Driving traffic from Pinterest is all a matter of strategy.
This guide will show you step by step just how to do that.
There are two primary ways of driving traffic through Pinterest.
The one is by manual pinning whereas the other is by use of a scheduling app.
Let’s look at the difference between the two methods.
Manual Pinning vs App Scheduling
As inferred from the name, manual pinning is done manually.
Meaning that you have to dedicate some time every day. In addition, you may have to pin several times a day.
It’s not hard to imagine that manual pinning can be demanding. You have to be disciplined to be at your computer, tab, or phone every day.
And before long, this can grow into a boring routine.
However, manual pinning has its good side.
If done consistently, manual pinning can bring great traffic to your blog.
In fact, some bloggers report a significant increase in their traffic since switching from a scheduling app to manual pinning.
So much so that there are courses dedicated solely to teaching the practice of excellent manual pinning.
Nevertheless, almost all manual pinning advocates almost always revert to scheduled pinning.
For one simple reason: they get tired over time from having to find time amidst a busy day, to manually pin.
Some even report that manual pinning can quite consume your mind to the point where you are always fretting over which pin to pin next, to which board, and so on.
There has to be a better way.
And indeed there is.
Enter Scheduled Pinning
Why Use A Scheduling Tool?
Scheduling pins through an app has several advantages.
Not only do you save time, but it is also a way to put pinning, and indeed sales, on autopilot.
Scheduling pins requires only 45 mins – 2 hrs maximum per week or month, depending on the length of your schedule.
For example, if you are scheduling for a week, you need only about 45 mins or less to get your pins ready for automated dripping throughout the week.
In contrast, if you are scheduling for a month, you will need about 1 hr 30 mins or 2 hours.
As already highlighted, scheduled pinning is a set and forget way of promoting your blog posts, driving traffic, and putting affiliate sales on autopilot.
The official Pinterest scheduling partner tool is Tailwind. And so, that’s what we will focus on in the following section.
Why Tailwind Is Good For Scheduling And Traffic
Tailwind is a tool that allows you to drive traffic by scheduling your pins to boards and tribes of relevant niche interest.
Through Tailwind, you can schedule pins to your own boards on your profile, to group boards you belong to, and to tribes of common interest.
In this way, you get eyeballs on your pins, by showcasing the pins to not only your followers, but to followers of people with whom you belong together in a group board or tribe.
That means that when your fellow group and tribe members share their own pins, they will also share yours, and therefore will promote them on your behalf to their followers!
That’s why using Tailwind is so powerful.
See how Tailwind works (for free) here
Main Features of Tailwind
The Tailwind interface is simple enough, yet can confuse you totally if you are a beginner.
I thought it looked cluttered and unpolished when I first came across it. I still think so.
However what’s important is not getting intimidated by the interface, but getting familiar with its major features, and ultimately publishing pins through the tool.
So let’s talk about that.
When you open Tailwind, you will see several icons down its left panel.
These include the Weekly Summary, Tribes, Publisher, and Insights tabs, all marked with relevant icons.
The Weekly Summary
The Weekly Summary tab, summarizes all the information pertaining to pins published for the preceding week.
Clicking on this tab, you will be able to see how the pins performed.
The weekly summary tab also gives you information on the total number of Pinterest folowers you have, well as the average rate at which you are gaining followers.
Tribes
The Tribes tab gives you information on the tribes you belong to.
If you are new to Tailwind, you can search for a relevant tribe to join.
Just click on the Tribes tab, and a new screen will open on the right.
You can then find relevant tribes by using either the search box or by finding a relevant category.
When you are searching for tribes, use niche keywords, and several tribes will come up for you to choose from.
The free Tailwind version gives you access to 5 Tailwind tribes. So join tribes wisely.
Publisher tab
The Publisher tab gives you general insights on your pins.
When you click on the drop down arrow, you will see a list of other tabs with further info on the pins.
These mini tabs include information on the pins awaiting scheduling (drafts),
pins already scheduled,
pins already published, the arrangement and timing of your pin slots (your schedule), and board lists.
How To Create Board Lists
You can make your own board lists by adding group boards of similar interest together, and naming that main grouping as a board list.
For example, I belong to group boards called Blogging and Social Media, Grow traffic To Blog, Earn Money Online, and several others.
So I have grouped them all into a board list that I call Blogging and Making Money.
So how do you go about creating a board list?
Click on your Board Lists tab on the Tailwind left hand menu.
A new screen will open on the right. On that screen you will see a box with a plus sign, also written “Click to add a list.”
Click on that box and a new box will open on the right, with the title “New board list.”
Replace that title with your new board list title.
Then add your group boards by searching for them in the space written “Type a board name.”
A list of the boards you belong to will drop down. Add the most relevant group boards first.
After that you dont have to do anything else. Your group board list has been formed.
Done.
Insights
The Insights Tab gives you detailed information concerning your published pins, boards performance, and website analytics.
For example, you can see which group boards are performing better than others based on their followers, repins, virality score, and engagement.
Based on this information, you can then decide which boards to prioritize posting to, or which ones to add to your board lists.
See Tailwind in action here
How To Schedule Pins To Group Boards and Tribes
When scheduling pins, the main thing to realize is that different group boards have different rules.
Some boards allow posting only once a day, some want you to share a fellow member’s pin in return for each pin that you pin to the group board, and others want only pins that are relevant to the board’s niche and purpose.
