Getting Serious about Pinterest, Tribes, and Tailwind SmartLoop

If you haven't gotten serious about Pinterest yet, my co-host, Julie Evink and I will break down the details and set you on the right path with Tailwind, a Pinterest scheduling tool. Tailwind is not only a scheduler but also the place to be for Tailwind Tribes and the new SmartLoop function. Julie breaks it down for us and gives me a sneak peek into what Tailwind SmartLoop is all about.

Listen to Episode 20: Now is the Time to Get Serious about Pinterest & We're talking Tailwind, Tribes, and Smart Loop with Julie Evink

Listen to more episodes of the Video Pursuit Podcast in your Apple Podcasts app or search "Video Pursuit Podcast" in your favorite podcast player. 

This episode is sponsored by my YouTube for Bloggers Challenge: 5 Days to a Polished & Profitable YouTube Presence is a free experience exclusively for bloggers who want to turn their mostly forgotten about YouTube channels into a polished and profitable YouTube presence.

This is my challenge, so it's hosted by yours truly, it's totally free and it's for bloggers at all stages of your video pursuit, even if you don't have a youtube channel yet.

Julie Evink is a veteran blogger, mostly focusing on the food and recipes niche. She has two blogs, JuliesEatsAndTreats.com and GimmeSomeGrilling.com. I invited her to co-host the Video Pursuit Podcast because she is an avid Pinterest user and Tailwind is her tool of choice when it comes to succeeding on Pinterest.

This is the transcript from episode 20 of the Video Pursuit Podcast. To listen to this episode, hit play on the podcast player above, or search for Video Pursuit Podcast in your favorite podcast player.

Meredith: Okay. So Julie, thanks for co-hosting the Video Pursuit Podcast with me today. Give me like a quick, 60-second sort of intro on who you are and what you're up to these days.

Julie: I am mainly a food blogger. I have two food blogs. They are Julie's Eats and Treats and Gimme Some Grilling. And I've been blogging, it is now going on my ninth year.

Meredith: Wow.

Julie: And I live in Minnesota, in a really small town. I'm married, and I have three children. And I'm pretty much … I mean, I'm a hot-mess mom most the time, and I'm just trying to get through life and appear organized on the outside.

Meredith: So what age are your kids?

Julie: My oldest is six. I have an almost-four-year-old and a one-year-old.

Meredith: Wow, okay. So that's a lot, and two blogs, so yeah, that's a lot.

Julie: Right, yeah. And then, you know, a husband in there, I try to fit in somewhere.

Meredith: Right, which is like an extra kid, usually.

Julie: Exactly.

Meredith: Yeah. I know how that is. So I want to talk about a few things with you today, but mostly we're going to be talking about Pinterest, but specifically about this thing called Tailwind, and how we can really optimize the work that we may be already putting into Pinterest, hopefully using Tailwind. So Pinterest and I have kind of like a love-hate relationship, because I've been on Pinterest since it came out, like when you had to have an invitation.

Julie: [crosstalk 00:01:35] Yes.

Meredith: And I, for some reason, like I remember the day, being like … Like, someone on my Twitter had an invitation to Pinterest, and I was like, "Oh, oh, oh. Give me one." And I got on there, and then I had invitations. And people were DMing me like, "Oh, oh, oh. Let me into Pinterest." And then it was like, I just remember that like it was yesterday. And now, here I am like five, six years later, I don't know how old it is, and I'm just like, "What do I do with Pinterest?" I've had all this time to figure it out, but I have only really ever used it for personal use a lot.

Meredith: And then once I started thinking, "All right, now I have a blog, and I have this content I need to promote," it was like, it's just hard for me to turn off the personal use, kind of, part of my brain with Pinterest, and turn on the content creator part of my brain; because I still go back to like, I'll just pin recipes. And I have nothing to do with recipes, other than like, I just make food for my family. But that does not help me promote my own content, because I don't publish recipes.

Meredith: So I guess one of the first questions I have for you is, are there certain niches that Pinterest is good for? Or like, are there niches that you just shouldn't even bother with on Pinterest?

Julie: I think Pinterest, I mean, what I think of it is, it's kind of like a little Google. I think a lot of people use it as a search feature now. So I don't think there's really different niches that like are … I mean, sure, probably recipes are a huge one on there. Let's just be honest. But I mean, anything that you go to Google to search for, or like YouTube, or whatever, I think there is a place on Pinterest for that, too.

