Social Media Sites on the Rise for the Hotel Industry

How Pinterest can give you an advantage in website traffic

Pinterest is a social media pinboard-styled site that uses imagery to communicate with its user base and is now the fastest growing content-sharing platform. You simply create ‘boards’ and upload or ‘pin’ images from websites.

When you think of search engines, you automatically think of Google. However, other sites such as Pinterest have millions of searches each month. Just like keyword searches in Google, you can be top ranked in Pinterest searches by using keywords within your pins.

Pinterest Hotel ‘Board’ Ideas

• Location Show some fun and interesting things to do in your local area.
• Food Inspire your guests to eat at your restaurant by adding photos of your tasty meals.
• Weddings & Honeymoons This is one of the most popular boards that women planning their wedding create. Let them know your hotel is the perfect wedding venue for their special day with some great imagery and past photos of weddings.
• Events Promote local upcoming events and link back to your What’s On or Blog page about the event for more information.
• Your Hotel Exterior and Rooms Show off your hotel and its rooms. Get people excited about wanting to visit.
• For the Family A lot of Pinterest users are families with children, so promote that you have family friendly things to do at your hotel.
• Get to Know Us Show who the staff are behind your hotel and share some insight on what goes on behind the scenes as people love to see this. i.e. Show pictures of how your chef prepares the food.

Remember to always place links on your pins, linking back to the most relevant section on your website. The more users share your pins and follow your boards, the larger your following grows. This can result in better brand awareness, and more traffic to your website.

Google Plus – a Powerful Social Media platform for SEO

Google Plus is not only a social media network, it has been powerfully built to have a strong effect on Google search results. It can integrate into other Google products like Google Places and capture data about users visiting your Google Plus page.

It works similarly to Facebook, but instead of friends you have circles and instead of likes you have the +1 button. Google Plus allows for you to have business pages which can dramatically increase traffic to your website. The one huge difference however is that Google Plus places a large focus on communities – you can join communities related to hotels to which you share your posts and photos.

Google Plus is now becoming the most important social media platform for rankings. It has been proven that a well-managed Google Plus page, with continual updates and a strong following can have a direct effect on your rankings.

What you can do to make these Social Media platforms work for you

• Make regular posts on Google Plus and pin your images on Pinterest.
• Every time you add a new article to your website, share it on your social media sites as well.
• Add social media icons to your website and newsletter templates.
• Add like, pin and +1 share buttons to your website to allow people to share your content directly from your website.
• Use the information you get from your social media customer base to improve your future marketing plans.