How to Turn Your Brand Strategy Into Actual Content

You’ve got your brand strategy lined up. Your content pillars are nailed down. You know who your ideal guest is.

And then you sit down to actually create a piece of content and suddenly…

Nothing.

The blank Instagram caption box is staring back at you, and you’re wondering what in the world you’re supposed to post.

This is where a short-term rental content strategy can make all the difference. Instead of starting from scratch every time you open Instagram, you can use the strategy you’ve already created to build content that actually speaks to your ideal guest.

Because having a strategy is great.

Knowing what to do with it is even better.

In this episode of the Brand & Market Podcast, we’re taking all of that strategy and turning it into a simple, repeatable process for creating actual content for your short-term rental, hospitality brand, or business.

Eventually, all of that branding work has to turn into something tangible.

A Reel.

A carousel.

A caption.

A photo.

Something that actually makes its way onto Instagram.

So let’s talk about how to turn your brand strategy into a short-term rental content strategy that you can actually use.

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Start Your Short-Term Rental Content Strategy With Who You’re Talking To

Before we write a single caption or plan a single Reel, we need to answer one question:

Who are we creating this content for?

Your brand strategy should already include your ideal guest profile. When I build brand strategies for clients, I typically like to establish both a primary guest avatar and a secondary guest avatar.

Your primary guest is the person you expect to make up the majority of your bookings.

Your secondary guest is someone who may not be as common, but still makes sense for your property.

Knowing the difference matters because those two people may experience your property very differently.

Let’s look at INTRVL as an example.

When we worked on the brand strategy for INTRVL, the primary guest avatar was a larger, multigenerational group.

Think grandparents, parents, and grandkids all traveling together.

They also have a secondary guest avatar: a group of friends taking their annual trip to Joshua Tree.

Those two groups might stay in the exact same property, but they’re not necessarily looking for the same experience.

And that changes the way you market the property.

Take their cowboy pool.

For the multigenerational family, you might show kids splashing around in the shallow pool, water toys floating around, and a family enjoying an afternoon outside.

For the group of friends, the exact same amenity could look completely different.

Maybe there are drinks in hand. Maybe it’s golden hour. Perhaps the aesthetic is a little more elevated and grown-up.

Same property. Same amenity. Completely different lens.

That’s the power of knowing who you’re talking to.

The guest you’re trying to attract determines which version of your property you show them.

So before you create anything, ask yourself:

Is this content speaking to my primary guest avatar or my secondary guest avatar?

Then make sure the messaging, visuals, and overall feel of that piece of content match that person.

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Turn Your Content Pillars Into a Short-Term Rental Content Strategy

Once you know who you’re talking to, the next question becomes:

What are we actually talking about?

This is where your content pillars come in.

For most brands, I recommend having four to five content pillars.

That gives you enough variety to keep your content from feeling repetitive without making your overall message so broad that people have no idea what your brand is actually about.

One example I use with clients is The Billy Motel and its sister brand, The Ish Kitchen.

Their content pillars include:

• The Billy Motel brand
• Building The Billy
• Guest and visitor stories
• Davis and local attractions

Those are great categories.

Still, they’re pretty broad.

You might look at “The Billy Motel brand” and think:

Okay… but what am I actually supposed to post?

That’s where I like to take each content pillar and break it down into 10–20 specific content ideas or subtopics.

Now you have a bank of ideas to pull from whenever you’re ready to create.

For example, one Billy Motel topic is “Hillbilly Fabulous.”

It’s a phrase they use throughout their branding and messaging. It captures the combination of Appalachian influence with a more worldly, elevated hospitality experience.

That one phrase alone could become multiple pieces of content.

You could have:

• A Reel of the founder explaining what “Hillbilly Fabulous” means
• An employee sharing what it means to them
• A guest explaining what they think it means
• A carousel breaking down the phrase
• A room tour that demonstrates what “Hillbilly Fabulous” looks like in practice

One idea doesn’t have to equal one post.

That’s an important distinction when you’re building a sustainable short-term rental content strategy.

