Here are 8 useful metrics that you may not be measuring, but should be.

#1: Conversion Rates

Everyone wants to measure the volume of leads generated to get to the bottom-line ROI of social media efforts. But don’t forget about the value of the conversion rate! While the volume may not be there yet, the propensity to convert may be staring you right in the face.

You’ll need to have a mechanism in place to know when a lead comes from social media. Most people use the combination of a URL shortener and some form of a “cookie” to attach a campaign to a lead. Hootsuite has integrated Google Analytics into their URL shortener for a seamless transition to success metrics in analytics, while some companies are using proprietary shorteners and others are still trying to figure out how to do it.

One of the most important steps in understanding where your lead came from is toknow when someone clicks on a social media link and then converts. The most reliable way to do this is to place a “cookie” on the user’s machine with the campaign name for the social media channel that generated the click. Then use your campaign reporting to track the number of leads and conversions you’ve generated.

The number will likely be fairly low in the beginning but by looking at conversions divided by leads, you can get your conversion rate for social media leads. Compare this against other marketing channels to see if it’s higher or lower.

# 2: The Control Group

Some of the greatest metrics I’ve brought forward in my company really didn’t look that impressive when I first got them. The volume of leads generated was pretty low when compared to our other marketing channels.

However, when I compared them against a group of people that had not interacted with social media, I found some amazing stats that not only got my executive team excited about social media, it also showed that social media has a huge impact on our ability to convert leads. This certainly makes it easier to justify budget dollars to integrate social media into the sales process.

To add a control group, run the same metrics you normally run against a group that has never interacted with social media and compare them. Look for how social media compares in areas like lead conversion rates, retention rates and costs.

CareOne has seen that social media involvement in the sales process has greatly improved the rate of those who sign up for a debt relief plan and the propensity for those new customers to make their first payment.

#3: Growth Rate

While you’re building volume, measure the growth rate over time. Being able to show that volume is growing at a healthy rate helps prove that your efforts are generating an impact. The reality is that it takes time to build a sustainable social media channel; thus, setting proper expectations is very important.

#4: Marketing Campaign History

It’s really important to look at how your company reports on “cookies” related to a sale. After doing some digging, I found that my company was attributing the credit for the sale to the campaign that was the first cookie the prospect had received. We can now report on the originating campaign, the campaigns responded to in between, and the converting campaign.

This helps us know all of the drivers to the sale and appropriately adjust costs related to the sale to get closer to a true ROI as well as look for that magic mix. Even if your sales process isn’t online, you need to make sure your CRM system allows for tracking to marketing efforts through the entire sales cycle and your teams are appropriately trained to track it.

#5 Customer Acquisition Costs

Everyone is touting how “cheap” social media is, though many of us have realized that is somewhat of a fallacy. However, it is cheaper than many other traditional channels, so measure the full campaign history (as stated in #2) and then assign the cost per conversion and compare it against your control group.

Here are two examples of how this can happen:

• A person clicks on a link in one of your tweets and goes to your site and converts into a new customer.
• A person clicks on a paid advertisement on Google and doesn’t convert. Then later clicks on a link in one of your tweets and goes to your site and converts to a new customer.

Depending on your business model and typical advertising expense, in the first example, the cost to generate that customer could be less than a standard customer who comes through paid advertising.

In the second example, the cost will be higher than the standard customer who comes only through paid advertising, BUT even if it’s slightly higher for those who responded to more than one channel for lead generation, the incremental cost of social media will likely be less than trying to replace the unconverted lead with a new one.

#6: Retention Rates

Right behind the ability to convert a customer is the ability to keep a customer. Compare the inclination of new customers to stay customers with and without social media interaction. The theory is that those participating in social media are more engaged and likely retain better.

In order to do this you’ll need to keep all the leads converted in #1 and track them over time. If you have an ongoing fee, measure how long they stay a customer. If you’re more of a onetime sell, measure if they come back and buy something else and how often they do. Then compare this against the control group of those who didn’t interact with social media and see if there are any improvements worth noting.

#7: Customer Saves

Many teams are using social media to help customers online and this often includes managing complaints. Measure how many times your team saves a customer from cancelling, switching or returning your product/service.

#8: Cross-Sells

Are social media customers more or less likely to buy additional services? How much revenue per customer was generated from social media compared to non-social media customers? How much revenue was generated from additional purchases and/or add-on products for social media customers? Compare this to your control group and you’ll be able to tell if social media has an impact on up-selling or cross-selling.

