If you’re a blogger or content creator, you probably use Pinterest as a source for website traffic. While some people think of Pinterest as a form of social media, in reality, it’s a powerful search engine that can drive significant traffic to your content.
In fact, according to this article from Sprout, 29% of U.S. adults use Pinterest and half of millennials use Pinterest monthly.
But if you’ve been pinning content manually for any length of time, you know how time-intensive and tedious it can be. And keeping track of which pins you’ve already pinned to which boards? That can be a nightmare. The entire process could be a part-time job, though it often doesn’t require a ton of brain power.
That’s why I’m a big fan of Tailwind. It has allowed me to schedule and automate the vast majority of my content pinning, keeping a steady stream of traffic to my site without hours of time spent on it. Since not everyone is familiar with it, today’s post will be a Tailwind review. I’ll give you an overview of the platform and how it works.
(Plus, if you sign up through this link, you can score a FREE month of Tailwind Plus, a $15 value!)
What is Tailwind?
Tailwind is a social media scheduling tool that specializes in Pinterest, but has capabilities and functionality beyond that. You can access Pinterest analytics, loop content, join “Tribes” and more. They’ve also recently added the capability to schedule Instagram content through Tailwind which is a great bonus.
I should also note that I’m subscribed to the Plus Plan which is specifically targeted to bloggers and small business owners with fewer than 25 employees. (And while I’ve recently become a Tailwind affiliate, I pay for 100% of the cost of the service myself!)
Why use Tailwind?
Tailwind offers numerous helpful features, but in this review I’ll cover some of the most useful ones that I rely on consistently.
Smart Scheduling
With the Smart Scheduling feature, you can not only schedule content to be pinned to Pinterest, but Tailwind optimizes the pinning times based on your audience’s behaviour. This takes the guesswork out of pinning times, and prevents you from being chained to your computer all day! It also allows Tailwind to pin throughout the day so that you constantly have content being added, versus all at once if you were to do it more manually.
You can also choose how many times a day you would like content pinned, and the whole process is very flexible and targeted to your needs.
If you have the Annual Plan (like I do, meaning you pay yearly), you can pin unlimited pins through the scheduler. The Monthly Plan gives you 400 posts per month which equates to about 10-15 pics per day. I typically pin about 60-70 pins per day, so I benefit from the Annual Plan. It also saves money versus paying monthly.
An example of my daily schedule with optimal pinning times, based on my audience’s behaviour.
A look at the pins I have scheduled for the rest of the day.
Measure Post Success
While Pinterest Analytics can show you which pins have been performing best recently, you can get more detail through Tailwind‘s Insights. I really like the Pin Inspector tool, which lets me quickly see the number of re-pins of top posts in any given time frame, and then easily re-schedule them or add them to Tribes.
Other insights are also available, including Board Insights and Profile Insights.
A snapshot from the Pin Inspector tool.
Tailwind Tribes
If you’re familiar with Group Boards, Tailwind Tribes are similar. They are invite-only groups that are generally focused on a specific topic. It’s a great place to add your relevant content and also to find great content to schedule to your boards.
Though they’re invite-only, there are Facebook groups that help you find Tribes relevant to your niche and contact the Tribe owner to receive an invitation.
The Plus Plan includes access to 5 Tribes and the ability to add 30 pins to them per month, but you can pay for more if you’d like.
SmartLoop
Do you have popular pins you’d like to have scheduled over and over again, on a loop? The new SmartLoop feature lets you do this! It’s a great alternative to BoardBooster which closed down a few months ago.
The Plus Plan includes 250 active SmartLoop posts, but again, you can pay for a top up.
Board Lists
If you belong to a number of group boards, Board Lists are a fabulous research! They let you “group” a bunch of group boards together so that you can more easily schedule content to them. They save me tons of time.
Some of my Board Lists in action.
My Experience with Tailwind
I’ve been using Tailwind for the past year, and I’ve been extremely impressed with the platform.
First, the combination of the Smart Schedule and Board Lists has saved me HOURS of time. It has almost completely automated my pinning. And it’s made it far easier to consistently pin during the times my audience is most active.
Second, they make it really easy to schedule content that I find on Pinterest from other content creators. This way, I can spend 30 minutes on Pinterest scheduling, and have those pins trickle out over the coming weeks. It allows my pinning to look more organic which I appreciate.
And third, it’s given me more insight into my pin performance. I can then use this to tweak my designs, choose blog topics, and hone in on specific boards.
In terms of results, Pinterest is my number 1 source of traffic, accounting for over 70% of my page views last month alone. And I don’t think I’d be able to generate nearly as much traffic without pinning regularly and frequently, which I can do with Tailwind.
That wraps up my thoughts on Tailwind! Have you tried it before? What are your impressions? If you have any questions, please leave them in a comment below.
(And don’t forget that if you sign up through this link, you can score a FREE month of Tailwind Plus, a $15 value!)
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The Best Blogging Tools I Recommend for Beginners
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