Write On Track » how tourist businesses should use pinterest

How Hotels, Guesthouses & B&Bs Should Be Using Pinterest

Lorna Sixsmith — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:45:14 +0000

Pinterest offers huge potential for businesses offering accommodation. Apart from showcasing your own premises and facilities, Pinterest offers great potential for highlighting the various activities, heritage sites, architecture and everything else of interest to your target market, within your own area. It also provides a vehicle for connecting with potential visitors and networking with other tourism providers. Travel boards account for 2.5% of all Pinterest boards (Repinly.) which although not at popular as crafts or food, is still a significant percentage.

How Hotels, Guesthouses, Self Catering and B&Bs Should Be Using Pinterest

Ensure that the images on their website are pinnable and of good quality. A ‘pin it’ button on the website is recommended too as it reminds people to pin and gives them your permission too.
Portrait photographs work better than landscape on Pinterest (longer rather than wider). This is because the anatomy of the Pinterest newsfeed means the photos are shown in columns and the width is set. The length of the photo depends on the photo’s proportions. Longer photos receive more visibility.
Your images should be strikingly beautiful – the better the photo, the higher the likelihood of getting multiple repins.
Alternatively, your pins should be useful to others. Examples would include ‘instructographics’, an image with text that promises tips or answers to a ‘how to’ question in a blog post or on a website page. (My image above could be described as an instructographic – I’ve deliberately left the background plain rather than putting text on top of an image but anyone who sees this pin in Pinterest will know exactly what this post is about).

Ideas for Pinterest Boards for Hotels, Self Catering, Guesthouses and B&Bs

It can be quite difficult deciding what boards to include in your Pinterest account. Many hotels include boards based on their facilities – their golf course, their spa, their bedrooms, their activities for children but there’s much more can be showcased to bring people to your establishment. Your pinterest account should reflect the personality of your business and offers an opportunity to network with other tourist businesses as well as generating more traffic to your website and of course, more bookings.

History/Heritage of X Hotel or X Town – share the stories of your establishment or town
Gems in County X – acting as a mini tourist board will persuade people to come to your area
Kids Activities in Co. X – if kids are happy, so are the parents
Relaxation at X – for those looking to get away from it all
Wine Recommendations – for those interested in good food and wine
Things To Do In Co. Laois – People like to know there’s plenty of activities to choose from
Weekend Escapes – targetting those working all week
Wicklow Weddings – showcase your facilities for weddings.
Weddings Inspiration – Wedding boards are hugely popular, join in and demonstrate your expertise
Behind the Scenes at X - show people your community /charity / fun events
Taste of Summer – show how beautiful and green Ireland can be during the summer
Celtic Wonders – anything beautiful and wonderful that is Irish
Irish Castles – Targetting those who love architecture and history
Our Offers/Packages – reward followers with updates of recent offers
Our Meals – showcase your food
Afternoon Teas – another way to showcase your food
Events at X – showing what is going on in the area
St Patrick’s Day – a hugely popular board, your target market of ex-pats will love them
Behind the Scenes at X – share photos of your community or charity events
Travel Quotes – quotes are extremely popular on Pinterest
Travel Bloggers – feature travel bloggers and they may reciprocate
Irish Songs – embrace music via youtube videos too
Where in Ireland? – encourage engagement and fun by pinning obscure images of Irish buildings and landscapes and people will guess in their comments.
The Irish Pub – showcase the traditional Irish pubs
The Colour Green – anything green and beautiful to emphasise the Emerald Isle
The Great Outdoors – show the beauty of Ireland to entice visitors
What to do in X in … month/season – have 4 or 12 of these
Bedrooms at X – showcase your rooms

Advantages of Shared Boards for Tourism Businesses

A shared board is a board that multiple people can post pins too, by invitation of the creator and other contributors to the board. The shared board status is indicated by the icon displaying 3 figures.

As creator a contributor board, you could be viewed as a ‘thought leader’ in that particular area.
A topical and popular board will result in more repins – see this post for examples of this.
Create a community, get to know your contributors, give them a chance to get to know you.
Your pins will reach more people (although the followers of each contributor won’t necessarily be following the shared board), have a higher chance of being repinned and clicked through to your website.

For details on how to set up a contributor board and invite others – see these posts ‘How to Set Up Shared Boards‘ and All You Need To Know About Shared Boards

Ideas for Shared Boards on Pinterest

Remembering the 80/20 rule, that is, as you should pin or repin content from other businesses to your account, creating shared boards is an excellent way to share on pinterest and gain more traffic to your website as the word gets out.

Gathering Events in Co. X – network with other tourism businesses in your area or county.
Wicklow Weddings – invite couples to share their wedding photos at your venue
Your Holiday Memories – invite guests to share their photos
Travel Tips – invite guests / potential visitors and other tourism businesses to share tips
Best Golf Courses – invite sports bloggers and golfers
Irish Recipes – invite Irish restaurants, food bloggers and food producers
Irish Scenery – invite travel bloggers, guests, other tourism businesses, those living in Ireland
Christmas at X / Santa Events – invite prospective visitors

Keep an eye on any shared boards that you create (or that you join) as some businesses will spam them. This business (shown below) has asked contributors to not add other pinners themselves and have an application form on their website for those who wish to contribute to this popular board.

To remove someone from a shared board, simply click the ‘remove’ button to the right of their name when you go in to ‘edit board’ (if you are the creator). If you have joined a shared board that you now want to leave, click ‘leave’ to the right of your name when you go in to ‘edit board’.

Always check out a board that you’ve been invited to join to ensure it suits your branding and your reputation.

Don’t send out blanket invitations to join shared boards to all your followers. Have a look at their account, determine what boards they might be interested in and only if you think they will be a valuable contributor and appreciate the request, then send them an invitation to ONE of your shared boards. You could also add a line to the description of the shared board asking anyone who would like to become a contributor, to contact you at your (provided) email address.