This is certainly not a complete list of metrics, but it gives an overview of some of the most commonly missed measurements that contribute to showing social media’s value to your organization and/or clients.

Original Aricle here . More on Social Media para Hoteles in Hotel Marketing Argentina.

SEO Fixation

First CRO, Then SEO

A typical scenario, and one that makes no sense to me, is when a firm spends tons on SEO and pennies on conversion rate optimization (CRO). They’re driving more traffic to their site – but so what? If their lead generation site features ho-hum offers or no offers at all, people won’t inquire. If their e-commerce site has baffling navigation, people won’t buy.

For companies like these, even sizable increases in search traffic will fail to translate into a meaningful increase in conversions. The result:

1. A significant part of the SEO spend is wasted
2. Companies grow dissatisfied with their SEO program
3. Companies change their SEO strategy or hire another provider
4. The cycle of ineffectiveness continues

That companies should tune-up their sites for conversion before launching into a big SEO program is as obvious as can be – so why do so many people miss it? I’d love to know your thoughts about this, but here are some of the reasons I see:

Why Companies Fixate on SEO, Not CRO

• Ego problem one. Companies want to see their name as the number one result on Google for their pet keyword phrases.
• Ego problem two. Companies tend to feel their products and services are so awesome that the mere mention of them on their website will have prospects stampeding to the order desk. They don’t recognize the need for compelling offers, intuitive navigation, and an all-around positive user experience.
• Monkey see, monkey do. The world is inundated with SEO practitioners and SEO advice. Most companies are led to believe that SEO is indispensible, that their competitors are doing SEO, and they will get their butts kicked if they don’t participate.
• Monkey don’t see, monkey don’t do. In contrast, how many CRO gurus are out there banging the drum for their extremely important discipline? They are badly outnumbered, and as a result, fewer businesses come to fully appreciate the value of their specialty.
• Easy and accessible metrics. Traffic and ranking statistics are easy to grab and easy to grasp – on the surface, anyway. A company sees traffic and ranking trending up, and figures the program must be working.
• Fuzzy lead tracking. Conversion tracking, on the other hand, is rather tricky to set up properly, which is why a lot of small and midsized firms have little or no idea where their web leads are coming from. That being the case, they have no way to formulate a conversion optimization strategy
• No appetite for offers. Due to budget constraints, decision-by-committee, lack of imagination or a number of other reasons, firms have a tough time coming up with offers that are big enough and creative enough to win the hearts and minds of visitors.

Conversion Isn’t The Only Problem

This could be a post in itself, but I’ll just mention in passing that SEO can no longer be executed in isolation; for SEO to succeed today it must be thoroughly integrated with other marketing disciplines in addition to conversion optimization – most notably, with social media.

There are still too many SEO campaigns that fail to leverage social sharing, and fail to include meaningful and strategic content creation. Programs like these simply cannot succeed.

Companies need to look at online marketing holistically, rather than trying to pick and choose specific disciplines to invest in. This sounds logical, just like putting the CRO house in order before diving into SEO. And yet, how many small and midsized firms actually have a holistic strategy?

How to Stop Feeding the SEO Habit

Again, I am not suggesting that SEO is bad or that companies should suspend SEO activities while they shore up other aspects of their marketing. SEO is something that must be done continuously; it has a cumulative effect. So rather than stop or suddenly change gears, take these actions to make a smooth transition from SEO-obsessed to SEO-balanced.

• Do a CRO audit. If a business looked at a comprehensive set of conversion optimization recommendations, I think it would be quite shocked to see how much room for improvement there was – and the tremendous upside of making those improvements. If that’s the case with your site, remember that a new investment in CRO will be partially offset by improved results from your existing SEO program.
• Do a holistic strategy review. As I said earlier, it’s unproductive to arbitrarily decide which marketing activities to emphasize. SEO is only valuable in terms of how its ROI compares to other activities, and is in many ways reliant on other activities to maximize its own ROI. Whether yours is a $100,000 business or a $100 million business, the best results come from a strategic approach.

Read Original Article here. Hotel Marketing Argentina have more on SEO para Hoteles 

7 New Facebook Changes Impacting Businesses

Here is an overview of the changes and how brands can take advantage of some of the new features.