So before pinning to a group board or tribe, make sure you read and abide by the group’s rules.
Let’s get into how to do the scheduling itself.
How To Add Pins To Tailwind
Any pin that you want to schedule to a board or tribe will first go to the Drafts section of Tailwind.
It will remain here until you schedule it, at which time it will be transferred to the Scheduled section, where it will await its time to automatically be posted to a particular board or tribe.
So how do you first add pins to Drafts section of Tailwind?
You add pins to Tailwind from one of several places. This can be a blog, a Pinterest profile, a group board, or from a Tailwind tribe.
The easiest way to add pins is by using the Tailwind browser extension for Chrome.
How To Install The Tailwind Browser Extension
The extension is free and easy to install. A matter of a few seconds to be precise.
Just click on your Tailwind Drafts tab.
On the window that opens you will see the “chrome extension” button in the top menu.
Click on the button, and begin the download process.
Follow the process to set up the extension.
Once you have installed the Tailwind browser extension, the Tailwind icon will show on the browser top bar.
Back to adding pins to your Drafts section.
So whenever you want to add pins to your Drafts queue, follow the following steps:
1. Open Tailwind using the browser extension, by clicking on the Tailwind icon in the top right corner of your browser.
2. Make sure that there are no draft pins in the Drafts queue. If there are any remove them. This is to just make sure you are adding only the pins you want
3. Go to your pin source (blog, pinterest profile, group board, or tribe).
4. Hover the mouse over the pin or blog post.
The Tailwind icon together with the Pinterest icon will appear. Click the Tailwind icon.
This will automatically add the particular pin to your Tailwind draft queue without you needing to repeatedly open Tailwind.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for every pin you want to add to your drafts queue.
6. Once done with loading draft pins, go to the Tailwind page you opened in step 1.
7. You will see in the Drafts section all the pins that you have been adding to Tailwind.
Now that your draft pins are ready, let’s see how to schedule them so they finally get posted to your group boards.
How To Schedule Pins Through Tailwind
Follow the steps below
1. Below each pin, you will see a space written “Type A Board Name.”.
Search in the space for the particular group board or board list that you want that pin to go to.
2. Press “Add to queue” and the pin will be added to the scheduling queue.
3. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for all pins in the drafts section.
4. Click “Scheduled pins” on the left hand menu.
5. You will see all the pins that you have just scheduled, arranged according to their respective day of schedule and number.
The pins are now only awaiting their scheduled time to get posted to the respective group boards.
At this point, if need be you can change the group board that you want to post to. Depends on you.
Done and dusted.
Or not.
Just a little thing.
How do you add a pin to a tribe?
Just click on the “Add to Tribes” button at the bottom of the pin.
A screen will appear and you can select the tribes that you want the pin to go to.
Then click on “Add to Tribe” and your pin will go to that tribe.
Everything solved.
How To Add Extra Time Slots On Tailwind
Based on the information you gave Pinterest when you first joined, Tailwind would already know the prime time slots that are optimal for pinning success.
These optimum time slots appear dark greenish on the schedule.
They are be based off of information about your niche audience and the times they are mostly active on Pinterest, and therefore most likely to click on your pins.
But you may find that you need extra time slots.
Because you may post a lot of pins per day, more than those indicated on the schedule.
The thing is that if you have 10 pins going to 10 boards everyday, then you will need at least 10 time slots every day.
How do you go about adding more slots?
Click on the Schedule button in the left hand menu.
On the screen, click on “+ Add Time Slot.”
Then click on the second “+Add Time Slot” that appears below the first.
There!
Your timeslot will be added according to the time that you would have chosen.
Instead of adding timeslots randomly, you can rely on Tailwind to suggest optimal times for scheduling.
You can add these optimal time slots by clicking on the colourless slots with a plus sign in the centre.
As a confirmation of the change, these time slots will become light greenish after you have clicked on them.
So now your schedule will send your desired number of pins per day at the most optimal times.
How To Avoid Spamming Pinterest Boards
When the same pin hits the same board repeatedly a day, this may be interpreted by Pinterest as spamming, and may result in the temporary suspension of your profile.
It happened to me once, so just be sure it’s real!
To avoid a similar fate, you can rearrange the pins, if need be, by dragging and dropping them onto your desired time slots.
This would prevent the same pin going out to the same board repeatedly on the same day.
A simple alternative to dragging and dropping pins is just shuffling your scheduled pins.
How do you do that?
Click the schedule button in the left hand menu.
Click on the “shuffle queue” button at the top of your schedule.
After doing that, you will notice that your pins have been reshuffled on the time slots.
This practice will avoid mistakenly scheduling the same pin to the same board more than once a day.
Related: 6 Real Ways To Easily Make Money On Pinterest
Apart from that, no worries.
Tailwind is a fine tool to schedule your pins if you follow the rules.
Excited about Tailwind?
Start experimenting with the free version of Tailwind here.
After Scheduling What’s Next?
When you have scheduled your pins, that’s it!
Nothing more is needed from you.
You will be done for the whole week, month, or whatever duration you have set for yourself.
Your only duty will be to check on the performance of your pins, see the best performers, and adjust your schedule for next time accordingly.
Related: How To Explode Your Blog Traffic Through Group Boards and Tailwind Tribes
Let’s talk below.