Meredith: Okay. So pretty much any niche goes in this case, you're going to say, yes?

Julie: I would say yes. Yes.

Meredith: Okay. So I think maybe what is so hard for me is, all I really follow on my personal side is like crafts, DIY, recipes. And so because I don't see my type of content, which is like GoPro tips, YouTube tips, and stuff like that, I don't see that in my personal feed. So I just like, don't associate that stuff with Pinterest.

Meredith: So just to back up, in case anybody's not real sure what Pinterest is for or how it helps, we're basically using Pinterest to drive traffic to our sites. Is that correct?

Julie: That is correct.

Meredith: All right. So, and people are using it as a search engine. They might, you know, in my case, they might type in … They may be looking for GoPro tips, hopefully, maybe. And they might come up with one of like a whole bunch of pins, like hundreds of posts that are visual pins, that are images. And they might click on one of those, and then it would go to my site. Is that correct?

Julie: Yes. And I mean, for you, like since you say you don't know if they're on there, one super easy thing is just to go in there and search like "GoPro tips," and see what comes up. And then it would give you inspiration to create content, or like what to kind of target, like what search terms come up.

Meredith: Yeah. And you know what? Specifically with GoPro tips, whenever I put that into Pinterest, I never see anything new. It's always the same pins. So is that a good thing?

Julie: Well, there you go. Yes.

Meredith: Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Julie: No, I would say it's good, because apparently it's a market that's not being utilized.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: There's no fresh content.

Meredith: Right, okay. All right, good to know. So we're using Pinterest to drive traffic to our sites. We're creating these pin images, which should be vertical, right; vertical images?

Julie: Yes. And they say 600 by 900 right now.

Meredith: Okay. And pretty much, if anyone just logs into Pinterest, you're going to see mostly vertical images. Just in case anyone's wondering what we're talking about, like what is a vertical image? You'll know. You'll know it when you see it.

Julie: You will.

Meredith: So back in the olden days of Pinterest, you would maybe publish a blog post, and then go to Pinterest and basically pin your pin, right? Like, manual; like, I publish-

Julie: Yes.

Meredith: … publish a post. I pin it to Pinterest. And a bunch of people are following me on Pinterest, so they're going to-

Julie: And they magically see it. It's all chronological. You have this influx of traffic, and it's a good day.

Meredith: Right. So what does that look like nowadays on Pinterest? When you … Are you publishing new content like every time you publish a new post? Or like, how exactly are people using Pinterest in 2018?

Julie: So when I publish a new blog post, which would be a recipe, I go in, and I pin to my main, like Julie's Eats and Treats board. And then I'll take that pin, and I'll schedule it out to start pinning at intervals to my other boards, using Tailwind. So I have that going out at certain times every few days.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: And then I will actually like, then promote it within Tailwind in the Tribes section, so hopefully other bloggers will also pin and share my content to gain traction on Pinterest. Pinterest shows pins that have more traction first in your feed.

Meredith: Okay. So there's a little bit of an algorithm thing going on.

Julie: Oh, there's a major algorithm thing going on, like every other social media.

Meredith: Yeah. We all love algorithms, don't we?

Julie: Yes. They are the death of us.

Meredith: So you're using Tailwind to schedule out content. So give me like an overview of Tailwind? Because I use it, and I think I know how to use it, but just kind of explain what it is, what it does, and what it's good for.

Julie: Tailwind is essentially just a Pinterest scheduling tool. So I go in, and I'll schedule like my new post to schedule to my different boards at certain times at different intervals. But it's also for like, I have old content. Let's say like, we're coming up into the holidays. So I want to repurpose that content and get fresh pins out on Pinterest. So I'd take that, and I'd put it into my Tailwind schedule so that those are heading out on certain times. And it's really for just keeping an active presence on Pinterest. So I have a certain number of pins going out every single day. Most of the content is my own. It's a marketing strategy. There are other people's content in there. I tend to only share recipes so that Pinterest knows that I am a food blogger, and that helps them identify with what your content, who to show it to.

Julie: So if people are searching for recipes, they'll take your content and put it in front of the right audience.

Meredith: Mm-hmm (affirmative), okay. So you can't schedule stuff just within Pinterest, right?

Julie: You cannot.