#1: Cover Photo and Profile Image

Obviously one of the biggest changes that we all knew was coming was the cover photo. No more photo strip across the top. You now have one large image to showcase your page. This image must be a minimum of 399 pixels across to be used as the cover photo. But you can have a photo cover designed to take advantage of the extra space you get. The cover photo maximum dimensions are 850 pixels by 315 pixels.

The new Timeline cover photo.

One of the biggest restrictions is the fact that you can’t have any calls to action in your cover photo. You can’t tell people to like or share your page or have any contact information at all, including your web address, phone number or mailing address. Get the full details about cover photos here. These restrictions will require some creativity in drawing attention to your business without some of the methods that have been used in the profile pictures recently.

The profile picture size has been changed to 180 pixels by 180 pixels. It appears next to every post in the news feed as a 30 pixel by 30 pixel picture. The profile picture is best used for your logo or other eye-catching picture without a lot of words.

#2: Larger, Highlighted and Pinned Posts

One of Facebook’s mantras during the conference was the way we tell stories with Facebook. To help you tell your stories, the pictures and videos are now larger and more eye-catching.

You can also highlight a story (by clicking the star icon in the upper right of a post) so that it spans all the way across the Timeline as shown in this Lexus post with a video.

Use Highlight to emphasize a particular post.

You can also pin the story to the top of your Timeline for up to a week. To do this, click the pencil icon in the upper right of the post and select Pin to Top.

Pin a story to the top of your Timeline for greater emphasis.

#3: Setting Company Milestones

Another thing you can add to make your Timeline more interesting is Milestones. You can tell people about big events in the life of your brand or company.

All you need to do is click on the line that runs down the middle of your Timeline and select Milestone. Then you can fill out the information as shown.

Add Milestones to tell your company's story.

Because the posts from your fans are in a separate area, your Timeline is now more focused on your story.

People may be spending more time reading your Timeline rather than just coming to your page to ask a question. The more visually engaging you can make your Timeline, the better.

#4: New Applications

One of the biggest changes is the removal of the default landing tab.

Applications are still available and if you have created a custom welcome tab or added any other special application, it hasn’t disappeared.

You now have 12 applications you can showcase and only the four applications that you move to the top row will appear prominently. You cannot change the position of the photos, so technically you only have three applications that you have control over in that top row .

Choose which apps you want displayed by placing them in the first three rows.

To move your apps around, first click the down arrow next to your top row of apps to display all of your apps. Next, click the pencil icon in the upper right corner of the app. Then select the app that you would like to swap positions with. As mentioned, you cannot change the position of the Photos app.

Change your app position.

Many people are lamenting the disappearance of the default landing tab, but the new app buttons give us an opportunity to be creative. You can change the photo that appears for the app and you can rename the app to give a call to action as shown on Holdren Design’s page.

Use an eye-catching image and rename the app to have a call to action.

Another good use of custom images and tab names.

To change your app photo, again display all of your apps with the down arrow button next to the top row of apps and click on the pencil icon. Scroll down to the Edit Setting selection and from there you can add a custom tab image.

Select Edit Settings to change the name of the tab and use a custom tab image.

Select Change to upload a custom tab image.

The custom tab image is 111 pixels by 74 pixels.

You can have an enticing call to action in your custom tab image.

#5: Facebook Offers

Only a few companies have access to Facebook Offers currently, but it will be rolled out soon. According to Facebook’s Offer Help section, they “expect to make Offers available more broadly soon.” Facebook Offers are like Facebook Deals on steroids.

The post is sent through the news feeds of your fans, which is much more visible. There are easy ways to share the Offer, both through the post itself and then when the Offer is claimed. Fans get the Offer by clicking the Get Offer link, see the terms and then click the blue Claim Offer button as shown.

Click Claim Offer to get the coupon sent to your email.

Because Facebook has everyone’s email address, they are able to individually email your Offer to the person who claimed it. Unfortunately, the page does not have access to those emails through which the Offer was claimed, but at least the word is spread about your Offer.

The person who claims the Offer receives an email showing how to redeem the Offer and the terms.

Facebook Offers could be a huge win for small businesses offering things like a “free webinar” or consultants offering a “free 15-minute consultation.”

