Pinterest is the ultimate bookmarking website and topics such as recipes, décor ideas, craft & DIY projects probably spring to mind when you think of it. But did you know that it is also popular for travel too? People use it to search for travel inspiration and this is why Pinterest for Travel Companies is a great platform to generate business on.
What sets it apart from the other major visual social media platforms like Instagram, and to a lesser degree Facebook, is that while they mirror a person’s present day, Pinterest reflects a person’s future aspirations, wishes, and desires.
How does this generate business on Pinterest for Travel Companies? Well, according to statistics compiled by Hootsuite a whopping 93% of users browse Pinterest to plan purchases and a further 87% of users indicated that they have purchased a product because of Pinterest.
The short of it? People use Pinterest to find inspiration and regularly convert their discoveries into purchases.
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Pinterest is a social media platform that uses high-quality images to capture the imagination of its users (sometimes referred to as Pinners). Users browse or search images on Pinterest, and pin the ones that they find appealing to boards for future reference.
The concept is bookmarking on a digital platform.
Pinterest works in a similar way to other major social media platforms. People or businesses set up a profile for themselves and can follow other users on Pinterest.
On sign up the user has to select a couple of interest categories. Pinterest uses this information to generate a suggested inspiration feed with images relevant to the selected interest categories. The feed also shows the images that your connections pin to their own boards.
A pin is a post, or the content, on Pinterest. Pins are evergreen. Once it has been created it will not disappear and will remain on Pinterest until the creator of the pin chooses to delete it.
Because the lifespan of a pin is unlimited, a post on Pinterest has a far longer marketing reach than a post on any of the other major social media platforms where interest drops as new content fills the top of the newsfeed.
It is always good to know who your audience is. Your account on Pinterest for your Travel Company will be visible to over 200 million active users, 40% of whom have an annual household income of over $100k.
What this means is that you have the opportunity to market your travel company on the Pinterest Travel category to a large number of affluent people actively researching travel ideas for their next trip.
Using Pinterest for your Travel Company will drive traffic through to your website and promote awareness of your Travel Brand. As always, your content is the key to generating interest in your travel products.
Boards are used to organize content according to a specified category so it is important to make your boards easily searchable and relevant to your travel offering. Fill yours with high-quality images or even short inspiring videos that will capture peoples’ attention.
For example, if you offer Walking Safaris in Africa or Luxury Villa Accommodation in Bali, then make those your board names. The idea is to be specific so that you reach an audience who is searching for particular content.
Take a look at Lonely Planet's Pinterest boards. Except for the first one, they have named their top line of boards the Best Of boards. This is fine for an audience who is not searching for anything specific yet.
When the user clicks through to the boards, they are presented with hundreds of beautiful images designed to catch their eye.
Orbitz uses a different approach. They have organized their Pinterest board categories according to experiences. You can see the boards are more specific and target an audience who knows more about what they want and are searching for something more specific.
While Lonely Planets’ boards link mainly to informational articles, Orbitz's are focused on making sales and link theirs mainly to tour offerings.
Ultimately you want to generate traffic to your website from Pinterest Travel searches and pin sharing. Backlink all your images on Pinterest to the original articles or information on your website so that a user will be directed to your website when they click on an image in Pinterest.
Once they are through to your website, you can suggest that they opt-in to a newsletter or sign up with their email address.
Increase your visibility to high authority sites by commenting on their popular pins. Also, share and pin their pins to your own boards to encourage them to interact with you.
You will notice when browsing Pinterest that the majority of pins are of portrait orientation and optimized vertically. Images on Pinterest also have a maximum allowed width and this is what lends to the site’s pleasing visual experience.
Pinterest suggests that the ideal aspect ratio for a pin is 2:3 or 600px wide x 900px high. Keep this in mind when sizing the pins to use on Pinterest for your travel company.
You can also use a text overlay to provide more context to an image if it does not explain enough on its own.
Optimise your content by including keywords in the About Section of your profile, as well as in the pin descriptions and pin file names. This will help users to identify your Travel Company and decide whether your content is relative to their interests.
Unfortunately, any links from your Pinterest Travel site to your website will not increase your domain authority. However, Google does index Pinterest pages so your Pinterest page will appear in Google’s search results.
Extend your marketing reach by promoting your Travel Company and Products on your website as well as across all of your social media platforms.
Linking your social media platforms together will also help to build your online presence and make your Travel Brand better known. Add the relative follow us icon buttons onto each of your sites to allow people to click through to all of your various platforms from one place.
Insider Tip: Install the Pinterest Browser Button onto your website. This allows people to pin your content directly onto their Pinterest Profile without leaving your website.
Like Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics, Pinterest has their own Analytics tool for Business account holders. This tool allows users to analyze how their content is performing and to see which of their pins users like or pin the most, and which prompt users to click-through to their website.
You can use this helpful insight to refine and optimize your Travel Company offering on Pinterest. You will also be able to determine how far your marketing reach extends by tracking how many times images are pinned directly from your profile or a category search, or repinned from sharing between users.
Using Pinterest for Travel Companies or for Travel Brands is in essence, an easy and low maintenance way to market a business. It does not require a huge time commitment and the benefits of a pin continue to be realized long after it is created and shared.
When compared with the other major social media platforms reach, this makes Pinterest for Travel Companies highly feasible. Combined with the visual element that extends past the language barrier that written content has, Pinterest really is a great way to generate business for your Travel Company.
Now that you know a bit more about how to use Pinterest for your Travel Company, you can use it along with the other multiple travel distribution channels as part of your marketing strategy to promote your business.