5 Reasons Pinterest is One of the Best Platforms for a Travel Company to Be On

Any travel company operating in the 21st century knows that a robust digital marketing strategy is essential to reaching a wide audience of potential customers. That, of course, includes building a following on social media. 

There are literally billions of people on social media, and leaving a good impression with your followers can make a real difference — 71% of users who have a good experience engaging with a brand on social media are more likely to recommend the brand to other people.

You don’t necessarily have to try to be Facebook famous, Instagram savvy, and Twitter-tastic to make the most of digital marketing opportunities. Instead, you should focus on platforms that will bring you the highest ROI for the time and money you put into them. 

For a travel company, that platform might just be Pinterest.

Pinterest is a visually-oriented social media platform with a focus on users’ lifestyles, tastes, and interests, which makes it a shoe-in for promoting travel.

With a profile on Pinterest, your travel company can pin images that link to your website or a specialized landing page, repin posts from other profiles, and organize your pins into boards, categorized into themes that make the most sense for your goals. 

Users can like and repin your posts, and follow your boards to stay tuned to whatever you serve up next. This type of engagement means you can use Pinterest to spread the gospel about your brand and the types of experiences your offer, and build a loyal and tailored following according to the way your organize your content.

From the platform’s focus on visuals to the way its algorithms give your content more reach, here are 5 reasons that Pinterest is a must for travel companies.

1. Tourism is One of the Most Popular Themes on Pinterest

25% of everything that happens on Pinterest is tourism and travel related. That equals over 40 million people a month coming to the platform looking for travel ideas for their next trip.

That’s probably why three-quarters of the top travel brands are investing in building a presence on the site — and why you could be eating their dust if you don’t jump on board, too.

2. Pinterest’s Visually-Based Layout Makes for Effective Marketing

When marketing travel, it’s all about the visuals. You need to show people what they’re missing out on. 

Someone isn’t going to book an expensive room in your luxury hotel based on your description of it. Show them the luxurious amenities, and they’ll wish they could teleport straight to the room’s seaside balcony. Don’t take our word for it — statistics show that visual posts are 40 times more likely to be shared.

Travel companies need image-based platforms to promote their product. This is one of Pinterest’s biggest perks when marketing travel. 

So how does this differ from Instagram? Pinterest offers travel companies two big benefits over Instagram: 

1. People can use it on desktops and mobile devices, whereas Instagram is mobile-only, and
2. You can link all your images/pins to your product pages, blogs, or whatever you want, which means you can create a direct call-to-action to send interested browsers further down the sales funnel.

3. Your Content Has a Longer Shelf Life on Pinterest

Generating content takes time and money. The more you can get out of it, the better. 

Pinterest helps you extend the shelf life of your content because its algorithms are driven by user interest rather than whatever’s been most recently posted.

The more people like and repin your post, the longer it’ll be displayed to users who haven’t seen it before. These users can then like and/or repin it themselves, thus continuing the cycle. 

This means that one pin on Pinterest might continue to generate interest, engagement, and leads for up to 6 months after you first posted it!

4. Themed Boards Allow You to Build Audience by Specific Interests

It’s rare for a travel company to rely entirely on any one niche type of customer. Most brands’ audience personas are comprised of multiple personas.

The upside of multiple personas is a diverse customer base that can keep you afloat even as interest ebbs and flows from one subgroup to another (i.e., you don’t have all your eggs in one basket). 

Not only that, but each subgroup has its own specific values, needs, and challenges. For example, a 20-year-old college student and her 50-year-old mom probably have pretty different ideas of what a dream vacation looks like. The thing they do have in common, though, is that they both want to go on that dream vacation.

That’s why boards are so handy on Pinterest. You can organize your pins into different boards catered to each of your personas. 

Users can choose to follow your company’s boards that they’re interested in (perhaps you have one called “Trips for Students on a Budget”), and they’ll see new pins as you add them to the board. Additionally, some of your pins might have crossover appeal, and be able to live on multiple boards at once.

Themed boards are an excellent way to narrow down audiences on Pinterest by specific interests and provide content that speaks to those interests.

5. Pinterest Users Are Ready to Shop

87% of Pinterest users say that their buying decisions are influenced by posts they see on the platform. That says two things:

1. The platform is very effective at influencing taste and interest in products, and
2. People on Pinterest are ready to shop.

When it comes to travel, the implications of that stat are hard to ignore. Pinterest reports that half of American travelers who spend $2,000 or more a year on travel are users on the site. 

That’s nearly 20 million high-spending travelers looking to Pinterest for ideas for their next trip — and that’s just U.S. travelers. With close to 90% of those likely to be influenced by what they find on the platform, you’re looking at a seriously big audience of potential new customers.

Pin Your Way to Success with BK Media Group

Digital marketing offers limitless possibilities for growing your company, which is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, there are so many opportunities, including Pinterest, for you to reach new customers. 

On the other hand, it can sometimes feel like an endless job, one in which there’s always something else you could be doing to make your company more successful.

That’s why hiring a professional digital marketing agency with experience in world-class travel marketing is the right choice for companies serious about expanding their online business.

From perfecting your Pinterest boards and developing more effective marketing videos to exploiting the power of Facebook Dynamic Ads and incorporating live chat into your website, there are so many ways BKMedia Group can help your company grow online.

Learn more about our experience with travel marketing and how our services can help your company become more successful »