The danger is making sure you have the bandwidth to deliver the Offer. There didn’t seem to be any way to cap the number of Offers that were claimed. Einstein’s Bagels had close to 30,000 people who claimed the BYGO sandwich offer. Not too difficult to fulfill if you have 500+ locations and you anticipate that some won’t redeem the Offer at all—but still, you don’t want to get into a bad situation with fulfillment problems.

Facebook gives some good tips on ways to make your Offer successful by telling us to “make discounts substantial”—20% off or even free—as well as setting a reasonable expiry date to “let people have a few days to see and claim the Offer.”

The other question is when Facebook Offers will be widely available. Facebook stated, “Offers are only available to managed advertising clients.” Once this is rolled out to more pages, it would seem that every page would want to create one if it was free. Plus it appears that Facebook may not be vetting the Offers before they go live. Offers may become too much of a good thing, but that remains to be seen.

#6: Facebook Insights, Admin Panel and Messaging

Another change with the Timeline is the location of the Insights. You can now access them by clicking on the Admin Panel in the upper right corner.

The Admin Panel tells you about new notifications and gives you access to the "back-end" of your Facebook page.

The Admin Panel has much different navigation than before, but everything appears to be there.

Access your Insights through the Admin Panel.

You will still be able to see the old-style Page Dashboard if you click the Manage drop-down menu and then Edit Page.

Click Edit Page to see the old-style Page Dashboard.

From the Admin Page, you can also invite your email contacts, invite friends, share your page and create an ad from the Build Audience drop-down menu.

Use the Build Audience drop-down menu to access several options on getting the word out about your page.

Facebook has done a nice job of giving us lots of options to learn more about the new page design from the Help drop-down menu. During the Preview, the Help drop-down menu links to tutorials, but once you publish your Timeline you will have access to some different options.

One of the capabilities will be to easily request a name change for your page. This name change is the title of your page, not the custom URL you may have set for your page. You can still access this form here. Great news for people who have changed their company branding, have had a misspelling in the name or have other tweaks they have wanted to make.

Request a name change for your page

One of the most interesting developments of the new page Timelines is that we can now get more information on other pages that have changed to the new Timeline. When you click on the Likes box, just underneath their Timeline cover photo you can see the most popular age group, a People Talking About This Trend graph and their most popular week.

You can now see more Insight information about any page that has the new Timeline.

Companies could possibly hide the Likes box by swapping it to a lower position than the top 12 apps that are accessible to the public. But that would also hide the social proof of how many people like your page.

Pages will also have the ability to receive messages from fans. The Message feature can be turned on or off from the Manage Permissions area of the Admin Dashboard.

Enable the Message button from the Manage Permissions area.

The Message button is enabled by default so if you want to disable it, you will have to uncheck the box. Messages can only be initiated by a fan—they cannot be initiated by the page to a fan. The page can reply to the message sent.

#7: Facebook Advertising

Another new announcement that was covered in the fMC Conference was some changes to advertising. The ads will be larger and the product names are the Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook. The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed.

Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s director of global business marketing, said that currently pages only reach about 16% of their audience each week with posts. With the Reach Generator ads, pages can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month. Beta testing done by brands such as Ben and Jerry’s was able to reach 98% of fans and double engagement.

The Reach Generator ads are designed to connect to your existing audience and will include the Page Post stories. The ads will not be based on CPC or CPM models, but will be an “always on” ad. These ads will be shown on the right side of the page and they will also go into the news feed and mobile streams. Learn more about this product in Facebook’s Reach Generator Guide.

Premium on Facebook is designed to distribute your stories to new connections and will be shown on the right side of the home page, in the news feed, in mobile streams and when someone logs out of Facebook. Find out more in the Premium on Facebook Guide.

Read original article at SocialMedia Examiner or visit Hotel Marketing Argentina for information about Facebook para Hoteles

9 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Build Super Fans

Are you looking to attract high-quality and loyal fans to your Facebook page? Without quality fans, your Facebook marketing efforts can fizzle out quickly.

Keep reading to discover nine ways you can build loyal fans who’ll love your business.

Moontoast shows how a fan's level of interest with a brand can move from light to heavy engagement.

Moontoast says Super Fans are Facebook users who have given you access to their data via their Facebook profile, purchased from you and also encouraged another fan to purchase from you as well. There’s no doubt we all want an abundance of Super Fans!

So how do you move a Potential Fan all the way up the ranks to Super Fan?

For starters, it takes time. Facebook success rarely happens overnight and unless you are a huge brand like Zappos or Target, patience, persistence, and hustle are all required to create a successful Facebook page.