Meredith: So that's why Tailwind exists, pretty much.

Julie: Exactly, so you don't have to sit on Pinterest 12 hours a day, pinning the content yourself.

Meredith: Right, okay. And so like, is it … I feel like I know your answer's going to be yes, but is it necessary to … Like, what happens if somebody just publishes something on their blog, and they just like throw their pin onto one of their Pinterest boards, and that's it? Is it going to get any traction like that? Or do you have to keep pinning that same content?

Julie: Well, I mean, there's always the random chance that it would grab some traction, but I would say 99% not likely.

Meredith: Okay. And so like, does it matter, though … So we're talking about, we have the Pinterest algorithm, and we're pinning scheduled pins, scheduled content out. Does it matter how … Are you trying to build your Pinterest following at all? Like, does that part of it matter?

Julie: Yeah. It does matter, but if you only have 1,000 followers, I wouldn't get scared off by that. Having quality pins, good pictures, good SEO strategy … I mean, you want to have your keywords, and your pin descriptions, and know what people are searching for, essentially. I mean, that really drives a lot of the traffic. I wouldn't get too hung up on how many followers you have.

Meredith: Okay, all right. So let's kind of dive into Tailwind a little bit. There's kind of like, there's different things kind of going on with Tailwind. So you can schedule your pins. And you can schedule other people's pins. So like, in what case … Why would you want to schedule someone else's pins?

Julie: So Pinterest has said that they don't care if you're sharing all your own content, or if you're sharing other people's content, too, in there. But for me, when I share other people's content, it's … Tailwind has this thing called Tribes. And essentially, you can put like a pin into a Tribe, and there's other bloggers in this Tribe. And then they are going through the Tribe and picking out content. So like, a lot of them are like two-to-one ratio, so if you add a pin, then you have to pin two other pins from the Tribe. So that's when I would schedule out other people's content. And I try to pick, I mean, recipes that are similar to what I share. So Pinterest sees those type of recipes and then shares my pins to this specific audience that I'm targeting.

Meredith: So you're kind of, it sounds like you're kind of looking for pins that might even basically kind of be competing with your own content, because it's related and similar?

Julie: Yeah, essentially. You can run into that, but I guess I'm not hyper-aware of like, oh, it's … If it's something super specific, yes. But if it's pork chops, and I make pork chops, well, theirs are Parmesan, and mine are mustard-based. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like super-

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. It's not the like same, identical recipe.

Julie: Exactly.

Meredith: All right. So since you brought up Tribes, let's talk about Tribes, because I don't know how I sort of like missed the boat of Tribes, because it felt like once I figured out what Tribes were, it was like there was a bajillion people using Tribes. And it was like jumping into a pool where there's already 100 people swimming in it, and you don't know what you're doing. And you're like, "Just don't kill me. I'm trying not to drown here." But they're basically like these, kind of like these groups, but they're within Tailwind, right? This isn't really Pinterest, it's Tailwind.

Julie: Right, yep.

Meredith: And you are joining a Tribe, so like joining a group, probably with a similar interest or niche, right?

Julie: Yeah. So all mine are recipe Tribes. But essentially, what Tribes did for me, and I think a lot of other bloggers, were, you remember those like … Maybe you didn't have this, but for me, I had like in Facebook, there'd be like a group, and there'd be like a daily thread. And you'd drop your pin in there, and then somebody would, you'd have to go in and pin five other ones. And it was like every day, you did this. And it was super, kind of, ridiculously annoying.

Julie: And so what Tribes do are like, it all puts it in one place. And then you can just like … There's just like this continuous feed. So then you add yours, and you go in there and pick a few out, and you pin the other ones and stuff. So it's not like, you don't have to be in there every single day like you would a Facebook group. And your content is in there, hopefully getting picked up by other bloggers.

Meredith: Gotcha. So you could … Like for me, I could go into … I'm just looking at my Tribes right now. I'm in a Tribe called Digital Marketing Tribe. And I could go in there, and I could specifically look for content that is related to mine, or like that I have boards that I could pin to. And because I'm pinning other people's pins, they're hopefully finding my pins, too, and pinning my pins for me. And it's just like a reciprocal, like you rub my back and I'll rub yours, kind of thing?

Julie: Yep. And hopefully your content gets seen by more people because other people are sharing it.

