Scheduling for Pinterest

If you use Hootsuite, you may know how much of a relief it is to have social media posts scheduled well ahead of time. You can plan out your social media for a certain length of time and schedule everything to publish on the days and times you choose.

Companies that sell a very visual product often find that Pinterest is a great platform to share about their product and content that would interest their clients. Unfortunately, you can’t schedule Pinterest posts on Hootsuite.

What’s a busy, client-oriented company marketer to do?

Enter Tailwind. Tailwind is a scheduling tool for Pinterest. It allows you to schedule Pins like you would schedule posts using Hootsuite.

Here’s a quick how-to for posting Pins using Tailwind.

How to post in Tailwind

First, log in to Tailwind, of course! When you log in, Tailwind will sync all your boards so you have to enter as little information as possible.

Then, you can upload pictures to later use as Pins. Select the “Drafts” tab and upload your pictures. You can do those from your computer, from a Google Chrome extension, or even from your Instagram account!

Next you need to customize your schedule for when the Pins are published. The first time you use Tailwind, you’ll set up time slots for when you want your Pins to go out. Then any time after that, your Pins will automatically load into those pre-set time slots.

Scheduled Pins are called “drafts.” Once they’re in a time slot, you can enter the board and a caption for each one. When those drafts are all in good shape, you can add those drafts to your “queue” and they will go out with one Pin per time slot.

Tip: creating good captions and including keywords in them helps people find your Pin even if they aren’t familiar with your company.

Why is it so great?

Tailwind is an affordable resource for businesses whose products are very visual—think clothing retailers, furniture stores, stationary companies—who want to get their products and other interesting posts out in front of potential clients.

For a small business package, the current price is $10/month. There’s also a free trial for a limited number of Pins, so you can get a feel for it before making any investments.

Being able to schedule Pins in batches, like you can do in Hootsuite, relieves some of the pressure of running social media for a company. Taking an afternoon to schedule a month worth of Pins is a much more efficient use of time than stopping work, finding something to Pin, taking a photograph, and creating a caption every time you want to make a post.

You can even post blogs to Pinterest using Tailwind! Just make sure to use the main picture in your blog as the image for the Pin.

Will you be giving Tailwind a test run?