There are also specific actions you can take to create a thriving Facebook page full of Super Fans.

The following nine core strategies will help you streamline your Facebook activity and turn your Facebook page into a success story.

#1: Give your page a human touch

The most successful companies on Facebook are those that step out from behind their logo and let the people behind the brand represent their Facebook page. The goal is to communicate with your fans as though you were talking to your friends, and let your personality come through in each post.

One of the ways to do this is to step away from your niche once in a while and show your personal side through entertaining posts and photos. Change things up a bit and share details about your experiences and everyday life.

Have you taken a fun trip recently? Post some pictures of your vacation to let your fans see a different side of you. Or maybe you see something funny while you’re out and about—share it! Snap a photo of it and post it to your wall with a fun caption.

Guy Kawasaki, author of Enchantment, does this on a regular basis and his fans love it. The reason we are intrigued with Guy’s posts is because we get to see the real side of him, not just the author/expert side of Guy.

When you visit Guy's Facebook page, you'll often find posts and photos that give you a peek at Guy's entertaining journeys outside of work.

 

Quick Tip: Test out the 80/20 Rule. When posting to your Facebook page, 80% of the time focus on your business, and 20% of the time mix things up and show your fans and followers a different side of you—the personal side. Share with them photos and details of who you are outside of work. Remember, no one wants to do business with a brand; we all want to do business with real people!

#2: Become a content machine

Always make sure that your content educates, entertains and empowers your fans to keep them engaged and coming back for more. The key to a successful content strategy is to consistently create new content and mix up your media often.

For example, some of your fans might respond better to video than text, while others might be drawn to the images in your posts. To make sure you’re attracting the attention of your diverse group of fans, post your content in a variety of ways.

iPhone Life Magazine does a great job of always showing fun images with each text post. Images and videos are the top two types of content that Facebook users gravitate to the most.

One simple way to do this is mix up your blog posts by posting written blogs, video blogs and audio posts. Regularly drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog to introduce your fans to a variety of content.

Quick Tip: To keep your team on track, create an editorial calendar to track when you will post content, the type of content you plan to post and who’s responsible for content creation. Check out this post by Denise Wakeman for instructions on how to create an editorial calendar.

#3: Cultivate engagement with two-way dialogue

Imagine this: You haven’t talked to your good friend in a while, so you call her up. When she answers the phone you say, “Hi! How’ve you been?” But before your friend can answer, you hang up the phone. That would be odd, right?

Well, essentially that’s what you are doing each time you post a Facebook update and then instantly move on to a new task before waiting for a few fan responses so you can engage in a conversation.

Make sure you never miss an opportunity to thank a fan for reaching out. Replying to your fans' posts shows them you really do care about what they have to say.

Real success on Facebook happens when you mirror real-life situations. Don’t “post and ditch;”  instead, stay around a few minutes to get involved in the conversation. True engagement happens in the “back and forth.”

Quick Tip: People love to talk about themselves, so craft your posts and questions around your fans to get them talking. Ask for your fans’ feedback, suggestions and solutions to challenges. You can learn a lot about your fans when you take the time to listen!

#4: Create consistent calls to action

Facebook gives brands the optimal opportunity to create genuine relationships with their prospects and customers. But it’s also a great platform for moving your fans to action. One of the best ways to move a Potential Fan to a Super Fan is to start out with simple calls to action.

To do this, start out by posting valuable content, such as interesting articles and videos related to your niche, and accompany this content with simple calls to action such as “click this” or “watch this.” The valuable content will show your fans that you’re an authority and consistently post good stuff.

Also, consider offering discounts and specials or ask your fans to sign up for your newsletter. These are all low-investment calls to action that will help you build trust and affinity over time.

Zappos does a great job of mixing up their calls to action on their Facebook page. Some include value-added content as you can see above with the call to "CLICK PLAY" to participate in the live fashion Q&A video. Others are more promotional, such as "Click here to check out our new summer flip flops!"

Quick Tip: Lead the way with free valuable content and later offer opportunities that require more of a commitment from your fans (such as giving their name and email in exchange for a giveaway or purchasing a product). Offering free webinars and teleseminars that provide training up front are great ways to promote your programs and services without having to sell too hard on your Facebook page.