You don’t need 100 completely different ideas.

Instead, you need a handful of strong ideas that you can approach from different angles.

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One Subtopic Can Become Multiple Pieces of Content

Let’s take another example: local attractions.

This is a content pillar that works incredibly well for short-term rentals because your property isn’t the only part of the experience you’re selling.

You’re also selling the destination.

Let’s say one of your content ideas is:

Local coffee shops.

You could turn that into a carousel featuring five coffee shops guests should visit.

Or you could spotlight one specific coffee shop in a Reel.

For that Reel, you could film yourself walking through the front door, ordering your coffee, showing the logo, sitting down with your drink, and capturing a few little details throughout the space.

Now you’ve got B-roll.

And that one coffee shop could potentially become several different pieces of content.

You don’t have to post them all at once.

Instead, you could sprinkle them throughout your content calendar over the next six months.

This is how you take:

Content pillar → subtopic → multiple pieces of content.

Suddenly, creating content doesn’t feel quite so impossible.

It also gives you a much more sustainable short-term rental content strategy because you’re not constantly trying to come up with something completely new.

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Personal Brands Need Content Pillars Too

This same strategy applies if you’re building a personal brand alongside your hospitality business.

In fact, I think this is especially important for hospitality founders who want to grow into larger projects, raise capital, or move beyond short-term rentals.

Your online presence becomes part of your credibility.

One example is Ian Joseph, a hospitality founder involved with The Billy Motel and Branch Berkeley Springs.

His background gives him a really interesting combination of expertise to pull from.

His content pillars include areas like:

• Finance and investing
• Building and development
• Hospitality
• The Branch brand and entrepreneurship
• The long game

That last one is particularly interesting because it gives him room to talk about something beyond his businesses.

He can talk about the values, lessons, and experiences that are shaping the person and entrepreneur he’s becoming.

For example, he could talk about what legacy means beyond money.

Or what it means to build a strong foundation before trying to build the skyscraper.

He could also share a personal experience that changed the way he approaches business.

One example from his own experience was having a panic attack after returning from a trip to investigate a potential deal.

That story isn’t necessarily about a specific property.

Instead, it’s about realizing that constantly chasing the next deal isn’t sustainable if you aren’t actually able to enjoy what you’re building.

That’s personal-brand content.

And it’s much more compelling than simply posting, “Here’s another deal we’re working on.”

Your personal brand content pillars give you a framework for sharing your expertise, experiences, values, and perspective without feeling like you have to constantly sell something.

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Use Your Brand Messaging to Strengthen Your Content Strategy

At this point, we know:

Who we’re talking to.

What we’re talking about.

Now we need to figure out:

How are we going to say it?

This is where your brand messaging guide becomes incredibly important.

Your brand strategy shouldn’t be a document that gets completed, saved to Google Drive, and never opened again.

Instead, your messaging should become the words you use repeatedly throughout your marketing.

Consistency doesn’t mean saying the exact same thing every single day.

Rather, it means finding the language, stories, phrases, and ideas that are uniquely yours and using them consistently enough that people begin to recognize you.

Take the word “escape.”

It’s a perfectly fine word.

But it’s also incredibly overused in hospitality marketing.

Instead of simply saying your property offers an “escape,” ask:

What does escape actually mean to my ideal guest?

For Acadia Evergreen Retreat in Bar Harbor, Maine, the escape is about slowing down.

It’s about families creating annual traditions and spending time outside.

It’s intentionally different from the loud, overscheduled, high-intensity version of a family vacation.

Now compare that to the escape someone might experience at INTRVL in Joshua Tree.

There, the experience might include the cowboy pool, the Oasis Bar, and the Mystic Lounge.

Both are escapes.

But they’re very different kinds of escapes.

That difference should show up in your captions, your Reel hooks, your photography, and the stories you’re telling.

Your brand messaging gives you the language to make that happen.

This is why your short-term rental content strategy and your brand strategy shouldn’t live in separate worlds. Your brand strategy should inform the actual words you’re using in your marketing.

