How to Use Pinterest for Your Travel Company- A Step-By-Step Guide

Almost every travel company opts for social media marketing to promote its services and scale its business. However, it is not just about Facebook and Instagram anymore! Pinterest is what you need to choose if you are a travel blogger or run a travel business. 

The stats from Hootsuite claim that about 93% of users browse Pinterest to plan purchases, and around 87% of users claim that they have purchased a product or service because of Pinterest.

So, if your travel company is on Pinterest, you are likely to attract more customers and persuade them to do business with you. 

A good Pinterest profile allows you to rank higher on Google searches to boost your brand visibility as well as website traffic. With a solid funnel and conversion strategy, you can transform Pinterest visitors into long-term clients.

In this thorough guide, we will show how to use Pinterest for your travel company. Similarly, we will explain the importance of Pinterest for your travel business and some useful tips for a better campaign.

But first, let’s explore the basics of Pinterest with its key terms.

What is Pinterest? 

Pinterest, in general, is a social media platform that lets you share images and browse pictures posted by others. It is basically a digital bulletin board where users save images they find on the internet. 

Besides being a digital bookmarking tool, Pinterest also provides you the opportunity to interact with other users via likes, comments, and repins. 

The best thing about Pinterest is that infographics are notably popular here. You can create one for yourself and share your content to direct more traffic.

Here’s what you can do:

• Pin an image from your article. If you use Pinterest’s official Browser Button, you can do this straight from Chrome.
• Re-pin the image to multiple boards for maximum exposure.

Now, let’s explain to you some of the key Pinterest terms:

• Pins: Whenever you share something on Pinterest, it is called Pinning an image or basically a pin.

• Repin: When you share someone else’s pin on Pinterest, it is called a repin or repinning. Repinning is the same as retweeting on Twitter and sharing the post on Facebook. 

• Board: When using Pinterest, you collect and share images and display them on platforms called boards. Everyone can create their own board and define categories like the places you have been to or a board about exotic travel destinations.

• Likes: You get the option to like pins on Pinterest. It is the way of telling that you like someone else’s pin without the need to repin it on your board.

How to Use Pinterest?

Want to create a Pinterest account for your travel company? Follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Sign Up for a Free Pinterest Business Account

Signing up for Pinterest is easy and straightforward, just like any other social media network.

First, you need to visit https://business.pinterest.com/en/ to create a business account for your travel company. Now, click on the Sign Up button and add your email, password, and age before clicking the Create Account button. 

After that, enter your business or brand name, website link (if you have any), select the country/region and language, then press the Next button. 

On the next screen, select what your brand focuses on. Since we are here talking about the travel company, we will choose travel. Now, pick up to three goals as suggested and click the Next button.

Now, describe your business by ticking on any customized recommendations based on your details and click the Next button. 

Furthermore, you’ll be asked if you want to run ads on Pinterest. Tick your choice and click the Next button to continue. 

In the next screen, you will come across three options: Create a Pin, Claim your website, and Build your profile. First, try to make a solid online presence by building your profile. 

Add all the necessary details like your profile bio, location, profile picture, then click the Save button.  There you go! You have successfully created a Pinterest account for your travel company. 

Step 2: Dig Into Your Profile

Now that you are ready with your Pinterest profile, it’s time to dig deep into your profile and find out what is going on. Here are the main areas of Pinterest that you need to be aware of:

• Home Feed: This section is similar to the Facebook news feed. Here, you can see the most recent pins saved by users you follow. Similarly, you will also find the Pinterest-suggested pins here.

• Search: The search bar is located at the top of your Pinterest screen. It is your gateway to the platform. You can simply type a word or phrase, and the network displays images related to your search query. 

• Explore: Explore is a tab that displays the trending pins on Pinterest. This feed might look familiar if you are an Instagram user. Through this section, you can have a look at what is popular on the network. 

• Boards: Boards are the place where you can save your pins. Besides, the Boards tab is where you will find each of your boards.

It is recommended that you create different boards for different topics. For instance, you can have a separate board to display the local scenery of a particular place, another one to showcase pictures of top restaurants, and so on.

Step 3: Start Creating

Now that you have created your business profile and got the feel of how the platform works, it’s time to start creating.

Before you begin pinning on Pinterest, you should first create a new board.

To do so, navigate to your profile and click the Plus (+) Button at the right side of your screen and then select the Board option. 

