If you follow anybody on twitter or facebook you can not fail to have heard of Pinterest over the last couple of weeks.
It has been around a couple of years but has suddenly exploded in growth, not least because all the social media bods are talking about it! But what is it?
It is a social media site that revolves around photos and pinboards. It’s quite simple – you see a photo you love on the web and you pin it to one of your boards. It started life as a great medium for brides to-be, fashion lovers, interior designers (amateur and pro), cooks and crafters to share their stuff and build up collections. Great idea – you are planning a wedding so you have a board for hairstyles you like, dresses, flowers, invites etc etc.
OK sounds lovely. But I’m not planning a wedding, have no time for sticking and gluing or knitting and I have plenty of cookbooks thanks. What use is it to me and more importantly what use is it to my holiday cottages?
To get on you need an invite. Well according to Shareaholic in January it beat YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, MySpace and Google Plus for referral traffic. Facebook, is still top dog of course. So if referral traffic, ie more visits to your website or blog is what you want then Pinterest is the place to be – at the moment. How is it a referral site? Each photo links back to it’s site of origin. So if you or anyone else, pins a good photo from your website you have immediately created a link that people can follow.
You can go to the website and request one but this takes a while. Any Pinterest member can invite you so if you would like an invite ask me. Comment below, send me an email or a tweet (@HPEJoPrice)
Once you are on all you do is create boards.
You will see that I have several boards. One is Self Catering Holiday Houses. This is full of excellent examples of holiday property photos, and each one refers back to that person’s website. So not only does it help me in my work, by showing examples of good photos to Holiday Property owners when I am talking to them, it helps each owner whose photo is on there.
I have another board called Beautiful France. This has various photos of my own holiday property but also of the surrounding area and France generally – for all those francophiles out there. As with all social media sites the trick is not to oversell, you will just put people off. Very few people will search for and look at a board that is just about your house, but if your house is in the Lake District say, then you could have a Beautiful Lakes board that includes some of your photos.
On my social media board you will find some funnies, but also an interesting case study of someone who really made Pinterest work for them.
Repin
The next trick is to get people to repin your photo on their board thereby getting more coverage, each time the link goes back to the website of origin. Choosing fabulous photos and good keywords will help you to do this. Ask a question in the comments section to encourage conversation. If you know how add overlay text or a watermark to your photo and keep cross promoting by posting links to your pinned image using other social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook)
The beauty of Pinterest is the ease of use. Once you have installed the Pin It button to your toolbar, whenever you see a suitable photo on the web you just pin it. Simple as that.
There is one more thing though:
WARNING: PINTEREST IS ADDICTIVE
If you would like some further advice on Pinterest for holiday properties or any other aspect of marketing your holiday property then please do email me at jo.price@totstotravel.co.uk, follow me on twitter @HPEJoPrice or go to my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/HolidayPropertyExpertJoPrice
For a copy of a free book full of advice on how to increase your bookings go to www.freeholidayhomerentalsbook.co.uk
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