Meredith: Right, right. Okay. So, but you can't schedule things to Tribes, right?

Julie: To like, add your own? No, you have to manually go in there and add your own, yep.

Meredith: Okay. And each Tribe has their own rules.

Julie: Correct.

Meredith: That's one thing I want to talk about, because that gets confusing, because it really is just like a group, almost as if, when someone goes and creates a Facebook group, they can make up whatever rules they want. And it's like, you either abide by them, or you get kicked out, or whatever. And it's like that with Tribes. Like, you start a Tribe. You can say, "You can only pin in here once a day or twice a day." Or like, I have one Tribe that you cannot pin the same pin twice. So if I want to get more traction on a specific post, I have to design a fresh, new pin and put that in the Tribe. Even though it's going to the same content, it's a different pin. So that's a frustrating Tribe.

Meredith: But there's a bunch of, there's like a bunch. But for the most part, there's usually some type of … You pin one and share one of someone else's, or you pin one and share three, or something like that, right?

Julie: Right.

Meredith: Okay. So by the way, I created, for anyone listening to this who's using Tailwind, I created a Video Pursuit Tribe just for anyone who is a listener of the Video Pursuit Podcast, or in my Video For Bloggers Facebook group. So if you are one of those people, if you're listening to this right now, and you are using Tribes, you can come use the Video Pursuit Tribe. Full disclaimer, it's kind of small. But you know, it's small, but small means-

Julie: Small's not bad. Small's not bad at all.

Meredith: Okay. Well, so far it's like not very active, but it's only four people in it.

Julie: [crosstalk 00:17:40] Active would be good, though.

Meredith: Yeah. So right now-

Julie: So let's make it active.

Meredith: Yeah. It's small, which means it has a lot of potential to grow, right?

Julie: Yes.

Meredith: Now, so Tailwind just recently came out with this thing called SmartLoop. And I requested to be able to use SmartLoop, and so far, I don't have access to it. And so I'm curious if you can explain, what is SmartLoop? And like, why do we need one more thing on Tailwind to have to do?

Julie: SmartLoop is amazing, and you should have it soon.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: I'm really excited about it. It is essentially, you can set up these like, there's a seasonal SmartLoop you can pick from, or an evergreen SmartLoop. So for me, some seasonal content would be like, let's say I wanted to make a SmartLoop for Christmas. So I would start pinning, like they say you're supposed to start pinning about 45 days before the season hits, you know? So September, October, I'd start pinning my Christmas stuff. But I can make this SmartLoop, so every single year, my SmartLoop can be programmed to start pinning my Christmas content in September. So I just go in there and add all my Christmas content, and then it's just programmed. I can pick what boards I want it to go to, how often. I can set up group board rules, all kinds of stuff. And it just automatically starts pinning my Christmas stuff for me, and I don't have to think about it.

Meredith: Okay. So you could use SmartLoop as opposed to … Like, if you didn't have a SmartLoop, you could just go in and schedule your Christmas stuff throughout the Christmas season.

Julie: Exactly.

Meredith: But with this, it's just automatically set up, and you don't have to think about it.

Julie: It's totally hands-off. So then when I would have a new Christmas recipe, I'd just add one of those pins into my SmartLoop, and I didn't have to think about it.

Meredith: Okay. So it kind of … So let's just say, like for your example, say you have a Christmas SmartLoop, and if you had 10 pins in there, it's just going to like pin the first one, and then go to the second one, and then it's going to pin like on a schedule. And then when it gets to the 10th one, it's going to go back and start over again with the first one?

Julie: Kind of. Like, you can set it to be like, "Don't pin the same pin to the same board within like a month of each other." Or, there's just different settings in there that you can really like make it pretty precise.

Meredith: Okay. But it's basically like a schedule that repeats itself, based on your own rules?

Julie: Right. And so like, if you had an evergreen, like a lot of your content's evergreen. So you'd have an evergreen one, and it would just keep looping through all your content and just be completely hands-off for you.

Meredith: Okay. So, and by evergreen, we're talking about just content that works all year round, every year.

Julie: Yep.

Meredith: It's not specific to like a holiday, or a time of year, or something like that.

Julie: Right.

Meredith: Okay, all right. So to me, SmartLoop sounds kind of like a little something called BoardBooster. Is it?

Julie: Yes. I think they might be trying to replace that thing.

