Category Archives: Tourism

Mar15

CVBs on Pinterest: March 2013

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CVBs on Pinterest: March 2013

It’s been an ENTIRE year since I started tracking CVBs on Pinterest! Can you believe it? Me neither.

Since my first update (February 22, 2012), there has been amazing growth in the number of pinning CVBs.

On Feb 22, 2012, there were-

  • 34 US destinations
  • 3 international destinations
  • 8,041 pins
  • 640 boards
  • 15,575 total followers

On March 4, 2013, there were-

  • 437 US destinations
  • 209 international destinations
  • 150,094 pins
  • 6,992 boards
  • 1,594,531 total followers

Visit Savannah was considered as the leader back then and is still the leader in many ways today.

Here’s a full ranking of all US destinations.

And here’s a ranking of the US State DMOs.

Is your CVB on the list? Is it on my CVBs on Pinterest board? If not, leave a comment below!

Happy Pinning!

Feb12

CVBs on Pinterest: February Update

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CVBs on Pinterest: February Update

2013 got off to a great start on Pinterest. Many CVBs have seen incredible growth in followers and are being more strategic about their Pinterest efforts.

Los Angeles (18K followers) is starting to catch up to VisitSavannah Georgia (21K followers). Colorado Tourism, Beverly Hills, Visit Austin Texas and Pure Michigan all have over 5K followers each (as of Feb 12).

Fan Growth: number of new followers gained in January

Activity: number of images pinned in January

Total Followers: number of total followers, as of Feb 6

Leave a comment if your CVB is not in my rankings or on my CVBs on Pinterest board. What are you doing to pin more effectively?

Jan3

CVBs on Pinterest: January Update

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CVBs on Pinterest: January Update

2012 closed with 420 US CVBs and DMOs on Pinterest!

I posted a lot of stats last month so let’s just get into the ranking!

If you’re interested in how the State DMOs compare, check out this list:

And as always, if you know of any CVBs not on my CVBs on Pinterest board, please let me know!

Dec9

CVBs on Pinterest: December Update

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CVBs on Pinterest: December Update

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

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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 →

Nov5

Tourism Talk: Daniel Horsch and #SoMeT12

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Tourism Talk: Daniel Horsch and #SoMeT12

If you’re interested in social media and the tourism industry, you’ve probably heard of SoMeT. The conference is happening this week in El Paso.

That’s right. El Paso.

Seems a little random, right? Wrong. Daniel Horsch and the El Paso CVB had a great team working with a solid strategy to bring the social media tourism conference to west Texas.

Here’s what Daniel had to say about SoMeT, social media and living the life of a Tourism Geek.

What was your role with the CVB? How long did you work there and how long have you worked in the tourism industry?

I served as the Social Media Coordinator with the El Paso CVB from August of 2010 through May of 2012. Before I broke into the tourism industry, I was a television reporter in the local news biz.

Besides winning SoMeT, what were some of your previous social media successes?

Before SoMeT, my biggest success was getting the opportunity to build Visit El Paso’s social media presence. I was fortunate enough to have a great support staff and a community that understood the importance of social media. In less than two years, we had become THE source for information about what’s going on in the city of El Paso.

How do you see social media further changing in the tourism industry? Read the rest of this entry →

Oct25

State DMOs on Pinterest: October Update

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State DMOs on Pinterest: October Update

Can you believe that 47 state DMOs have Pinterest accounts?!

I know what you’re thinking… Are they all active accounts? Which states pin the most? Which states have the most followers? Well, I’m here to answer these questions!

As far as I could tell, the only state DMOs that are not on Pinterest yet are Minnesota, Rhode Island and Washington. I’ve checked their website and searched Pinterest for potential usernames but could not find these DMOs. If they’re on Pinterest, please send me note so I can track them!

*Note: all of this data was collected October 1 except for Alabama and Tennessee as I only discovered their accounts this morning.

In terms of activity, Georgia, Texas and Alaska pinned the most images since my last update in June. There were only 4 accounts who did not pin at all during these past few months.

When it comes to total amount of pins, Maryland and Georgia take the lead with over 1,000 pins each!

The ranking by total followers is a bit skewed as it appears that Pinterest is promoting one of Texas’ boards to new users when they sign up. (Pinterest makes each user select 5 images that they like and then that user automatically follows accounts related to those images.)

Which states DMOs do you follow on Pinterest?

Oct7

CVBs on Pinterest: October Update

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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:

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!

Jul24

States on Pinterest: Top 10 Lists

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States on Pinterest: Top 10 Lists

Congrats, America! Each of the 50 states is represented on Pinterest by at least one CVB/DMO!

Together, the US has pinned over 58,000 images and have more than 60,000 followers! *data collected June 30*

In addition, there were over 11,000 pins pinned in June and more than 15,000 new followers acquired that month!

So which states top the list?

Most CVBs/DMOs on Pinterest:

  1. California: 28 CVBs
  2. Texas: 24 CVBs
  3. Illinois: 14 CVBs
  4. Ohio: 12 CVBs
  5. Pennsylvania: 12 CVBs
  6. Florida: 10 CVBs
  7. Michigan: 10 CVBs
  8. Missouri: 10 CVBs
  9. North Carolina: 10 CVBs
  10. Georgia: 9 CVBs

Total pins by state: Read the rest of this entry →

Jul23

State DMOs on Pinterest

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State DMOs on Pinterest

Pinterest is taking over state DMOs. There are 40 states on Pinterest already! These states have over 500 boards, 10,500 pins, 1,500 likes and 14,000 total followers!

So how do they stack up? *Data was collected June 30.

Sorted by most pins:

  1. Maryland
  2. Kansas
  3. New Mexico
  4. Oklahoma
  5. Florida
  6. Colorado
  7. Georgia
  8. Missouri
  9. South Dakota
  10. Arkansas

Sorted by most followers:

  1. Michigan
  2. New Mexico
  3. Wyoming
  4. Hawaii
  5. Florida
  6. Colorado
  7. North Carolina
  8. Georgia
  9. Ohio
  10. Indiana

Sorted by most active (added the most pins from May to June): Read the rest of this entry →