Next up, provide a name to your board. We suggest that you use not more than 20 characters so that your board name won’t get cut off. Besides, you should use keywords when appropriate.

Although you have created your board, you still have a bit more work to do. Now, find the board which you created a few moments ago on your profile. After that, click the pencil icon to make modifications to your board’s details. 

Provide a clear description, define a category, and invite collaborators if you have any. Finally, you have a board for yourself that is ready to rock and roll. 

Now that you’re done, it is time to start pinning! Here is what you need to do:

First, go to your newly created board, click the ‘+’ sign, and choose the Pin option to create your first pin. 

To continue, enter the title of your pin and explain what it is about. You can also include the link to the destination and add videos or images to make your pin more descriptive. Lastly, select the Publish button at the top to publish your first pin. 

There you go! You have successfully created your first pin. Now you can select the option to promote your pin. 

Here, you can add your promotion budget, duration, and click the Promote button to start your pin promotion. 

The general rule of thumb is that:

• You need to have at least ten pins on each board.
• You should avoid over-pinning.
• Timing, quality, and consistency beat frequency. 

Why is Pinterest One of the Best Platforms for a Travel Company?

Here are the five reasons why Pinterest is one of the best platforms for a travel company:

1. Tourism is a popular trend on Pinterest

Around 25% of the activity that happens on Pinterest is somewhat related to tourism and travel. It means that over 40 million people come to the platform every month looking for travel ideas for their next trip. 

As a result, almost three-quarters of the top travel brands invest in this platform to build a website presence. 

2. Pinterest’s visually-based layouts help with effective marketing

Whenever you are doing travel marketing, you should focus on the visuals. You need to show the people around you what they are missing out on. For this, visual content is very important. 

Just writing a description about an expensive room in a luxury hotel won’t attract people anymore. They are always looking for the visual presentation of the luxurious amenities that deliver the gist of that particular room. Whenever possible, post video content since videos are 40 times more likely to be shared.

As a travel company owner, you need an image-based platform to promote your product and services. In this case, Pinterest helps you a lot as it has few more benefits over Instagram. One of them is that with Pinterest, you can link all your pins to your product pages, blogs, or whatever you want. 

It means that the platform lets you create a direct call-to-action (CTA) to send interested browsers further down the sales funnel.

3. Your content gets stored longer on Pinterest

The great thing about this visual search engine is that the platform provides your content with a longer shelf life. Since the algorithms of Pinterest are driven by user interface rather than the most recent posts, it makes sure your content gets stored longer here. 

The more people like and repin your content, the longer it gets displayed to users who haven’t seen it before. Once more people see your pins, they can repin and like them and continue the cycle. 

If the cycle goes on, your one pin on Pinterest can continue generating interest, engagement, and leads for around six months after you posted it. 

4. You can build an audience by specific interest using the themed boards

As a travel company, you can’t rely entirely on one type of customer. In fact, there are different audience personas composed of multiple persons. 

Moreover, each person has their own specific needs and values. For instance, a 20-year-old college student and a 40-year-old working man may have different ideas of what their dream vacation looks like. However, something that is common in them is that they both want to go on that dream vacation. 

Thankfully, Pinterest includes different boards that come to your rescue. You can simply organize your pins into different boards that are created for each of your audience personas. 

Your users then have the luxury to follow your company’s boards that they find most relevant and interesting. Besides, they can see new pins as you add them to the board. 

Using themed boards, you can narrow down audiences on Pinterest by specific interest and offer content that meets your users’ expectations. 

5. Pinterest users are always ready to shop

About 87% of Pinterest users’ buying decisions are influenced by the posts they see on the platform. It means that the platform is super effective at influencing people to buy your products and services.

As a result, if you promote your travel services here, you are more likely to attract more customers to your travel business. 

8 Pinterest Tips for Travel Companies

As we have already shown the steps of setting up your Pinterest profile, it is very easy for you to get along with this platform. However, you need to learn how your travel company can really take advantage of this amazing social network. Here are the eight tips that you should keep in mind:

1. Invest in the Platform

First things first, if you want to get the most out of Pinterest, you need to invest in the platform. You should add a Pinterest save button to your website so that your website users can easily pin your website content to their Pinterest boards. You can do this using the Pinterest Widget Builder. 

Similarly, you should be more active on this social network. It is important to pin consistently and interact with the Pinterest community. You can make a good connection with others by liking, commenting, and repinning pins from other users. Similarly, you can boost engagement by using collaborative group boards where the owner allows other users to pin images. 