Meredith: Okay. So does BoardBooster exist anymore?

Julie: No, no. BoardBooster got the cease and desist, or whatever it is, and got kicked out by Pinterest, because they were not approved.

Meredith: Okay. So they were basically … I used BoardBooster, actually for quite a while, like a while ago. And that was sort of before I bothered to check my analytics and see if it was even doing anything for me. So I don't even know if it was effective at all. But, so basically, BoardBooster was kind of allowing you to do something similar to this SmartLoop thing, where you could just kind of pin things on a schedule. But they weren't abiding by Pinterest's terms of service or whatever. Is that right?

Julie: Correct. And I think Tailwind has some extra features that, I mean, it gets … I mean, you can add like group board rules and all that stuff. So you're abiding by your rules.

Meredith: Right, okay. So that's cool, because I actually kind of liked BoardBooster, and then everyone was all mad at them. And I was like, "Okay. I guess we're done."

Julie: Yeah. It left a lot of people scrambling, really, because they're like, "BoardBooster's done. What do I do now?"

Meredith: And everyone survived except BoardBooster.

Julie: Exactly. They were the only one that suffered a casualty.

Meredith: So let's just talk about pricing for a minute, because Tailwind is not free, right?

Julie: No. You can … There are some things you can kind of use for free. But you can kind of test it out for free. And then once you get to like a certain number of content and different things like that, that's when it starts to charge you.

Meredith: Okay. So, but how much is it? It's been a while since I initially signed up. And actually, is it, I think, $15 a month?

Julie: I don't know, because I have like Plus accounts and stuff.

Meredith: Okay. Well I … So, funny story, I accidentally bought a year's worth of Tailwind, like-

Julie: Accidentally.

Meredith: … accidentally, yesterday, actually, because I have … I was just using the like minimum amount of Tribes. And I wanted to add more content, and I think you could only add like 30 things per month to Tribes. And I have some specific content that I'm really trying to push. It might be my Five Days to a Polished and Profitable YouTube Presence challenge, perhaps. So I'm like [crosstalk 00:24:05] trying to really push that. And I was like, "Crap. I need more than 30." And you're allowed to power up. That's what they call it, like a Tribe power-up or whatever. And it was like, I don't know, $6 or $7 to get more, to be able to be in more Tribes and do more pins to those Tribes. And I was like, "What the heck? Yeah, sure. Sign me up." And I was like, I hit "yes," and then I realized they were also signing me up for a full year of Tailwind. And I was like, "Oh, okay. I guess I'm in this for the next year." So, hope I like it.

Meredith: But I have been using Tailwind quite a bit lately and actually paying attention to what I was pinning, instead of just pinning everything, because you can kind of like come up with your own strategy, based on your own sort of goals; because like, I have some posts on my site that get more traffic than others. And I know that they're really popular, and they're what's really driving ad revenue. So I want to pay close attention to those things and be driving even more traffic. So I pin a lot of posts that I know are already bringing in ad revenue, and posts that are full of affiliate links.

Julie: Right. So essentially, Tailwind's going to pay for itself, right?

Meredith: That's the idea, yeah. And I don't know, like I'm such a nerd about data and numbers that I would love to actually track and see, am I making my money back on Tailwind. And I'm sure at some point, I will be. But I don't know if I am. But I feel like I probably am. Right now, Pinterest is my number, I think, five referrer to my site. It's number five. So that's behind Google, and direct traffic, and YouTube, and Bing, which, what the heck, Bing? I did not know-

Julie: Yeah. Where'd that come from?

Meredith: Apparently, people use Bing. I think people use Bing without realizing that they're using Bing, and I think they think it's Google. That's what I think.

Julie: That's like 1999, isn't it?

Meredith: Yeah, I don't know.

Julie: [crosstalk 00:26:27] I used to use Bing.

Meredith: I think on some people's, like-

Julie: Task bar? Or like, I don't know.

Meredith: Or like, if you get a new computer, and you're like over 60 years old, you just open the browser, which is like Internet Explorer. And I think, in some cases, it's just the default thing. And they just, they type it in, they think that they're Googling, except it says Bing on top, not Google. That's what I think.

Meredith: But, so Pinterest is my number-five referrer of traffic. And so it's the number-one social network, except YouTube's in there. And I mean, some people consider that to be social media and whatever. So I can keep track of … Maybe we should talk about this. You can keep track of the traffic that Pinterest is actually sending to your site, right?

