone who can reflect the “oh wow” moments back to you—PR pros, marketers, even a journalist friend. What details make people lean in? What’s different, unexpected, or delightfully specific about your place, your path, or your guests’ experience?

I’ll go first: I used to think we didn’t have a story either, until I realized both of our first two STRs weren’t intended to be short-term rentals when we bought them. I’m the accidental STR owner (twice!). It was sitting so close to me I couldn’t see it. Your story may be hiding in plain sight, too.

Case Study Inspiration: Bolt Farm Treehouse

At the Level Up Your Listing Summit in Arizona (hosted by Natalie Palmer and Tatiana Taylor-Tate), I heard the Bolt Farm Treehouse story from Seth and Tori Bolt. With a PR background, Tori leveraged media relationships and storycraft so effectively they reportedly sold over $1M in reservations before closing on a property.

A few takeaways Holly underscored:

• They show up everywhere in listicles (“best mountain treehouses,” etc.). That’s classic earned media.
• They champion the area, not just their property. Seth has been quoted highlighting nearby experiences, helpful context journalists need to build compelling stories.
• They aim high (celebrity stays, major outlets) without neglecting foundational tactics—timely pitches, great visuals, and hyper-useful local intel.

For the rest of us: don’t be intimidated. You don’t need a celebrity mention to win. Start with local tourism boards, regional writers, and useful, area-rich pitches.

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Be Useful: Pitch the Place, Not Just the Property

Journalists crave context. If you pitch, “I have a great Airbnb in West Virginia,” but don’t explain why the destination matters, your story falls flat. Lead with what to do nearby, hidden gems, and how your stay fits into an itinerary. Some writers will want an on-site visit; others can build a piece from strong visuals and a well-structured brief. Your job is to make their job easy.

The Long Game of PR

One of the biggest lessons Holly shared is that PR is a long-term investment. Journalists often plan far in advance, and the industry has shifted heavily toward freelancers, meaning pitches must first get approval from an editor. That slows the process down.

She even told me about a journalist who responded to an email three years after she had sent it. Three years! They had saved it in their inbox and decided to finally pursue the story. That’s the reality of PR today. It takes patience, persistence, and a lot of follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.

Thought Leadership and Byline Opportunities

PR isn’t limited to listicles and influencer partnerships. Holly encouraged us to consider thought leadership and byline pieces as alternative earned media strategies.

• Thought leadership: becoming a quoted voice in tourism and travel conversations. (Think Seth Bolt positioning himself as an authority on his region, not just his property.)
• Byline pieces: articles written directly by you, with your name as the “byline.” Outlets like Business Insider or Today Essays often accept non-journalist submissions. The content must provide value, not a sales pitch, but it’s an opportunity to showcase your destination and expertise in a credible outlet.

Why DIY PR Is Tough

Many owners are tempted to try PR themselves. Holly has seen it: clients send out 20 pitches, get no response, and assume PR doesn’t work. The truth is, strategy matters—from subject lines and keywords to the cadence of follow-ups. A seasoned PR professional knows how to navigate crowded inboxes, build relationships with journalists, and craft pitches that stick.

Without that, it’s easy to feel like your efforts are wasted, when really the process just needs refinement and persistence.

How Holly Works with Clients

For short-term rental owners ready to take PR seriously, Holly offers a consultative, boutique approach:

• She works exclusively with small businesses in lifestyle, real estate, travel, and hospitality.
• The process usually begins with a free consultation call, where she helps owners brainstorm what’s unique about their property and how to frame it for media.
• Most of her clients are on ongoing retainers rather than short-term projects, because the nature of PR requires consistent outreach, monitoring, and follow-up over time.

Her goal is simple: to help you get visible in the right places, with the right story, so you can attract guests who trust what they see.

This conversation with Holly Mitten of Little Bird Boston drove home the incredible potential PR holds for short-term rental owners and realtors. From regional journalists to national listicles, from family-focused influencers to thought leadership essays—PR is about getting into the right conversations early and often.

The best part? You don’t need to chase celebrity-level coverage to see results. Start local, partner strategically, and package your story in a way that’s useful to journalists and inspiring to travelers. Over time, those earned media moments stack up into something far greater: a brand that guests believe in before they ever book.

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Ready to see your short-term rental featured in the media and booked out by your ideal guests? Don’t wait for opportunities to pass you by, create them with smart PR and brand strategy. If you’re ready for hands-on help building visibility and elevating your property into a boutique experience, let’s connect.