Pinterest is buzzing through everyone’s feed on a weekly basis it seems, but have you really taken the time to see how YOUR business can leverage this network?

First, let’s set the tone for where Pinterest stacks up to the other social media sites.

• 70 Million Users
• 60% Female
• 20% of all US women

With all of the buzz around this new social network, it’s important to note that it is still NOT a dominant platform, however, there are some great features to leverage as a Vacation Rental that I’d like to showcase here along with ideas on how you can utilize them.  ICND was glad to contribute this article previously to Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA).

#1: Pinterest added an incredible new feature November 2013 called “Place Pins”. This allows you to pinpoint key places around the town with a map shown in the background. You can create this for local restaurants, beach access and other highlights of your town to help your vacationers enjoy a great trip. You can embed these into your website as well to keep visitors on-site, allowing you to be a resource to others.  Example: http://www.pinterest.com/sloanevacations/explore-ocean-isle-beach

Read all about how to create these “Place Pins” for yourself in our blog on Pinterest Place Pins

#2: Pin-It Buttons: You can add a button to your blogs or other content on your site that makes it easy for users to “Pin” from your website. You can also add a “hover button” so that as visitors on your website hover their mouse over a photo, the “Pin-it” button appears and they will be able to pin easily. This “hover button” is nice because it is easy to add (depending on how your website is programmed and what access you have) and it doesn’t interfere with the rest of your website design.  http://business.pinterest.com/widget-builder

#3: Product Pins (Add Pricing and Description to your Vacation Rentals):  This requires a web developer to help you but adding some code to your website can allow Pinterest to pull pricing, description, availability, location and property name with your vacation rentals pictures when they are pinned.  –

#4: Promoted Pins:  These are brand new and not available for everyone at this time. You can apply to have this feature but it depends on your budget.

– As Pinterest describes, they are “Tasteful, Transparent and Relevant…” so you can anticipate them not being annoying and hopefully targeted to your interests.  For VRMs, this means that you can target your rentals through Pinterest to users who pin vacation destinations, located in target regions and fall into the demographics you’d like to reach.  Keep an eye on this feature as it continues to be developed in 2014.