The short answer
Post what people want to know before they book: what the van is like inside, where they could take it, and what it’s like to hire from you. Keep posting through autumn and winter, when people plan their trips, and give every post an easy route to booking with you direct.
- Show the van properly: tours, details, the bed made up, the kitchen in use.
- Sell the trip as well as the van: routes, places to stay and help for first-timers.
- Repost your guests’ photos, with their permission.
- Make booking direct easy, with a link in your bio and a clear next step in your captions.
Why direct bookings are worth the effort
Hire platforms are useful. They bring in people who would never have found you, and plenty of good businesses rely on them. But they take a cut of every booking, and the customer relationship stays with the platform. Someone who books through a listing remembers the platform. Someone who books with you direct remembers you, and is far more likely to come back or recommend you.
Social media is where you can build that. It won’t replace the platforms overnight, but every post is a chance for someone to see your vans, get a feel for how you work and decide to book with you rather than the listing next to yours.
What people want to see before they book
Hiring a campervan is a big decision for most people: they’re handing over a deposit for a holiday they can’t picture yet. Your posts should answer the questions they’d ask if they could walk round the van with you.
- What’s it like inside? Where does everything go, how does the bed work, how big is the kitchen, is there a heater, and what about the toilet?
- Where could we go? Routes, overnight spots and things to do within a day or two of your base.
- Can we actually do this? Most hirers have never driven a van this size or slept in one. Reassurance sells.
- What’s it like hiring from you? Handover, the people, what’s included and what happens if something goes wrong.
- Have other people loved it? Real guests in real places.
Twelve post ideas that work for hire businesses
- The 60-second van tour. Open every cupboard, make up the bed, put the kettle on. Film it upright, as one Reel.
- What’s in the cupboards. A carousel of everything that comes with the van, from the pans to the camping chairs.
- Day mode, night mode. The same view with the table up and the bed made.
- A route idea. Two or three nights from your base: where to stop, where to sleep, what to see.
- Your favourite places to stay. Campsites and stopovers you’d send a friend to, and why.
- First-timer help. What to pack, how the heater works, how to empty the water. Save-worthy and reassuring.
- Handover day. What happens when people pick up: the walk-round, the keys, off they go.
- Your guests’ photos. Reposted with permission and credited. There’s a whole guide on reposting customer photos properly.
- Behind the scenes. Cleaning, servicing and restocking between hires. It shows the care people are paying for.
- The question you get asked most. Answer it in a post, then send people the link next time.
- Availability, when it’s true. “Two weekends left in May” works because it’s specific. Don’t invent urgency.
- Meet the owners. People book with people. A short clip of you saying why you started is enough.
A content mix that covers the bases
You don’t need a rigid formula, but it helps to rotate through a few kinds of post so the feed doesn’t become forty photos of a van parked somewhere nice.
| Kind of post | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| The van | Answers “what’s it like?” | Van tour, day and night mode |
| The trip | Sells the holiday, not just the vehicle | Route ideas, places to stay |
| Help | Reassures first-timers and gets saved | Packing list, how the heater works |
| Guests | Shows other people loving it | Reposted trip photos |
| You | Makes you the people to book with | Handover day, behind the scenes |
Plan around the booking year
The biggest mistake hire businesses make on social is posting most when they’re busiest. In summer the vans are out and the photos are easy, so the feed is full. In winter it goes quiet, which is exactly when people are sitting down to plan next year.
| When | What people are doing | What to post |
|---|---|---|
| Autumn | Taking late trips, starting to think about next year | Autumn routes, cosy van evenings, early availability for next season |
| Winter | Planning and booking the big trips | Van tours, route ideas, first-timer help, gift vouchers if you sell them |
| Spring | Booking school holidays and bank holidays | Availability (when it’s true), what’s included, handover day |
| Summer | Out in the vans | Guests’ photos, last-minute gaps, behind the scenes |
The trick is to bank summer footage for winter. Every clip you film in August is a post for January.
Turn followers into direct bookings
Good posts get attention. These make it easy to act on it:
- Link straight to booking. The link in your bio should go to your availability or booking page, not just your home page.
- Say what to do next. End captions with one clear step: “Check dates at the link in our bio” or “DM us for availability”.
- Pin your best three. Instagram lets you pin three posts to the top of your profile. Use them for the van tour, what’s included and how booking works.
- Use Story highlights as an FAQ. Vans, Routes, Guests and How it works covers most questions.
- Reply quickly. A DM about dates is a booking enquiry. Treat it like one.
- Ask how people found you. Add the question to your booking form, so you can see whether social is bringing in bookings.
Mistakes to avoid
- Posting only in summer, then going quiet when people are planning.
- Only ever showing the outside of the van. People book the inside.
- Posts with no next step, so interested people have nowhere to go.
- Reposting guests’ photos without asking first.
- Chasing follower numbers. A few hundred followers who might book are worth more than thousands who never will.
If you’d rather hand this over, it’s what we do for van hire and conversion businesses.