How Pinterest works for travel and tourism

CEO and Co-Founder of Tailwind, Danny Maloney is our guest on this week's podcast episode and we are talking all about Pinterest for travel and tourism.

In this episode of Tourism Tweetup the Podcast I talk to Danny about what Pinterest is, who is using it and the benefits of Pinterest for travel and tourism. We also talk about Tailwind a Pinterest marketing and analytics platform of which Danny is Co-Founder and CEO.

Tailwind helps manage visual content sourcing and publishing work flow (including pin and repin scheduling), run campaigns on Pinterest, manage your community every day and measure the results.

Connect with Danny on Twitter here.

Check out more about Tailwind here.

Pinterest is all about inspiration and aspiration says Danny. It's less about the past or the current moment and more about the future. Pinterest is more about the future which is why people love it some much!

Pinterest can be a great planning tool for travel. (We talk about this at the 5 minute mark).

From about the 6.30 minute mark we talk about what marketers need to be doing to be effective on Pinterest.

"Pinterest from a marketers perspective begins and ends with content. Content is the heart of Pinterest." say Danny Maloney

[Tweet "Pinterest from a marketers perspective begins and ends with content says @DanielpMaloney"]

The first thing is to determine the strategy and what you want to get out of the platform 9your objectives). Is it about broad branding, is it about driving specific traffic, is it ultimately about driving bookings etc and then determine what is the right content strategy to support that objective and then looking at what content do we have right now.

To get the profile going;
Have a strong avatar image
Have an inviting and informative description
Build your initial boards starting with at least 8-10 and these boards need to have enough content to be interesting.
Have enough content to be taken seriously so you will grow followers

Around the 9 minute mark we talk about Pinterest as a web traffic driver.

Around the 10 minute mark we talk about what to measure. Danny says when starting out you want to be able to assess if your content strategy is working (good point!). Once you have some traffic flowing though your Pinterest account you will be able to see your vitality score for each of your boards and you'll learn which boards are more interesting to your audience and this is what you want to push.

Then look at which specific pins and types of pins are doing well (listen at the 11.30 mark for some great points).

At around the 13 minute mark we talk about setting up a positive growth cycle for your account.

"Experimenting is a good idea". If you try a bunch of things you'll get some bites.

Around the 15 minute mark we talk about specific examples of who is doing it well in the travel industry e.g. Four Seasons Hotels and Resort. See their profile here. Listen to this part there are some cool ideas.

The other example referred to is Azamara Cruises. Gives you a sense of being in the moment on the cruises.

"Try to craft a pin so when someone sees it they can instantly feel themselves stepping into the moment."

We chat about the Tailwind tool around the 19 minute mark. They create tools within Tailwind to help with content, help with publishing (editorial calendar), offer analytics and then the promotions side of the platform (e.g. promoted reach capabilities).

Check out more about Tailwind here.

The final point is a good one "If you are just starting out on Pinterest understand that Pinterest is not designed as a real time platform, don't try to emulate the strategy you are using on other platforms, try and think about how Pinterest is different and unique and how different types of content will succeed ...