If you had asked me when I first started blogging if I knew what Tailwind was, I legitimately would not have been able to answer you. I saw the name floating around, sprinkled throughout seasoned blogger’s posts. I was skeptical at first, and as a new blogger very budget conscious. Should I really be spending on money I had no idea about? Was Tailwind even worth it? The good news is, I’ve come to shed some light on Tailwind and why you should absolutely give it a try. Below you’ll find my ultimate tricks to mastering Tailwind, and how you can easily get started today.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through what Tailwind is, why bloggers are using it (and raving about it) and how to set it up if you’re interested in giving it a try. Keep in mind that Tailwind strategies will work differently for everyone, but ultimately Tailwind is seen as a form of success and a huge aide to many bloggers (plus they have a free trial and I always recommend giving something at least a try!)
If you want to get the Tailwind scoop, let’s get ready to dive into my no-holds barred explanation. Pee first, grab a bev and let’s dive in and talk about the tips to mastering Tailwind!
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Related Post: How I Grew My Pinterest Monthly Views by 430k in Just One Month
Table of Contents
First Thing’s First
What is Tailwind? Tailwind is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduler that allows you to schedule pins to be released at pre-determined times. Tailwind also tracks your growth and analytics to let you know what pins and tribes perform well!
Tailwind is also approved by Pinterest if you had any doubts regarding their credibility!
Secondly
Let’s actually take one step back, just incase some of you are wondering what the deal with Pinterest and blogging is. Pinterest is a search engine, just like Google. Essentially, people turn to Pinterest when they’re looking for how to’s, tutorials, ideas and inspirations. Unlike Google, Pinterest is more of a visual search engine, meaning that having eye-catching, professional pins is handy.
If you haven’t yet set up your Pinterest for you blog, I’ve got you covered. Here are a list of resources you can check out to get your Pinterest locked and loaded (and then come back and read this post so it makes more sense!)
The number one resource I used to get my Pinterest locked and loaded: EllDuclos’s Pinterest Course.
How to make amazing Pins from the start: click here.
Moving Onward!
Okay, so now that our Pinterest is locked and loaded, we can dive into the wonderful world of mastering Tailwind! First of all, why are you going to be using tailwind? You are going to be using Tailwind to free up your time as a blogger, run pins in the background so you can work on other things, expand your reach by using Tribes and watch your blog traffic blow the heck up.
If You’re Still Skeptical…
You may hear people saying they don’t want to waste their time with Pinterest. It’s not worth their time to put in all that effort for a few little views. While I can’t change your mind, I can tell you that I went from almost no views coming in from Pinterest in January, to 2000+ views in March simply from using Pinterest strategies and Tailwind. I don’t know about you, but 2000 views from Pinterest is a significant source of traffic!
You may also be worried that your followers will find out you schedule pins and think less of you. I used to be afraid I wasn’t being authentic (I have since shaken my head at myself) because I was using a scheduler, and this is simply a myth. Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform. Engagement on this platform is not necessary. Pins don’t rank higher because of liking and commenting on them. Think of Google, when you search something are you trying to engage with others?
Think of Tailwind as a little helper, running around and pinning things to boards when you’re busy. Tailwind is a tool used by many bloggers alike to expand their reach and increase their traffic. Hopefully this has eased some skepticism.
Mastering Tailwind
Okay, now that we’ve got all of the house-keeping bits out of the way, let’s start you off. If you’d like to follow along and set up Tailwind as you go through this, you can click here to sign up for your free trial! Your free trial is good up to scheduling 100 pins and access to Tailwind Tribes!
The good news is, Tailwind actually walks you through how to set up your account basics (such as profile information and what not) so I’ll skip over that as it can be quite redundant, however, I am going to explain the main features of Tailwind that seem to cause confusion!
The Pin Scheduler
Ah yes, the whole reason you’re here. I agree that it can be a little overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s quite simple! The pin scheduler is the meat and potatoes of Tailwind, and allows you to pluck a pin from your Pinterest board and schedule it!
First of all, you want to be scheduling pins in a way that would be replacing how you already pin. For me, this means taking a pin for a blog post I’ve created and pinning it to all relevant boards + group boards. You want to re-pin your pins to as many relevant (this is also key, don’t pin a pin to a board just for the sake of it, make sure it lines up with the board’s theme, keywords and content) so that they have a greater chance of being exposed, and then there’s a greater chance other people will re-pin them.