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Build the Visual Side of Your Short-Term Rental Content Strategy

Okay, so now we know:

Who we’re talking to.

What we’re talking about.

How we’re going to say it.

But we still need one more thing:

What are we going to show?

This is probably where I see people get the most overwhelmed.

They think they have to constantly be at their property taking beautiful, professionally produced content.

You don’t.

Instead, I recommend having a mix of two types of visual content:

Professional Photography and Video

This is the polished content that really showcases your property.

Think professional property photos, lifestyle photography, video walkthroughs, and beautifully styled shots of your amenities.

UGC-Style Content

Then you have the other side of the equation: authentic, iPhone-style content.

This might be something you capture yourself or something your guests capture.

And honestly?

It doesn’t need to be perfect.

In fact, having a mix of polished and casual content often makes your social media feel much more natural.

That balance is an important part of a good short-term rental content strategy.

Your professional photography shows people what the property looks like.

Meanwhile, your UGC-style content helps them imagine what it feels like to actually be there.

You need both.

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Your B-Roll Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

If you’re thinking, Okay, but what am I actually supposed to film?

This is exactly why I created the 30 Content Ideas for B-Roll for Short-Term Rental Owners freebie.

Because your B-roll can be incredibly simple.

You could capture:

• Coffee being poured into a mug
• Curtains opening in a bedroom
• Wine being poured into a glass
• Bourbon being poured into a highball glass
• Someone walking toward the fire pit
• Marshmallows being roasted
• A hand opening the front door
• Someone seeing the property for the first time
• Feet walking down a nearby trail

These tiny moments are incredibly useful.

You’re not trying to produce a commercial every time you pull out your phone.

Instead, you’re capturing little snapshots of what a guest might experience.

That’s B-roll.

And once you have it, you can use it again and again.

One video of coffee being poured could become the background for a Reel about your morning amenities.

The same clip could be used behind a caption about slowing down.

It could even become part of a Reel about why you chose the coffee setup you have in your property.

The visual doesn’t always have to literally demonstrate the words on the screen.

It just needs to help create the feeling you’re trying to communicate.

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The Simple Short-Term Rental Content Strategy to Follow When You’re Stuck

So the next time you open Instagram and your brain completely goes blank, I want you to walk through this process.

1. Who are we talking to?

Start with your primary or secondary guest avatar.

Think about what they want, what they value, and what they’re actually looking for in a stay.

2. What are we talking about?

Choose one of your content pillars.

Then choose one specific subtopic within that pillar.

3. How are we going to say it?

Pull out your brand messaging guide.

Use the words, phrases, stories, and positioning you’ve already established.

4. What are we going to show?

Pull from your professional photography, video library, or B-roll.

And that’s it.

Guest avatar → content pillar → subtopic → brand messaging → visuals.

That’s your short-term rental content strategy.

You don’t have to reinvent your marketing strategy every Tuesday morning.

You just need a system for turning the strategy you’ve already created into content.

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Your Brand Strategy Should Actually Get Used

This is really the bigger point I want you to take away from this episode.

Your brand strategy isn’t supposed to sit in a Google Drive folder looking pretty.

It’s supposed to make marketing easier.

When you know who you’re talking to, what you want to talk about, how your brand sounds, and what visual language you’re using, you have a framework to fall back on.

And that framework takes a lot of the guesswork out of content creation.

Because the goal isn’t to wake up every morning and ask:

“What should I post today?”

The goal is to have a system that answers that question for you.

A strong short-term rental content strategy should make it easier to consistently show up without feeling like you’re constantly starting from scratch.

And if you’re still sitting there thinking, Okay, but I don’t have the content pillars, the messaging, or the strategy in place yet, that’s exactly where we can help.

At Brand & Market, we help hospitality brands build those foundational pieces and then turn them into content plans and marketing systems that actually work in the real world.

Because your property deserves more than a pretty logo and an Instagram account.

It deserves a brand that people remember.

Cheers to being the best in your brand and your market.