Category Archives: Social Media

Dec9

CVBs on Pinterest: December Update

Posted on December 9, 2012 by Anne Hornyak

We’re almost ready to close out the year! Will a more active Pinterest account be on your 2013 to-do list?

Most DMOs have stopped pinning all together. From data collected on December 3, 145 DMOs did not pin at all during the entire month of November. That’s 35% of the total amount of DMOs. And approximately the same amount (151 DMOs) pinned 20 or less pins during the month. That’s about one pin per weekday. Some may say that’s enough activity but I feel that DMOs should pin more frequently than that. Here’s the total breakdown:

Who were the most active pinners in November? Boston USA, Explore Georgia, VisitSavannah Georgia, Panama City Beach and Lake County Ohio Visitors Bureau take the lead.

In terms of total pins, VisitSavannah Georgia, Visit Philly, Explore Georgia, Boston USA and Temple CVB rank at the top of that list. Here’s the breakdown of all 413 DMOs: Read the rest of this entry →

Nov19

CVBs on Pinterest: November Update

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Anne Hornyak

CVBs on Pinterest: November Update

Another month has gone by and my list of CVBs on Pinterest has grown to nearly 400 DMOs!

Below are the rankings for 396 DMOs, sorted by total followers. Pinterest data in this blog post was collected on November 1, 2012.

Best Practices

As I was collecting my data, I came across several inconsistencies in how accounts were branded. Here are a few details that should not be missed.

Profile Picture: Some logos are too small while others are cropped strangely to fit into a square. Be sure to upload a logo or photo that is at least 165×165 pixels but Pinterest recommends 600×600 pixels. If you don’t already have a square logo, get one designed right away. You can use it on Twitter, Facebook and nearly all of your social media channels.

Profile: If I’m unsure whether a profile is official or not, I usually click on their website link and look for “CVB” mentioned somewhere on the site. There are a lot of travel agencies, especially for international destinations, that are using “Visit” or “Explore” followed by the destination’s name. I tediously check this because I want my list to only contain official CVBs and DMOs, not travel agencies, chambers, cities, etc.

Several accounts do not list websites in their profiles. Why is this important? Pinterest now allows you to verify your website and displays a check mark on your profile page as well as in search results. Check out VisitSavannah Georgia as an example.

You also have the option of listing your Twitter and/or Facebook profiles. The problem with this right now is that you can’t list a Facebook page, just a Facebook profile. My recommendation would be to list your Twitter account here but do no link them together so that all of your pins automatically tweet. I feel that all organizations and businesses should have a social media content strategy and that linking accounts so things automatically tweet can easily produce over-sharing and possibly lead to people unfollowing your account.

Business Account: Pinterest just rolled out an option for businesses last week. You can convert your account to a business account by going to http://business.pinterest.com. Currently there doesn’t seem to be a lot of benefits for converting your account but since Pinterest is working on separating business accounts from personal accounts, there must be a plan to help businesses promote themselves better on this platform. Will it be free? My guess is that eventually there will be some sort of fee for specific business features or advertisement in the future.

Who are the most active DMOs?

Read the rest of this entry →

Oct7

CVBs on Pinterest: October Update

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Anne Hornyak

CVBs on Pinterest: October Update

My list of DMOs on Pinterest now has more than 450 international and domestic DMOs! Below is the list of 317 US destinations, ranked by number of total followers, as well as a breakdown in terms of followers, pins and activity.

Followers:

20 DMOs have more than 1,000 followers
8 DMOs have more than 2,000 followers
The top 3 DMOs are VisitSavannah Georgia, Texas Tourism and Durango

Pins:

9 DMOs have more than 1,000 pins
VisitSavannah Georgia (3,980 pins) has more than twice the amount of pins than any other DMO

Activity (growth of pins):

264 DMOs (86% of my tracking) had some type of activity since July 1
109 DMOs pinned at least 60 images since July 1, an average of 20 pins/month, which I think is an acceptable minimum monthly amount
77 DMOs pinned 20-59 images
78 DMOs pinned 1-19 images
43 DMOs pinned 0 images
5 DMOs had a negative amount of pins for this period, meaning that they must have deleted pins or boards
VisitSavannah Georgia is a frequent pinner and has pinned almost 1,200 pins in the past 3 months
Other active pinners at the top of the list include Elgin Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, Visit Natchez Mississippi, Explore Georgia, VisitPhilly and Atlanta Georgia

And finally, DMOs ranked by total followers:

I’m speaking about Pinterest at eTourism Summit this week so if you’re attending the conference, please introduce yourself to me so we can geek out!

Sep4

Learn to write.

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Anne Hornyak

Learn to write.

What’s happening to the quality of written communication? I’ve seen a lot of blog posts recently that were poorly written – not in regards to content or opinion but full of grammatical errors like inconsistency or misuse of commas, incorrect verb conjugations or sentences that end with prepositions. These are the little rules that are learned in grade school and junior high. Are we, as adults, really falling below that level?

I attended the Georgia Governor’s Tourism Conference last week and my favorite takeaway was a quote from Peter Shankman:

It’s so true. People are using text lingo in emails and tweets (when there are plenty of characters available). Others omit necessary punctuation like periods at the end of sentences. I’ve even seen this on Facebook by people who run businesses! And how many times have you seen a “Sent from my iPhone. Please excuse any typos.” disclaimer on emails? Is it really too much to proofread an email before sending it? Yes, I’ve fallen into this category several times and it’s one thing to have typos in an email to family or friends but not taking the time to proof emails that are sent to business contacts is just not professional. Where is the standard?

With blog posts, are we rushing so much to get fresh content out that they don’t take the time to proof or edit our work? I sometimes spend hours drafting blog posts, going over each paragraph several times to word each sentence perfectly, making sure they don’t run on too long but are long enough, using groups of three in a series to help enhance important points and looking at line breaks to make sure everything flows smoothly. Read the rest of this entry →