The more traction your pin gains, the farther it goes, and the greater chance there is of people clicking on it! (aka, going viral!) Think of a pin going viral as blowing dandelion fluff into the wind. Wherever that seed lands, a new dandelion will grow and people will see it. The more fluff you have flying out in all directions, the more dandelions will grow. Aka, the further and wider your pins fly out, the greater the chance of people seeing them and clicking them. (And tailwind is the wind to do that! HA)
How-To Schedule Pins
When you’re setting up your profile, make sure you download the browser extension when prompted as it makes it so much easier. You can see below
Once the browser extension is downloaded, you’ll see the little blue icon appear over pins (this works on any pin, not just your own!). What you’ll do is you’ll click on the blue icon for the pin you want to schedule and a new screen will pop up (below) this screen will have a drop down bar (which board you want to pin it too), or you can add the option to add it to tribes or SmartLoop.
If you want to schedule it to a board, select the ‘type a board name’ bar, and a drop down menu will appear (below). This allows you to select which boards you want to pin it too. You can simply add them one by one, but I’m telling you right now you’re going to want to use board lists (orange with a star beside it).
Board Lists
Board lists are another amazing feature of tailwind. A board list is a list created by you in which you pre-select a handful of boards you want to always use for certain posts. For example, my personal blog posts go out to my Trending on the Blog, Best of Cynspo, as well as a list of group boards that will accept pins of all types.
This way, when you click on the board list, the same list will pop up each time. I recommend having one for each type of blog post you like to write (for example, I have one’s for self-care, blogging, just for fun, etc.)
To create a board list, simply go to publisher>board lists>create new list. Below you can see mine titled ‘self-care’ meaning every time I type into that search bar and hit the orange highlighted ‘self-care’ it will automatically add it to all 3 boards in that list. (If you don’t understand, don’t stress! There’s a video on Tailwind that will walk you through it as well!)
Note: when you schedule your posts using board lists, it adds the same pin in a huge chunk to your schedule (you’ll see the same pin repeated however many times). You can always hit the ‘shuffle queue’ to mix up the pins and spread out the distribution of them!
The Scheduler Itself
Once you add a pin to scheduler (Tailwind icon>select boards> hit green ‘add to queue’) your pins will all show up in the same spot. You can find your actual schedule under Publisher>scheduled pins.
The actual scheduler is essentially a grid with time slots. Once you fill these time slots with pins, these pins will go off at set times and be automatically pinned to your boards (it’s magic I promise). The great thing is you can customize the scheduler by number of pins you want scheduled per day, as well as what time slots you would like to have. If you take a look at the photo below, you’ll see what the scheduler looks like.
Now you’ll see here, I have pins scheduled up until April 13 (10 days out! I have pins running in the background for TEN DAYS thanks to Tailwind). Note that once I don’t have any more scheduled pins, the time slots become visible like so.
In order to customize the number of time slots/the times for the time slots, simply click on the add/remove time slots at the bottom of the scheduler. It will take you to a window like so:
Once you go to customize your schedule, it will look something like this. You can see I have 23 slots scheduled for Mondays (the number in the top left). I have Tailwind Plus (you can try free for one month here), which means I get 400 scheduled slots. In order to make the most of it, I schedule between 20-30 pins a day so my schedule lasts most of the month! Note that best practice states you should be pinning anywhere from 50-100 pins a day, so this takes a significant chunk off your total.
Dark green means this is an optimal time for my pins to go out! Tailwind takes into account your timezone and analytics to see when your followers and Pinterest seems to be most active, and suggests time slots based on those. As you can see, the slots with a dashed line are suggestions from Tailwind that I should be adding those slots to my schedule to send off pins at optimal times!
Pin Scheduler
Quickly touching on this as it’s pretty straight forward! The Pin Inspector can be found under Insights>Pin Inspector. You can filter the results to see just pins from your website, and essentially see how your pins are performing. A good technique is to take pins that are performing well and re-schedule them with the goal to keep the momentum of that pin going! Below I’ll show you the pin inspector (you’ll note that off to the side you have options to re-schedule, add to tribe or SmartLoop
So essentially, you add pins to the scheduler via the technique discussed above, shuffle (if you like, I always shuffle so all of my pins are somewhat dispersed), and then you can customize your scheduler based on your own unique needs.
SmartLoop
Okay guys, hopefully we haven’t lost you in the rhubarb! This post is lengthy but keep in mind you don’t have to tackle it all at once! (You can always bookmark it and save it for later!) I’m going to quickly touch on SmartLoops as they’re fairly straight forward if you know how to schedule pins (again, there’s a video on Tailwind if you get stuck).
SmartLoop essentially allows you to take your most popular pins and loop them. What does this mean? You’re taking a pin that’s already doing well and re-pinning it, hoping it picks up the same traction! Why do you want to do this? To continue the pin’s success.
