Tailwind communities (formerly Tailwind Tribes) are a unique and great way to expand your reach on Pinterest and grow your account and traffic! Here’s how to use Tailwind communities to grow your Pinterest account.
How to Use Tailwind Communities (formerly Tailwind Tribes)
You will need a Tailwind account in order to use their Communities feature (because Tailwind communities are part of Tailwind, not part of Pinterest itself) and I would highly recommend getting the paid plan so you can use Tailwind for scheduling your pins in general.
Communities are basically a way to find and share other people’s content in a particular niche and then they share your content too. They’re similar to group boards on Pinterest but the idea is that there’s usually a 1:1 sharing ratio in that you have to share 1 of someone else’s pin for every one of your pins that you share in the community.
Except for a few spammers who usually get kicked out, it’s a great way to ensure that in exchange for sharing their content, other people will also share your content on Pinterest (assuming your pins are visually appealing and share-worthy using principles we’ve previously discussed ;)).
This is a manual process that involves you sharing pins one at a time to a tribe and then going into the community and sharing other members’ pins as well so your sharing ratio is even.
Joining Tailwind Communities
To join a Tailwind community, click on the Communities link on Tailwind and then search for a keyword related to your niche.
I would recommend joining niche-specific Tailwind Communities because they will give you better results than very general or all-niche kinds of communities. For example, you could search for organizing communities, recipe communities, personal development communities, etc. There are lots of communities that you can join instantly, or if your account is a little more established you can try applying to some of the invite-only communities.
An ideal community has 3 things to look for…
- Niche-specific (not completely necessary but it will usually get you better results)
- A high level of activity
- A decent number of pinners (preferably at least a few dozen or over 100)
- If you’re starting off with a new account and don’t have much of a “track record” for other people to see that you’re a legit pinner, you’ll probably want to just join some Tailwind communities that are open to everyone rather than the ones you have to request to join.
How much should you pin to Tailwind communities?
The original Tailwind plan allowed people to join up to 5 different communities and share 30 of your own pins total per month, or about 6 for each community (their new plans have different limits).
I would recommend spreading out sharing your pins over a few different sessions or days so you don’t spam anyone with your all your content. 🙂 Try not to share more than 3-5 of your own pins to a community in a single day.
Always check the individual community rules, but make sure you share at least 1 other member’s pin for every one of your pins that you pin to the community. (Tailwind will give you numbers next to the community name indicating how many pins you’ve shared and submitted).
Tailwind does offer paid upgrades that allow you to join a lot more communities and share more, but you don’t have to upgrade. It’s up to you and your budget. Also keep in mind that pinning to communities is a lot more time-consuming than using group boards. But if you find that communities are getting you lots of shares and clicks, you might consider upgrading your plan to get more communities!