How To Get the Most Out of Tailwind for Pinterest

Whether you’re new to blogging or you’ve been doing it for a little while, you’ve probably heard about Tailwind. I’ve been blogging since 2013 and using Tailwind since 2017. And I haven’t looked back since then! My blog traffic grew so much when I started using Tailwind … and then it grew again when I actually started using it for more than just scheduling pins. Tailwind is not a free service, so to me, I want to get the most bang for my buck! In this post I’ll explain 8 things you can do to get the most out of Tailwind for Pinterest, so you can see different ways to use it if you’re already set up and you can get a better idea of the things you can do with it if you’re on the fence about signing up.

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Get the PDF! I have everything that you need for making the most of Tailwind here in this article. But it is a long read. If it’s more convenient, you can purchase the PDF file for only $5. It has the full article (including pictures) as well as information on how to get more blog traffic from Pinterest, and it doesn’t have any ads or pop-ups. This way you can save it to your computer and will be available for you to refer to anytime you want. I would love to give it to you for free, but it costs money to have an online store and it’s expensive to maintain a blog. I would love your support so I can continue to help those who need it. Not interested? Keep reading for free!

Tailwind Overview

What is Tailwind? Tailwind describes itself as “the smartest way to schedule on Pinterest & Instagram” (x). [Note: For the sake of this post, we will just be discussing Pinterest.] It is a tool for scheduling your pins, both those from your own site and from Pinterest in general.

Why should you use Tailwind? Some of the things Tailwind says you can use their service for is “Bulk image upload, drag-and-drop calendar, multi-board pinning, Pin looping, hashtag lists and many more shortcuts built with your busy schedule in mind […] Automatically optimize your Pinterest and Instagram schedules based on when your audience is most engaged. […] Publish all of your posts, videos and stories to Instagram and your Pins to Pinterest from one tool with a single workflow” (x). One of the things I love about Tailwind is how you can schedule pins for a blog post before the post is even live. As long as you have an image and a link, you can schedule the pins ahead of time, which is incredibly helpful if you’re not going to be available to promote the post when it goes live. Additionally, in the interval tool, once you’ve established when the first post will happen and how long at a minimum you want to be in between posts, you can click “optimize” and the time for each post will change to be at the best possible time for your pins. In the schedule itself, Tailwind can suggest times to publish based on Pinterest trends and when your pins are most likely to do well.

You can read more about Tailwind in this post: 9 reasons why Tailwind is worth the money. But don’t just take my word for how great it is. Try Tailwind free for a month here!

How To Get the Most Out of Tailwind

Use it! – I know that this is extremely basic, but seriously. Use Tailwind! If you just use it occasionally, you’re never going to get the best bang for your buck. If you just use it for pins from your website, you’re not going to get the best bang for your buck. If you don’t join Communities you’re … You get it.

Join as many Communities as your account-type allows – There are 3 types of accounts for individuals: Plus, Lite, and Professional. The Plus plan is what I have: it’s $9.99 a month and comes with the option to join 5 Communities, previously known as Tribes; submit 30 of your own pins to Communities a month; and 250 Active SmartLoop Posts. Communities are basically these are like group Pinterest boards, but in Tailwind. Like group boards, there are tons of Communities you can join, from general topics to extremely specific ones. With Communities, the “owner” generally sets rules (vertical pins only, repin 1 for every pin you submit, only a certain topic, etc.) and the “owner” can typically see if people are following the rules better than they can in Pinterest group boards.

I personally have seen much better results from Communities than I have from group boards. I looked at my Communities Insights for this post and have had a reach of 7.5 million since I joined Communities. And even though I started using Tailwind in 2017, I didn’t join Communities until 2018. My blog traffic grew nearly 20% after I started using Communities (x). If you’re not using them, you need to.

Or add-on more Communities! – You can join more Communities without changing your plan! These are called “power-ups.” I have the Communities Pro Power-Up, which lets me join 10 Communities (double what my plan without the power-up allows) and submit 80 pins to Communities a month (1 2/3 times what my plan allows). It is an extra $5 a month, but it’s fully worth it, in my opinion.

Put SEO terms in your pin descriptions – One mistake bloggers make is treating Pinterest like just another social media network. Yes, it is a form of social media, but it is equally a search engine. You should take advantage of that! My blog traffic grew a lot once I started doing that.

Set up SmartLoop – So, full disclosure before we get into this, I am not an expert in SmartLoop. Tailwind says, “SmartLoop makes it easy to reshare your best Pinterest pins at the best times for engagement […] Add your Pins to SmartLoop once and we’ll re-circulate them for you – indefinitely” (x). You can have your loop go constantly – ideal for evergreen content – or set up seasonal loops. “Seasonal Loops automatically turn themselves on and off with the seasons so you’ll always be circulating relevant Pins at the best times of year,” so you can set up a seasonal loop for holiday content, school content, etc. (x). Like with Communities you can get a SmartLoop power-up so you can create more loops.

Repin from all of your Communities – Again, the owner of the Communities can see if you’re following the rules, but that’s not the only reason why you should schedule pins from your Communities. Adding to your queue from your Communities can help build relationships with your Community-mates, especially as Communities have a chat feature and your Community-mates can reach out directly to thank you for sharing their pin.

Create optimized pins – This refers to pins that are set up to do well. Pins that do the best are ones that are vertical and at least 1200 px wide. You should also write a caption! (In fact, Tailwind requires you do so.) Fill the caption with SEO terms and hashtags and use an SEO term in your pin’s name on your computer. Pinterest is a search engine, and you will do best on it when you set up your images for search engines.

Schedule your blog posts’ pins in advance – This is one of the awesome and key elements of Tailwind, and actually what made me switch to Tailwind. I was using a different Pinterest scheduling service and it stopped working, and their help service never got back to me when I contacted them three times. So I signed up for Tailwind and happily discovered all of these other features.

But that scheduling tool is just so great. Like many, blogging isn’t my full-time job; plus, I’m super chronically ill and spend a lot of time at medical appointments. I want to stress less about blogging and whether or not I’m doing the best I can to promote my blog posts, and Tailwind helps me do that. Not only can I schedule pins in advance, but I can schedule them to multiple boards at once, I can schedule these multi-pins to be spread out of a time of my choosing, I can let Tailwind pick the best time for my pins, etc.

Get the PDF! If it’s more convenient, you can purchase the PDF file for only $5. It has the full article (including pictures) as well as information on how to get more blog traffic from Pinterest, and it doesn’t have any ads or pop-ups. This way you can save it to your computer and will be available for you to refer to anytime you want. I would love to give it to you for free, but it costs money to have an online store and it’s expensive to maintain a blog. Thank you for supporting Kate the (Almost) Great!

What has been your experience with Tailwind?

Like this post? Check out:

How To Use Pinterest for Blog Traffic, How I Manage Social Media for My Blog, How To Get Followers on Pinterest, How To Use SEO To Stand Out