I haven’t been this excited about a social media upgrade in a long time! Pinterest introduced Place Pins today! And the cool part is that they connected their map to Foursquare. So not only does it geotag correctly (remember the old days of Flickr geotagging?!), it also will pull in the address and telephone number…
Let’s take a look at where CVBs stand on Pinterest! Some accounts have reached a few milestones worth noting in this update. *data collected May 30, 2013. Los Angeles has over 30,000 followers now. VisitSavannah Georgia has nearly 25,000 and Pure Michigan will probably be the next DMO to reach 10,000 followers. Other top accounts…
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…
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: …
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?
…
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:
Total pins by state:…
It’s time for another update! My list has now grown to 181 CVBs on Pinterest, not including international destinations. I’ve been tracking these basic stats weekly but it takes nearly 2 hours each Sunday to keep up so I’ll be changing my strategy soon.
What I’m seeing: the CVBs that pin daily, or almost daily, see a gain of 20+ followers each week. Those who don’t pin weekly have almost no growth at all. Of course, the larger destinations see a larger weekly growth. And so do those accounts who have a larger following. Everything seems to be proportionate on size and activity, as it should be.
Taking a break from extra analysis this month, I’m just going to share lists and resources in this post.
When I talk about “followers” below, I mean the amount of people following the entire CVB account / all of the CVB’s boards. Typically certain boards will have a LOT more followers than the entire account but it’s not possible for me to track the cumulative number of followers across all the boards each CVB has. I don’t have a script so I track everything manually and it may be hard to believe, but I do have interests other than social media.
CVBs, ranked by account followers
CVBs, ranked by number of pins…
Recently there have been 3 tourism Pinterest contests that have caught my attention.
1. Visit Bucks County “Repin It to Win It” Contest
This was the first CVB contest that I’ve seen. The rules are simple: repin any image from their Repin It To Win It Contest board and you could be selected randomly to win that prize. The contest period was just over a month long (March 20 – May 1, 2012).
They had 182 followers (those following their account, not the cumulative followers all of their boards) before the contest and currently have 345 followers, an 89% increase. A lot of DMOs have seen a growth average of 10-20 followers per week, which correlates directly to the amount of pins added each week. Visit Bucks County’s average for this contest period so far has been 28 followers per week.
Their contest board currently has 828 followers. They have 17 prizes/pins on that board and have a total of 2,065 repins for the contest so far.
On April 13, we saw a big jump in traffic to the contest. The ‘Repin It To Win It’ board jumped from 598 on April 12 to 733 on April 13. We specifically saw a great deal of activity on the Sesame Place pin, including more than 20 comments on that pin.
In terms of promotion, check out this get pinterested post or visit their Visit Bucks County News Pinterest board for other blog mentions.
We’ve promoted the contest through the press release, Facebook and Twitter (daily tweets about the different prizes). We’ve worked with our participating partners to encourage them to promote the contest through sample Facebook and Twitter posts on their company accounts. We promoted the Pinterest contest in our ‘This Weekend in Bucks County’ e-newsletter, as well.
This looks to be very successful! Congrats! And thanks to Jessica for providing extra stats and information!
2. Experience Columbus’ “Repin it to Win It!” Contest
This is a quick little contest to give away one prize. To enter, just repin this one image on Pinterest or leave a comment on their blog post.
Experience Columbus typically gains 20-30 followers per week. This contest is so short that it probably won’t impact their following much. So far there have been 33 comment entries on the blog and 68 repins. Of those, 50 repins occurred on the first day of the contest.
This was promoted on twitter and Facebook. It’s a very innovative way to incorporate Pinterest in a giveaway.
Well done! And thanks to Joe for providing the stats!
3. Pin Hawaii! Win a trip to Hawaii with Aqua Hotels & Resorts
This contest isn’t from a DMO but I’m including it this list because it still promotes tourism and it’s just so beautifully done.
Go to www.pinhawaii.com and be amazed! …
Our previous #tourismchat was on March 8 and focused on Twitter. If you have time, read through the entire chat transcript. Here are my highlights:
What are your favorite twitter tools?
How many tweets do you send a day? Evening or weekends too?
What do you think are the most important metrics for Twitter? …
By now you’ve heard about which CVBs have an active Pinterest presence but have you wondered how they stack up when comparing states? 
The 108 US CVBs on Pinterest represent 36 states in total.
Number of CVBs
The chart to the right depicts the breakdown by state. All stats were recorded on March 11.
Texas takes the lead with 16 total CVBs on Pinterest. I’m not really surprised by this. Claire Isabel, an influential Pinterest user, found me on Pinterest and shared this Texans are pinning it BIG! blog post. Her passion for Texas is amazing. She created a Texans are pinning it BIG! Pinterest board and added many of the Texas CVBs as contributors. Several of the collaborating CVBs have been actively pinning items to that board.
This concept would work wonderfully for state DMOs. CVBs can also create neighborhood boards and collaborate with attractions, restaurants or hotels in those specific locations.
The top 5 list is rounded out with California (11 CVBs), Illinois (8 CVBs), Ohio (7 CVBs) and Florida (6 CVBs).
Number of CVBs
This information is great but it doesn’t really tell us the most active states when it comes to pins or followers. I think these two metrics are important for determining active Pinterest users. …
