After a pretty big Pinterest announcement this week, a lot of people may leave you believing you HAVE to sign up for a certain scheduling tool.
And it’s a tool I really believe in and use myself, but I don’t want you to feel it’s the end all, be all (group internet hysteria is real y’all)
So let’s take a step back…
The big announcement?
That the Pinterest scheduler, Boardbooster, is officially shutting down.
It had been rumored and talked about for years how BB wasn’t an approved Pinterest partner and that it may leave your account at risk. But it was pretty much all hearsay.
Until this week.
Boardbooster is officially shut down as a company, which kinda bums me out because there was a lot of awesome benefits in their service. (except for the whole being approved thing)
ENTIRE Pinterest courses hinged on Boardbooster. So in typical online marketing fashion – everyone freaked out.
Not that it isn’t a little scary. If your strategy relied on BB – which was a pretty set it + forget it service – it’d definitely be a little nerve-wracking. But that doesn’t mean you have to panic.
The tool others will say you HAVE to sign up for?
Tailwind.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE + use Tailwind. (*my affiliate link gives you $15 credit + free trial of 100 pins!)
After the free trial, I couldn’t sign up fast enough. And I seriously wouldn’t be able to keep a consistent presence on Pinterest without it.
…Like taking a full week long vacation and still having my traffic stay consistent, or even grow.
Here are the results from my clients last week… while I was on vacation.
Their Pinterest audience just kept on growing, without me lifting a finger. I had sat down on Sunday for about an hour and scheduled everything for the week using Tailwind.
CLIENT’S RESULTS:
But the thing is – you don’t HAVE to use it.
Pinterest cares about consistency (and these three other “rules”).
So if you can show up daily and regularly pin to your boards, you’re set!
There’s even one blogger who ONLY does manual pinning and gets over 200,000 page views a month.
So do you need a Pinterest scheduler?
Not in the least.
But do you have the time to be pinning throughout the day – each and every day?
I know I don’t.
So while you don’t need a scheduler; using one is the least expensive way I drive traffic to my site, it saves me time, AND I get a ton of my traffic directly from Pinterest. So really it’s a win-win-win?
Not only that, but Tailwind helps me share pins more effectively. They analyze my best times to pin, suggest new times I get good engagement, and in one click I can schedule a pin to go out to multiple boards.
So yeah, while you don’t need it – it’s the one tool I absolutely recommend.
TAILWIND – Pinterest Scheduler Pros + Cons
Tailwind Pros:
1 | Approved Pinterest Partner – YAY!
As I mentioned above, this was a grey area for years. But the abrupt closing of Boardbooster reinforces that since we don’t “own” any of these platforms, it’s best to follow their rules.
2 | Simple and Easy to Understand Analytics
Tailwind gives you a lot of ways to analyze your content and find your best performing pins so you can quickly take action to keep momentum going.
3 | Access to Tribe Communities (for free)
Tribes are free even without a paid account – can join here!
Tribes act like Pinterest group boards – but with greater accountability among the members.
Tribes allow your content to get in front of a larger group of pinners. And since most tribes ask members to share 1:1 or even 2:1 other’s content + their own, people are actively looking for Pins to re-share.
And this can be a BIG win, especially for smaller or new accounts when you’re trying to gain visibility.
4 | Your Pin Schedule
Tailwind analyzes your Pinterest performance + audience engagement to recommend the best times for your Pins to go out.
You set the number of pins you’d like to share per day – I recommend starting with 20 pins/day. Remember – consistency matters! so I’d rather you pin regularly each day, then 50 times one day and 0 the next.
To set up in Tailwind, navigate to the menu on the left:
- Click Your Schedule
- Click Generate Smart Schedule
- Set I want to post… x times per day
- Hit Generate Schedule
If you want to add more pins on certain days of the week, it’ll suggest additional time slots in white.
You can see my Tailwind Pinterest schedule below:
Don’t want to be up at 11:57pm on Monday nights?
Ha YEAH, me neither.
Since I schedule my pins in advance, there’s no “must do’s” each day, which is a huge relief. But there’s still a few things I do each day, you can see my exact daily Pinterest strategy in this post here.
5 | Quickly Identify Top Performing Pins + Re-Schedule or Add to Tribes Within Tailwind
With the Pin Inspector, you can quickly swift through your best pins – either for your total account or by individual boards.
From there, it takes one click to re-schedule or add to Tribes to keep its momentum going!
You can also use Board Insights to see which boards are getting the most traction via re-pins, followers, and virality + engagement scores.
This can be a great way to see if certain trends are happening within your boards or to identify ones that need some attention.
6 | Easy to Quickly Schedule Pins on Desktop
When you’re on Pinterest, the fastest way to schedule pins via Tailwind is to download the Chrome extension.
You can get the Chrome extension here.
When you find a pin you want to schedule:
- click the little hovering “Tailwind icon”
- a new smaller screen will open, select the board(s) to schedule to
- you can either schedule immediately, add to queue, or save for later
I usually pick one of my relevant Board Lists, change the Interval (so the one Pin doesn’t bombard my feed), and then select “Add to Queue Now”
*For the timing intervals, I typically choose somewhere between 2-4 days depending on the pin, the Board List, and my other Pinterest activity levels that week.
Tailwind Cons:
1 | Need to Constantly Keep Queue Filled
This is still fairly easy to do if you use Group Board lists, but it still requires you to find new pins + re-pin your own content.
AND it’s still a heck of a lot better than pinning manually every single day.
AND they’re coming out with a new tool that will allow you to “loop” the content you want to continually share. WOOOO.
2 | Can Be a Little Slow/Clunky at Times
The actual scheduling of Pins is super fast, but sometimes when previewing your upcoming scheduled Pins it’s a littttle slow.
But I don’t have to do that very often so it’s not a huge issue, just be aware that it sometimes needs to be refreshed.
3 | Doesn’t Easily Track Number of Pins Sent to Group Boards
This will be changing soon!
They are launching a beta program for SmartLoop – their new feature that will allow you to easily setup a process to re-share your best performing pins, at the best times, AND ensure you’re following group board rules (which is really my favorite part!!)
Since it’s a new feature, they’re asking users to reserve their spot as they roll it out.
So if you’re interested, I’d definitely suggest joining Tailwind soon!
(*my affiliate link gives you $15 credit + free trial of 100 pins!)
4 | Not as Convenient to Use on the App
It’s possible, but I find it a little slower of a process; which is why when I’m on the app, I just live pin to take advantage of the benefits of manually pinning).
To schedule a pin with Tailwind when in the Pinterest app:
- click “SEND”
- Select Tailwind
- Then either select the board to Schedule to, or Save to Drafts
I usually select “Save to Drafts” because then I can go onto in the desktop version and use Board Lists. Within the app, you can only select one board.