2. Use Quality Visuals

As we mentioned already, Pinterest introduces visual-based layouts. You should make the most out of this feature by including top-notch visual content. The images you pin on this platform need to be clear, professional, and inspiring. You can always explore different stock photo sites that offer royalty-free travel images. 

Likewise, you can always use different photo editing apps and tools to help you ensure that your photos are of the best quality. 

The best idea is to focus on lifestyle images over product images. For instance, posting a picture of people enjoying your hotel’s pool is more convincing than just the picture of the hotel itself.  

Additionally, you should make sure that the images you pin suit on mobile screens as 80% of the pinners access the platform via mobile devices.

3. Make Use of Keywords Properly

Images are the most significant part of Pinterest. Whenever you pin an image, you need to make sure it is of top-notch quality. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should neglect the captions of the images you pin.

The captions you write on your pins offer your viewers a better idea of the content they will see if they click your link and visit your website. Similarly, they also provide you the chance to include keywords and make your pins discoverable. 

Pro Tip: Try to mention your business name in the first line of your pin’s text. 

4. Take Full Advantage of Analytics

Since you sign up for a Pinterest business account, you get access to the analytics. As you get this perk, you should try to make the most out of it. 

Using the analytics, you can get a lot of useful information, including the most popular pins and which of them are driving the most click-through traffic. Similarly, you get a clear picture of which boards your followers are repinning your pins to. 

To view the analytics report, simply click the Analytics Tab at the top left of your Pinterest screen.

5. Focus on Promoting Your Pins

Pinterest supports its own ads platform that enables you to promote your pins and get them in front of more people. As per the stats, promoted pins produce an average of 20% more organic clicks. 

6. Leverage a Pinterest Marketing Strategy

Just like you do with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you should draw out a social media strategy for Pinterest. But how can you do it?

Well, the first thing to do is set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. Next up, carry out thorough research on the general Pinterest audience and the demographic that is most likely to follow your travel channel. 

It is very important to learn about your brand’s specific Pinterest target audience. That way, you can create different strategies to compete with your competitors. At last, you can plan and incorporate on-brand content for Pinterest on your social media content calendar. 

7. Focus On Search Engine Optimization

Pinterest is similar to search engines. As a result, make sure to make your pins search-friendly so that your users can easily find them. Optimize your pins by adding keywords, descriptions, and hashtags to them.

You can even use rich pins which makes your website content directly pinnable. Besides, since it avoids content duplication, it helps to boost your travel brand’s Pinterest SEO.

8. Focus on Pinterest Ads

If you want to take full advantage of Pinterest, make sure to market your travel business using Pinterest ads. The platform allows advertisers to target ads around keywords, location, interests, and other metrics. 

With detailed audience targeting, you can reach specific groups of Pinterest users, such as:

• People who have visited your travel site
• People who have engaged with your pins and with similar content on Pinterest
• Your newsletter subscribers

You have the option to use video ads for better engagement. 

Success Stories of Travel Brands Using Pinterest

As Pinterest is becoming one of the most promising social media platforms, most travel businesses are already leveraging the benefits from it. Here are a few of those travel brands that generate maximum leads and conversion using Pinterest:

Lonely Planet:

If you look at Lonely Planet’s Pinterest boards, you can find that they have named their top line of boards the Best Of boards. Whenever a user clicks through the boards, he/she is presented with numerous beautiful images to catch their eyes. 

Orbitz:

Orbitz on the other hand uses a different approach. You can see that they have organized their Pinterest board categories as per experiences. The boards are more specific and they target audiences who know more about what they want and are looking for something very specific. 

So what’s the difference between these two travel businesses’ approaches?

While Lonely Planet’s boards link mainly to informational articles, Orbitz’s boards are more focused on making sales and they link their boards mainly to tour offerings. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Our Verdict

Pinterest is by far the most powerful social network, especially for the travel industry. Once you set up your perfect business account on this platform, you get access to over 250 million daily active users. If your marketing strategy is up to the mark, you have the chance to convert these users into your loyal customers.

Remember to pin quality images, add keywords to your pins, promote your pins, and take full advantage of analytics. With the visual element, Pinterest is the best way to generate business for your travel company. 

Now that you are aware of how to use Pinterest for your travel company, it’s time to experiment. Good luck and happy pinning!