#5: Make word-of-mouth advocacy easy

Studies have shown that social media users tend to trust their friends and peers more than they trust brands. It makes sense. If you were looking to try out a new restaurant, would you rather get a recommendation from a friend who just had a great meal or the restaurant that’s promoting its latest special?

Word of mouth matters, especially on Facebook. To get your fans talking about you, the key is to make it easy to spread the word.

One great way to do this is to create a contest or promotion that rewards fans for spreading the word. By using a platform such as Wildfire, you can track and reward the fans who invite their friends to join your contest.

This sweepstakes by Kudzu promises extra chances to win for every friend you encourage to enter the contest.

Quick Tip: Think of your ideal audience before you create a special promotion or campaign. What would get them excited to spread the word? When you make the experiences on your page about your fans rather than about your brand, your fans become more invested and engaged and in turn are more eager to tell their friends about you.

#6: Encourage fan-to-fan conversations

Enhance your fans’ experience by creating a community that encourages your fans to interact with each other. One surefire way to do this is to spotlight your fans. When you create opportunities such as “fan of the week” or recognize top contributors, you are giving your fans an opportunity to get to know each other.

Social Media Examiner regularly highlights a fan of the week on their Facebook page and always makes a point to link to their fans’ websites to give them free exposure.

Pinterest

Pinterest is now a top 10 social network (more traffic than Google Plus in November 2011!) that’s getting the attention of everyone from artists to the media to venture capitalists (who invested $27 million in the company). BrandChannel says “Pinterest is at the crossroads of social and style.” ReadWriteWeb attributes their success to the way the tool leverages everything that’s hot in social right now: great user experience, a clean retro visual design, content curation, social collaboration and subscription – and calls everyone who isn’t using it “a big dork.”

Of course, none of us want to own a “dorky” social media presence – so I wanted to put together a little introductory guide to Pinterest for hotels. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with this site recently, and since it’s likely to be a key social communications tool in the months ahead, I think you may enjoy exploring it as well.

What is Pinterest?

“Think of it as a virtual pinboard,” says the Pinterest team. Heather Allard explains the opportunity well:

If you had the opportunity to make your business part of someone’s vision board, would you do it? Pinterest is that vision board. Consider it a visual buffet—a look book—of all the things we crave in life….

By curating cool content through images, the tool provides a powerful way to visually communicate lifestyle messages that are so important for many brands in the hospitality business. Plus, it’s a powerful way to feel the pulse of what’s trending – and influence some of those trends.

“Pinterest allows us to see what trends and styles the community likes based on engagement – likes and repins,” Nordstrom’s social media manager Shauna Causey told BrandChannel. Creativity-online.com commented that “Images are a great way to share ideas and trends in the social media landscape.”

How do you share photos?

Pinterest provides their users with a number of toolsto make sharing easy, including a “Pin It” button for your browser and a free iPhone app.

I find this to be the easiest way to share things as I’m browsing the web….

Hotel websites can use the Pinterest “Follow” button to encourage subscriptions and the “Pin It” button to encourage pinning and re-pinning from their site. Since this is a photo-sharing network, it’s one more reason to use stunning photography on your website. Photos shared on Pinterest contain a link back to the source site – which can be a good source of inbound traffic.

“…Consider Pinterest a ‘visual testimonial.’ When users pin things from your site, they’re showing the world (and their Pinterest followers) that they believe in your company, your service or your product. The more Pinterest interest you get, the more word of mouth about you will increase.” – Heather Allard

How can hotels use Pinterest?

Think about lifestyle content you can share that would interest your core audience online. Co-founder Evan Sharp gave some examples of how other companies are doing this in his interview with Mashable: “A good example of that is Whole Foods. They’re not just sharing the produce available at Whole Foods, they’re sharing [images of] a healthy lifestyle. West Elm isn’t just sharing the furniture they sell, they’re sharing interior design tips. And the Today Show isn’t just pinning that day’s guests [to promote the episode]. For most consumer brands, the idea behind your brand makes sense on Pinterest.”

Let’s take a look at how some hotels are using Pinterest….

Gansevoort Hotels shares places, spaces and style they love:

SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills shares books worth reading, food worth eating, and more:

And finally, Hotel Indigo does a great job of “guestsourcing” – using photos that guests have tweeted or uploaded as a Pinterest board:

You can see more by visiting Pinterest.com. Joining the network currently requires an invitation from an existing member. If you need one, email me: josiah at reviewpro