You can customize SmartLoop to which boards, how often it will post, and how many times you can post to a board a day (super important if you’re posting to group boards and don’t want to come off as spammy). There are evergreen (throughout the year) and seasonal (run during a specific season) loops which you can select for your post. Essentially SmartLoop is a tool to re-circulate your best performing pins over a longer period of time! You can set them up under Publisher>SmartLoop
Tailwind Tribes
Remember me talking earlier about blowing dandelion fluff into the wind and seeing how far it’ll go? Tailwind Tribes are excellent for this. Think of the Tribe feature almost as a ‘Retweet’ option but for Pinterest.
Tailwind Tribes are essentially groups of people who collectively come together with the purpose of sharing their content, as well as returning the favour to others. Some Tribes are request access Tribes, and some are open to the public. You simply request to join a group, and follow the rules posted within the group. You can join my Tribe here if you’d like!
You’re allowed to be in up to 5 Tribes (not including ones you create) and you can pin 30 pins to Tribes in a 30 day period. You add the pin you would like to via the blue icon (similar to scheduling a pin as we discussed above) and select the tribe you would like to add it to.
Keep in mind each Tribe has different rules (some require you to schedule 1 pin for every one you post) so keep note of that. Below you’ll see what it looks like to schedule a pin from a Tribe ( the same set up as if you were scheduling a pin from Pinterest).
Tailwind Tribes are an excellent way to grow even more than you would if you were just simply scheduling or manually pinning. You can peak at my stats below to see how far my pins go simply by being a part of tribes. If you really like the Tribe feature and want more than access to the 5, you can purchase Booster packs that allow you to be a part of more tribes, as well as pin more than 30 per month!
The Final Stretch
Most likely if you’re reading this post, you’re looking to learn how to use Tailwind because it seems so confusing. Hopefully this post has cleared up some of the questions you may have had! Again, if you ever get stuck do not hesitate to reach out, I love to help!
For those of you who are wondering whether Tailwind and understanding Pinterest are worth the trouble, I’ll share a few of my stats to show the kind of growth that can be achieved from simple strategies between the two.
In January, I had just started using Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog. After three weeks of busting my butt, I had started to make a presence on Pinterest. You can see my total views for January on my blog and how many came from Pinterest.
I continued to implement the same strategies to grow my traffic and used Tailwind for scheduling and tribes. Two months later, I more than doubled my blog views, as well as nearly increased my Pinterest monthly views by six times.
Undeniably, Pinterest and Tailwind require some work. However, the amount of time and effort (which really isn’t an overwhelming amount) are worth the rewards!
Related Post: 5 Things You Can Schedule to Make Blogging That Much Easier
Important Things To Note
1. In addition to scheduling, it’s important to manually pin as well.
Schedules are great tools, but they don’t replace real-time activity (this goes for anything). I make sure to pop on Pinterest a few times a day and manually pin what’s on my home page + what’s trending. Again, you don’t have to pin massive amounts. 50-100 per day is ideal, and scheduling takes off a huge chunk of work for you.
2. Results aren’t overnight
It took me two months (60 whole days) to see the kind of growth I’m seeing. Do not get discouraged when you see posts claiming immediate growth overnight. What’s going to get you consistent blogging traffic will not be from overnight miracles. Consistency, strategy and perseverance are key to get consistent traffic.
3. Try before you buy!
Like anything, I always recommending trying it. You can try out the free-trial (see my resource list below) and then you can also try out Tailwind plus for one month free if you want to see if it’s the right fit for you (keep in mind, if you’re scheduling 20 pins per day your free trial will last you 5 days).
After that, plans start from $14.99 per month (pay as you go) or you can purchase the yearly plan for $119 (works out to $9.99 per month and allows you unlimited pins!) The choice is yours! I always recommend giving it a try (and if you like it, you can receive a special code to share with others that will get you credits back!)
4. No two bloggers will have the same results
A ton of bloggers use Tailwind, and all of us have different results. Tailwind is a great tool and I find it works great for me! However, there’s more than one way to skin a cat! Tailwind is an excellent tool that has worked for many bloggers, and if you’re even thinking of giving it a try it can’t hurt! The best way to success that can be applied to any blogger is consistency, perseverance and patience!
Resources
PHEW we made it! That was a lot. BUT, I did say in-depth explanation! I truly hoped this help explain Tailwind in a way that makes sense to you! Below are a list of resources that you can use to get started with Pinterest and Tailwind (and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!)
Tailwind Free Trial – click here to get started!
For a free month of Tailwind Plus – click here
To get your Pinterest locked and loaded – EllDuclos’s Pinterest E-Course
This was so so useful! Thank you for sharing!
-Kyra || lovekyra.co.uk
Thank you! I’m glad you found it helpful!
xo cyn
This is an amazingly in depth tutorial, I absolutely love it. I love tailwind and I hope this helps other bloggers, too!
Thank you!!! This makes me so happy to hear it was helpful!
xo cyn
This was a very useful post. I’m using tailwind but havent ventures off to the tribes. Hopefully this aids in my success. Thanks for sharing!