30 Days of Tailwind || Honest Review

You have no idea how much the name Tailwind began popping up on my Twitter feed, and in the Facebook blogging groups I’m a member of, once I began elbowing my way into the blogging world. People were kind of raving about it and finally I caved and looked into what exactly it is Tailwind does. Basically it is a way to automise your content uploads on both Pinterest and Instagram. It promises to be a major timesaver (read: lifesaver), to tell you what time your pins and posts are most likely to be seen (uptimized time) and have the largest reach, offers you a blogging community through what they call tribes, AND offers you more in-depth analytics about your content and site. Wow, that was a mouthfull!

There were 3 reasons why I wanted to try a free month of Tailwind:

1) Honestly, I was just very curious to see what all the fuss was about. All bloggers surrounding me seem to love it and recommending it far and wide. I don’t suffer from fomo (really, I don’t) but I’m a curious person which, if you’ve been paying any kind of attention to my content, should be abundantly clear.

2) I wanted to know the uptimal time for releasing new content. It has been a headache of mine ever since I started blogging as I’m sure it has been for many a blogger over the years. Especially because every blog is different depending on the audience you attract and where in the world they come from. I figured that if Tailwind got a 30 day insight it could, at the very least, point me in the right direction.

3) I was curious to see if it would help me gain more views (and followers), simply help grow my site. Don’t get me wrong, I know that that is hard to judge over such a short period but this lass here has dreams and I’m allowed to hope, right?

A quick disclaimer: I’ve only used it for Pinterest, not Instagram. Mostly because I have been focusing on getting my Pinterest game up and running, not keeping my plate too full and all that.

WHAT IS THE FUSS ABOUT

No-one is paying me to say anything so the following is – as always – my own, totally unfiltered, opinion. I get what all the fuss is about. Honestly, I do! BUT, I feel like it depends on which type of blogger you are and on your aspirations. If you are – or want to be a – professional who has to make a living I would definitely consider it worth the money! If you post more than once every two weeks (which most people do. What can I say, I’m special… I’ll see myself out) it will help you organize and automise everything to do with repinning your own content (through so-called smartloops), and save you a ton of time with repinning other people’s content directly from Pinterest which is so easy it almost feels like cheating. Tailwind’s uptimized timeslots will always release your pins and repins at the best time possible so that the odds of reaching your audience are at their highest. If you, however, are a non-profit blogger – like me – who is quite happy to stay that way Tailwind is definitely not worth paying for. If there was a free version of it where you could get the uptimized time for your content I would so use it, but right now I have no intent of paying for it. I will say, though, that I haven’t regretted my free month and I do recomment it for – as I will describe in the following – getting a bit of insight into your audience, where they come from, and when they are likely to engage with your pins, repin them etc. Everyone could benefit from 30 days of free Tailwind.

If you want to try Tailwind for free just click the link below and get $15 of Tailwind Plus. If you do I get $15 credit as well.When you become a Tailwind member you automatically become an affiliate partner as well which means that I have to write a bunch of legal crap so here goes: this blog post contains affiliate links. If you click to try and/or buy any of these products I receive financial compensation. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good but you can bet that I would never promote anything I didn’t like. Mischief managed.

THE UPTIMAL TIME FOR RELEASING CONTENT

Like I said, knowing when to release my content was one of the first questions I ever asked myself. I can’t even remember which day I used to upload on, but after a Twitter poll I decided to release content Wednesday. After being on Tailwind for a month I can now see that that was the worst possible decision EVER! Why? Because Wednesday is the day with absolute LEAST activity. True, I made the poll on Twitter, and true I am talking Pinterest, but truth be told people aren’t active on Twitter on a Wednesday either so I’m not sure why people wanted it out of Wednesdays. Sometimes, you don’t want to ask people what they want. Because a large proportion of my audience are from the US they are mostly active, wait for it… at night! That’s right. When I’m sound asleep they are reading, tweeting, pinning, and being so active you don’t even know it. *Deep sigh*. There are a few options though. I can post incredibly early in the morning – we’re talking 04.00-06-00 – OR late at night – mostly between 22.00 and 00.00. There are exceptions, though. Tailwind’s smartschedule tells me that I have a lot of activity Friday at about 18.00-00.00, Saturday at 21.00-00.00 and Sunday at 20.00-23.00. I can also see that I get a lot of organic activity over the weekend, and since my Twitter feed seems to be most active Friday nights I’ve decided to move my officially scheduled content to Friday. Even though everyone’s blog is different I do think that you can draw some conclusions. If you know who the majority of your audience is keep in mind that people usually likes to be online during commute in the morning, during lunchbreaks, and on their way home after work. It’s usually the time where most adults have 10-30 min to themselves before getting groceries, picking up kids, and everything else they have to do. During weekends that includes nights as well. Obvisouly it’s easier if the majority of your audience are based in the same country as you, and that’s why I get why a lot of professional bloggers swear by Tailwind (new possible religion?)

HAS IT HELPED ME GAIN MORE VIEWS?

It wasn’t a criteria, but I would have liked it that had been the case. I don’t feel like it has done anything. Mostly a pin gets lucky and blows up, and being a member of Facebook groups helps a lot! (Seriously, get on that!) I get that blogging is hard work and that my content doesn’t fly with a lot of people who are more to how-to-, and X-ways-to-do content, lists and more light-hearted stuff, but if there could have been any difference it would have been a sweet bonus. 

Many bloggers reading this right now would probably think “didn’t you use the tribes?” I did, but that my content doesn’t speak to many people makes it difficult to get noticed. My audience are people who wants deeper stuff; who likes to think, ponder and wonder. Who are curious and wants to dig deeper, discover and discuss. And in these fast-pace days people like that don’t grow on trees. I feel like going out on a tangent so I’m going to stop myself here.

TO SUMMARIZE

I will admit that I did not like Tailwind at first. Even though I’d watched tutorials it was a bit tricky for about 3 days. My advice? Give it at least 3-5 days before you judge (or at least allow yourself to hate the system without quitting). But I will say that even if it’s a bit tricky at first I think every blogger should try a FREE month of Tailwind! You can quote me on that. Be curious and try. The bonus is that you find what time is best to post so you literally have nothing to lose. Is it worth the money? If you are a professional blogger or want to be, yes! Is it worth your time no matter if you end up liking it or not? Absolutely! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my honest opinion. Cheers!

---

Want to try Tailwind for FREE? Click the link and get $15 worth of Tailwind Plus.

---

Have you ever tried Tailwind? If yes, what did/do you think of it?
Be sure to leave your thoughts and comments down below.