Julie: Yep.

Meredith: So you can do that inside of Google Analytics.

Julie: Yes.

Meredith: So hopefully everyone listening to this has Google Analytics installed. And if you don't, you totally should. But if you go to acquisition, and then I go to source/medium, but there's a couple different ways you can get to this.

Julie: That's what I do, too.

Meredith: Okay. And then it'll give you, like by default, it'll show you the top 10 actual sites that are sending traffic to your blog.

Julie: Right. Pinterest is number one for me.

Meredith: I'm not surprised. It's all those recipes.

Julie: That's why, yeah, that's why I like it so much. It's my bread and butter.

Meredith: Yeah. So, and then even within just knowing that Pinterest is sending traffic to your site, you can actually go in and see exactly which pins are sending traffic to your site, right?

Julie: Right. So that is a great tool I have found for finding content to pin.

Meredith: What do you mean?

Julie: So I mean, if you look at like … So for one of my techniques I teach, it's analyzing your traffic. So like going into the holidays, I'll pull up my Analytics from last year, and I'll see what drove traffic to my site from Pinterest last year. And then I'll focus on a big push of those, that content [crosstalk 00:28:55] drive traffic for the holidays.

Meredith: Okay. That is like, that's one of those super smart things that … I feel like I've heard that tip before, but it never sticks inside my brain. And so every time I hear it, I'm like, "Oh, man. I knew this. Why haven't I been doing it?"

Julie: Yeah. I think it's really paid off, I mean, just because some things work really good on Pinterest, and something else works really good on Google, and something else works good on Facebook or YouTube. You know what I mean? Each has a different audience. And just by focusing on what content did well on Pinterest and trying to capitalize on that, it just pays for itself.

Meredith: Right. So you could go in, see which pins are driving traffic to your site, and then go into Tailwind and either schedule them out or use the SmartLoop to just keep them going.

Julie: Exactly. I have a SmartLoop. It's called My Top 20 Pins.

Meredith: Okay, all right. SmartLoop reminds me of like, if you go to a graduation and someone brings a beach ball, and someone throws it out into the crowd, and all the people just keep it up in the air. That's what-

Julie: It's trying to keep your traffic up in the air.

Meredith: That's what it reminds me of. Like, don't drop the ball. And it just keeps like, "Boop," like just-

Julie: [crosstalk 00:30:14] But you don't have to do much. Like, it does it for you. It's your audience, like hitting it back and forth.

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. It's a beach ball.

Julie: It is.

Meredith: So, and you have a … I was looking at your SmartLoop checklist, I think it is. And I was like, as I was looking at it, I was like, "Man, I really need to get on SmartLoop." Like, what is the holdup, Tailwind? I want to actually use this. So tell me about the checklist that I was looking at, so people know what's in it and where to find it.

Julie: It is just a simple checklist. Like, when you go into SmartLoop just to … Like, how to set up an evergreen, a seasonal, how to pick your boards, how to add pins, how to set up your schedule, set up your board rules; just like a checklist to make sure your SmartLoop is optimized to get the most out of it. So you're like checking all the boxes, so it's-

Meredith: Okay. So you're not-

Julie: … ready to go.

Meredith: [crosstalk 00:31:20] Yeah. You're not like skipping a major step or something.

Julie: Yeah.

Meredith: That sounds like something I would do. All right. So if somebody doesn't have Tailwind, or maybe they used to use it but they haven't in a while, like if someone … Is there a 30-day free trial? I'm pretty sure there is.

Julie: There is, yes. There is.

*EDIT: there isn't a 30 Day free trial for Tailwind, it's actually a 100-pin trial. Your first 100 pins are free whether they take you 10 days or 10 months! Check out Tailwind here.

Meredith: So if somebody wanted to try it out … I love … this is what I do. Like I said, I'm like a nerd about data. If there is something I want to use, but it costs money, I will come up with a strategy for, how can I really maximize and optimize this for 30 days, while it's still free, so that I can figure out if it's really even worth it, or if I even like it.

Meredith: So if someone was going to do this with Tailwind, and they were like, "I don't know if I really want to spend $15 a month on this, but I'm willing to try it for free," what should somebody do to make sure they can potentially see as big of a result as possible with Tailwind?

