Why Tailwind is the #1 Publishing Tool for Pinterest

by | Jun 2, 2020 | Content | Social Media | Email, Blog

For many businesses, Pinterest is a fantastic place to market their brand and drive traffic to their websites. The challenge is that with the need for a more rigorous posting schedule of evergreen content than a majority of popular social platforms, maintaining a consistent flow of content can be overwhelming. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer have capabilities to assist in scheduling, but were not built for this image-driven platform. The good news is that there are tools out there that are specifically built with Pinterest in mind. My personal favorite tool is a little something called Tailwind.

What is Tailwind?

In their words, Tailwind is “the social media scheduling tool that gets real results in less time.” In layman’s terms, it’s a tool that was built specifically for Pinterest. (Note: They also have recently begun a larger push for the Instagram side of their platform.)

The dashboard is broken down into four main hubs: Weekly Summary, Tribes, Publisher, and Insights. Three of those are exactly what they sound like they would be, aka your typical tracking screens and tools. But what are Tribes?

Tailwind Tribes

Tribes are the foundation of what makes Tailwind stand out from other social media scheduling tools. They are a series of mini-communities built and maintained on the Tailwind site. As of May 2020, you can join up to 5 tribes on a basic account, or upgrade to 10+ tribes using PowerUps on your account.

These work similarly to Pinterest. You search for key terms related to your niche, then can review the results for groups that speak to you. We looked for groups, for example, that centered around “digital marketing,” “blogging,” and “small business.” I intentionally looked for groups that had large, active communities.

 

Tailwind Tribe Rules

Many tribes have similar rules such as:

  • 1 to 1 ratio for content (share at least 1 post for every pin you add to the group)
  • Vertical pins only (2:3 aspect ratio images)
  • Relevant content only
tailwind tribes pinterest

Publishing in Tailwind

Much like other popular social media scheduling tools, Tailwind has the ability to place all your posts in a queue. You can add to your queue by clicking the “Create New Pin” button and uploading an image that way, or you can use the Tailwind Chrome Extension to share multiple pins for the same page at once. In addition to sharing items from Tailwind tribes, I like to use a mixture of these methods while populating our Pinterest queue.

One of my favorite publishing features in Tailwind is the ability to pin to multiple boards at once. If I were to share this post, for instance, I would want to place it on our board for all of our blog posts (Digital Marketing Blog). This post would also be relevant for our audiences subscribed to our social media board. I’m able to select every board I’d like to share to all at once and Tailwind will automatically add copies of the pin for various boards to the queue.

Won’t this make my feed repetitive?

No, this does not make our feed appear repetitive. Thanks to the handy shuffle button, you’d never know that I upload most of our content in batches. Because most content on Pinterest is evergreen, reordering the queue with a single click works wonderfully. I also have the ability to “lock” the occasional time-sensitive post into a time slot so that my weekly shuffle does not disrupt that time sensitive post.

    From there, it works a lot like a secret shared board. The main difference is that you are accessing it via Tailwind instead of Pinterest. Sharing to a tribe is only a few extra clicks while scheduling any drafts to your regular queue.

    Not only are tribes great for sharing content, but they also make a great place to build a community. You have the ability to instant message individuals from your tribe, and even the whole group. One of my favorite things to do monthly is just scroll through my lists of fellow Tribemates and give a follow to anyone who stands out. This has lead to a few Roundpeg and More Than a Few Words collaborations.

    Tailwind Time Slots & Scheduling

    Setting up a schedule for your posts is usually one of the most daunting tasks in setting up a good social media strategy. Popular browsing times vary from day to day on any social platform, and Pinterest is no different. Like its competitors, Tailwind uses algorithms to predict the best times for sharing your content. Most platforms, however, base these times off of trends of all their users. Tailwind, on the other hand, uses an algorithm specifically tailored to your account’s activity and needs.

    That’s why in addition to giving my queue a good shuffle, I also like to go in and have Tailwind “recreate” my schedule every few weeks, too.

    Tailwind Smart Loops

    In addition to the main queue, we’ve also cultivated several smart loops to reshare our most popular content without our having to lift a finger. The smart loop panel of Tailwind not only shows you what posts are on rotation, but also provides performance stats from previous shares. The loops themselves can be customized by post frequency, what boards to post to, and even individual pin frequency. You also have the ability to pause any loop at any time and then reactivate it with the click of a button. This feature is incredibly handy if you’re going through a major overhaul and have pages that still need love before they’re shared to the world again.

    Just keep in mind that Tailwind has placed limits on this amazing tool. A basic account only has the ability to have 250 SmartLoop posts* scheduled at a time. PowerUps are available to increase that threshold, as well as bundles to boost both Tribe and Smart Loop limits.

    *1 pin to 1 board equals a post, so if you have a loop going to two boards, each pin you assign to that loop will count as two posts

    Tailwind Support

    What really ties everything together though, is the amazing built-in support Tailwind provides. A great step-by-step breakdown is provided the first time you use each tab of the tools. These tutorials are available for recall any time you need a refresher, too.

    If you follow Tailwind on Facebook, you’ll have access to new videos and live streams filled with tips every single week. I’ve sat in on a few covering various design and strategy tips, and they were incredibly helpful.

    What Can’t Tailwind Do?

    So, in short, Tailwind has just about everything to step up your Pinterest game. In addition to traditional tracking tools, Tailwind has a built-in community, and very personalized publishing tools. Just about the only thing Tailwind can’t help you with is connecting your Pinterest efforts to the rest of your digital marketing strategy.

    Pinning takes more than just tossing a ton of content into the feed and seeing what sticks. To be successful, you need to have purpose behind your pins. They need to lead to relevant content on your site.

    There are a lot of working pieces to a good marketing strategy and it’s easy to not know where to start. The Roundpeg team may be able to help you out with that.

    Be sure to look for @Roundpeg and @LorraineFBall the next time  you are on Pinterest. 

     

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    This content is brought to you by Roundpeg, an Indianapolis content marketing company.
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