How to make Tailwind tribes and tricks work for your Pinterest

I love Pinterest.  I’ve been using it since it was invite only way back and I have to admit, I still pin mainly for me.  Not just for my blog.  But as my blog audience is basically mums like me, it seems to work out ok.  Most people would advise to keep pinterest focused on one niche as well, but I have 2-3 dance based boards for my dance blog, and Pinterest is still my top referrer for both blogs. It just shows that Pinterest is all about the search and not about browsing a profile’s boards.

If you want to get the basics of your account sorted, then you can check out my Pinterest success post. If you want to use Pinterest more efficiently and focused then you want to avoid spending all your time manual pinning.

Manual pinning

I do manual pin each of my relevant blog posts.  And if I’m on a random article I’m reading that I want to pin. It’s said manual pinning some does help your pinterest reach. But to make an impact on Pinterest you need to be pinning when users are online. With most Pinterest users still in the US, that means pinning in the middle of the night  Most of us don’t want to be up around the clock pinning in we’re in the UK, so scheduling is the answer.

I’ve always used Tailwind because it’s an official Pinterest partner. In short, it’s a Pinterest scheduler, you can join Tailwind Tribes in your niche, and they are gradually rolling out their looping function. I’m still waiting after requesting it back in May, so I’m not sure when I’ll get it.

Benefits of Tailwind

1, Easy scheduling

Yes, it’s very slow if you schedule from within Tailwind Tribes, but there are faster, bulk methods to do it (see the tips below)

• set your own schedule or let Tailwind recommend busy times for when your pins get pinned more frequently.
• add or delete from your schedule. I add a few in to mine and schedule between 15 to 23 a day.
• schedule from a Chrome extension directly from webpages you’re on.

2, Analytics

Of pins and boards, giving you number of pins, shared, comments (does anyone actually do that on Pinterest?!), and virality score.

• see which boards have high number of pins and low re-pinning rates, whether the board is dead or not.
• It’s more straightforward and useful than Pinterest’s own insights where I can never find what I’m trying to get to (I usually rely on my Google Analytics dashboard instead)

3, Shuffling scheduled pins instead of pinning one pin to 15 boards in one go.

4, Saving drafts in Tailwind which you can then schedule another time.

5, Find new content to pin either through Tribes or through ‘pins recommended for you’.

Group boards

Tailwind Tribes are the new group boards.  I do still pin to group boards, but lots of users are dropping group boards because they’re saying there’s less boost in algorithms from group board pins.  Many grup boards aren’t active – they can grow too big, get too much spam, be uncontrollable, or you just don’t get people repinning from them.

It’s essential to keep reviewing group boards every so often to ensure you’re using ones you’re getting value from.

Pick your Tribes

You do still get inactivity in Tailwind Tribes. For me, I find UK ones are best because they’re not too busy so my pins get seen. With huge or non-niche tribes, your pins can get lost and you can also end up with lots of inactive people.

While scheduling along with some manual pinning will be a good boost to your Pinterest sccess, Tribes help make the impact bigger.

Tips and tricks for making Tailwind Tribes work for you

How to make scheduling faster

1, When you scheule from Tailwind Tribes, always check out the suggested pins afterwards. Some aren’t a good match, others are, and they usually have one board already prefilled ready fr you just to hit schedule.

2, In Pin Inspector, on the right of each top pin, you can find ‘similar content’

3, In your feed in Pinterest, scroll down a bit to load more pins (rather than blank squares). Then hit your Tailwind schedule icon. This brings everything up for you to highlight the ones you want to schedule in one batch

4, Repeat point 3 for your following page to get a mix of pins from people you follow. But the quickest way to do this batch method is by doing a topic search.

e.g I search for dance, or camping tips. You can then schedule a whole niche in one go. There’s now a ‘schedule all to one board’ option, as well as you being able to choose boards for each pin you’ve highlighted to schedule.  Superspeedy for something like chicken pasta dishes where I can pin a batch of pins to my ‘chicken’, ‘main meals’ and ‘pasta’ boards in one go.

You can also do the same method on group boards.

5, Always review your tribes (and group boards). If there’s a massive tail of inactive people, reach out to the tribe owner and ask if there’s a plan for removing people who are in the group but not pinning or sharing.  If not and you’re struggling to get content to pin, or not seeing shares and repins, then leave the tribe.  Most tribes ask for 1 share for each pin you add. So if people aren’t active you can’t pin your own.

6, Look for tribes in your niche, but mix it up with a couple of general blog tribes.

7, You can still get good shares from large tribes, but you may need to change the way you pin to them. Save up your pins and pin a few to a tribe at a time so they don’t get lost amongest others.

8, Look at the Tailwind email digests to see which tribes are performing well, which of your pins are being shared, and what the most successful, tribe colleages are pinning to give you content ideas.

9, I really dislike duplicate images / pins being shared in tribes, especially straight after each other. But if the tribe allows it and you don’t worry about annoying people like me, hen pin versions of the same link to get better visibility, and to appeal to people who like a choice of pins.

Hopefully these tips will help youimprove your Pinterest performance.

You can sign up to Tailwind via my affiliate link.

Are you trying to use Pinterest more? What do you struggle with?  If you’re a Tailwind user, what methods do you use?

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