Julie: Can I say this, buy my course? No, you can edit that out. What, I mean, you have to remember like, you get a month free, but with Tailwind, it's going to take a little bit to ramp up your traffic, because you can't just take all your pins and like spam them out to Pinterest in a month, if that makes sense.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: Like, you might start to see a gradual incline. But just know like, that gradual incline will keep going, because you're essentially building up that loop. So if I'm doing it, I continually add new pins to get into my schedule, so everything just kind of keeps looping through. At first, there might be only like five pins. But as I get new content and stuff, I keep adding to it. So I have a certain, I mean, a chunk of pins going out every single day.

Meredith: Right.

Julie: And sometimes it takes a little bit to ramp up.

Meredith: Okay. So that's one of the things that I found when I used Tailwind like a couple years ago, and then I gave up on it. And then when I started using it again last fall … I've give up on it twice. Like, this is my third time around. And like I said, I bought it for a year. So I'm in it now.

Julie: You're in it to win it now.

Meredith: But last fall, I was like, "All right. I'm going to do this Tailwind thing, and I'm going to schedule my pins," and all this. And so, and I did it for like a month. And I was like, "I don't see any like, nothing's happening. It's just me, spending time on Tailwind." So if someone is just signing up, and they're like, "Yeah, I'm going to do this," they need more than … Like, so what you're saying is, you kind of need more than 30 days to figure it out.

Julie: You might. And you have to switch your mindset from user to marketer. That's a huge thing. Like, you can't think as a user. You have to think as a marketer.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: Does that make sense? So like, don't be afraid to pin your content.

Meredith: Okay, your own content.

Julie: Yeah. I mean, I think some people are like, "Oh, I pinned that to that board today. I can't pin that for another six weeks," and that's not how it works.

Meredith: Okay, okay. Or I can't [crosstalk 00:35:03] … No, just like, because sometimes, I'm just like, "Hmm, I pinned that last year."

Julie: Yeah, no. It's like, "I pinned that yesterday. I should probably pin that again in two days."

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. All right. One more question about … I didn't have this written down, but can we talk about like pin design? Like, sometimes I see pins that are actually really kind of ugly, and I'm like, "What? Who designed that? Are you crazy?" Does it … Like, how important is the design or the look of the actual pin?

Julie: I think it's hugely important, personally. Obviously, like Pinterest doesn't look at like the prettiness of the picture. It looks at the keywords more. But I think like, when you're scrolling through your feed, you have to have it key-worded to get into that. But after that, I mean, you have to have a pretty pin to get traction, because the person's not going to look at it unless it's pretty, in my … So it kind of builds upon itself.

Julie: Some of the ugly ones, I think, may have like gained traction way back in the day, and they're just, still have that juice.

Meredith: Right, that algorithm juice.

Julie: Yeah, the juice behind them, that they keep appearing. But I personally, I like … All mine have text on them, personally.

Meredith: Okay.

Julie: And I mean, I always try to have a pretty food photo in it. And I just, I think it will carry you if your content is pretty.

Meredith: Right, okay.

Julie: It's a visual search engine.

Meredith: Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. So where can people find … Well, first of all, you mentioned you have a course. What's the name of your course?

Julie: It is Next Level Pins.

Meredith: I'll create a link for that at VidProMom.com/NextLevelPins, in case anyone is really interested in diving into Pinterest with you, Julie, which I think would be a very wise decision. But you do have that free checklist that we talked about. For those that want to download the Tailwind SmartLoop checklist from Julie, you can head to VidProMom.com/SmartLoop. So I'll put links to both the Next Level Pins course and the free checklist in the show notes for this episode at VidProMom.com/Podcast. And when I have access to SmartLoop, I'm going to be going through each of those checklist items to make sure I set it up right.

Julie: And then you're going to try it for a year.

Meredith: I'm going to try it for a whole, entire year.

Julie: And your Pinterest traffic is going to be like number two or three, right?

Meredith: It's going to explode.

Julie: Yes.

Meredith: It's going to explode, yes. All right. Thanks so much, Julie, for coming on as my first official co-host on the Video Pursuit Podcast!

▶︎ @julieevink on Instagram

▶︎ Download Julie's SmartLoop Checklist

▶︎ Check out Next Level Pins

▶︎ Next Level Blogging Facebook Group

▶︎ Join the Video Pursuit Tailwind Tribe