I recently followed the Tregenna Castle Hotel in Cornwall (their boards are very good) and when they looked at my boards, they knew I wasn’t a surfer or going to get married so they send me an invitation to their Pintastic board. I was struck by the fact that they were inviting me into their community and I accepted their invitation.

Pinterest is an amazing tool and is growing in popularity every day. It will mean some investment in time but used well, it will reap dividends. If you would like assistance with setting up or running a pinterest account, do get in touch. We’ll also soon be running an online Pinterest course at We Teach Social.

Have you discovered a hotel or tourism business that is using pinterest well?

The post How Hotels, Guesthouses & B&Bs Should Be Using Pinterest appeared first on Write On Track.

Why (and How) Tourism Businesses Should Be Using Pinterest

Lorna Sixsmith — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 08:26:29 +0000

Should tourism and travel companies be on Pinterest? Should hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses, travel agents, tourist attractions and tourist offices be using Pinterest to promote themselves?

Of course they should. Travel boards account for 2.5% of all boards and travel pins account for 2.7% of all travel pins (according to Repinly). Given the popularity of recipe, interior design and craft pins let alone all the other categories, travel has a significant percentage.

Most pinners will have a board entitled ‘Travel Bucket List’ or ‘Holidays’ and many will have boards devoted to particular places or countries. My own boards include ‘Ireland – Scenery’ and ‘Britain’ and while I may not actively look for images on websites to pin to those boards, I will repin them and save them for future reference, thereby sharing them with my own followers.

How Should Tourism-related businesses be using Pinterest?

1. Good Quality Images on Website

The website (and blog) should contain images of excellent quality that the company itself pins and others can also pin. Breathtaking images will be pinned. Have images of everything you wish to promote – photos from your own tourist attraction, photographs from the area, images from other nearby complementary tourist attractions, photos of nearby accommodation and eateries … the list goes on.

Lifestyle images too – who are your target market? If your target market includes the ‘Culturally Curious’, the aged 50+ who wish to visit attractions and sites, then include images of that age group enjoying various attractions.

The pin of this Scottish hotel has been featured on Repinly this week, achieving the 5th most popular pin with 89 repins and 26 likes – demonstrating that beautiful scenery and architecture images will do well on Pinterest.

2. Pin It Button on Website

Add a pin it plugin to your blog post and a pin it button that is situated beside images will not only signal to pinners that your company is happy to have their images pinned, they will also serve as reminders and your images will be pinned much more often.

3. Don’t Self-Promote Too Much

Don’t make it all about you and your business. Pin images from other tourist attractions that would compliment your business. Pin images from the nearest restaurants or attraction and they will return the favour. This also shows your target market how much is on offer in your area. Repin content too that your market might be interested in seeing such as beautiful architecture, kids activities and splendid scenery.

4. Travel Tips / How To

Pins that provide links to tutorials receive 42% more repins than most other types. Pins offering tips or ‘how to’ instructions promise other pinners that they will do what it says on the tin and provide the instructions or tips required.

Tips or ‘How To’ type blog posts or tutorials that would work well for tourist businesses would include ’5 Travel Tips for Visiting X’, ’10 Must See Attractions in X’, ’6 Ireland Travel Tips for Americans: Money Saving Tips’, ‘How To Visit X for €x Per Day’, ’5 Free Travel Activities for Kids’, ‘How To Pack For A Month’ and many more. These can be pinned to a ‘Travel Tips’ board and I think they would be very popular.

5. Travel Quotes

Quotes are hugely popular on pinterest and travel quotes are no exception.

Create a ‘Travel Quotes’ board and repin other quotation pins to it and create your own on an attractive image or meme on your own website or blog so it acts as the source for the pin, thereby generating traffic to your own website.

See our post on how to use picmonkey to write text on images.

6. Shared Pinterest Boards

Shared boards offers huge advantages to companies as you can invite your clients, customers and followers to pin with you.

Our Post: How to Create Shared Boards

The main advantage of shared boards is that as a creator of a shared board, you will be seen as a thought leader. Pinning to a shared board means that your pins will be seen by many more followers and is much more likely to be repinned – the reason being the shared board will be seen by the followers of all the contributors.

Our Post: All You Need To Know About Shared Boards

Ideas for Shared Boards for tourist attractions and companies would include:

Gathering Events in Co. X
Photos taken by You at X Gathering
Irish Holiday Memories
Santa Train
Christmas Events
St Patrick’s Day Parades
Greens
Best Golf Courses
Great Activities for Kids
Where in the World?
Travel Quotes
Travel Tips
Where to go in (month)

7. How To Grow Your Pinterest Followers

Growing your pinterest followers mean that your pins are much more likely to be repinned, liked, commented up and clicked on – thereby driving more traffic to your website. Your website should be capable of converting a percentage of those clicks too.

Create Shared Boards and invite people to contribute
Contribute to other shared boards
Follow other tourism companies and complementary businesses
Engage with other pinners by repinning and commenting.
Let your pins be broadcast on twitter too
Follow travel bloggers
Run contests – see our post on how to run an effective Pinterest contest
Pin high quality images
Show the personality of your business
Pin little and often (use a scheduling tool such as Pingraphy if necessary)

Are you using Pinterest for your tourism business? Are you finding it effective? Do share your thoughts in the comments below – we’d love to hear.

If you would like to book a training session on Pinterest or any of the other social media platforms, do get in touch. We will be starting our first online course on Pinterest in April/early May so do sign up at We Teach Social if you’d like to receive a newsletter with all the details.

The post Why (and How) Tourism Businesses Should Be Using Pinterest appeared first on Write On Track.