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?
Being an active pinner is essential for the best reach possible. The DMOs that pinned the most images in October include the following:
- Explore Georgia: 425 pins
- VisitSavannah Georgia: 388 pins
- Gaylord Michigan: 279 pins
- Explore Gwinnett: 230 pins
- El Paso: 186 pins
Out of the 396 DMOs on my list, 68 DMOs were added this month and therefore do not have September data to compare.
From the remaining 328 DMOs:
- 7 accounts had a negative amount of pins from September, meaning that they deleted pins
- 98 accounts had no activity at all
- 28 accounts pinned 1-5 images last month
- 86 accounts pinned 6-20 images
- 48 accounts pinned 21-40 images
- 43 accounts pinned 41-100 images
- 12 accounts pinned 101-150 images
- 2 accounts pinned 151-200 images
- 2 accounts pinned 201-300 images
- 2 accounts pinned over 380 images
Do most DMOs interact by liking pins?
It’s hard to measure repins and comments but there are a number of DMOs who constantly use the “like” feature.
- 122 accounts have 0 likes
- 117 accounts have 1-10 likes
- 100 accounts have 11-50 likes
- 41 accounts have 51-200 likes
- 15 accounts have 201-915 likes
- 1 account has over 1,700 likes
How much content are DMOs pinning?
Whether the pins link to the DMO website or other websites, it’s good to have an active account that pins frequently. Some of this data is skewed by when the DMO created their Pinterest account but for the most part, only 1/3 of the accounts I track appear to be active.
- 22 accounts have 0-10 total pins
- 38 accounts have 11-40 pins
- 86 accounts have 41-100 pins
- 109 accounts have 101-250 pins
- 88 accounts have 251-500 pins
- 50 accounts have 500-1,000 pins
- 2 accounts have 1,001-2,000 pins
- 1 account (VisitSavannah Georgia) has over 4,000 pins
How many boards do most DMOs have?
Is it better to make your boards more specific/niche or to keep them broad? I think either way could be successful, depending on the amount of content on each board. In my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to create separate boards with less than 30 images.
- 14 accounts have more than 30 boards
- 76 accounts have 20-29 boards
- 176 accounts have 10-19 boards
- 130 accounts have 0-9 boards
Are DMOs proactive about following others?
Do you need to follow people back on Pinterest? What about a “follow” campaign that brings awareness of your account to potential followers? I think it’s essential to find followers that are similar to you so that you can repin their content. However I would only follow their boards that are specific to your destination and not follow all of their boards.
- 3 accounts follow more than 1,000 users
- 12 accounts follow 500-999 users
- 52 accounts follow 200-499 users
- 57 accounts follow 100-199 users
- 93 accounts follow 50-99 users
- 55 accounts follow 30-49 users
- 82 accounts follow 10-29 users
- 42 accounts follow 0-9 users
And finally, which DMOs have the most followers?
Durango, Colorado, Texas Tourism and VisitSavannah Georgia are at the top of the list. Below is a full ranking of DMO’s by followers.
Where do you stack up?