Tailwind Tribes: 5 Ways You May Be Wasting Time (and Irritating Other Members)

Jan 20, 2019

The Team at Positive Productivity is proud to share tips and resources which we know will serve our community. As such, we are an affiliate for products we know and love. If you join Tailwind Tribes using links used in this article, we may earn commission.

The Positive Productivity team (aka Team Awesome) has been using Tailwind to schedule Pinterest and Instagram posts since 2017. It wasn’t until the fall of 2018, however, that we discovered Tailwind Tribes.

If you’re also using Tailwind Tribes, this article is for you. If you’re not using Tailwind yet, you really should be! (Learn more about Tailwind HERE!)

It didn’t take us long to figure out what was and wasn’t working for us in Tribes. The same goes for recognizing what was irritating us about fellow tribe members. Note: We do not get irritated easily, so when we’re irritated… It’s serious!

So, without further ado, let’s save you time, energy and the risk of irritating your fellow tribe members.

Tailwind Tribes: 5 Ways You May Be Wasting Time (and Irritating Other Members)

>> One Stop Pin Drop

We know you’re proud of the article you just wrote. And we know you want massive visibility. However, dropping your newest article’s pin(s) to all your Tailwind tribes at once is limiting your visibility, not maximizing it. And, it’s irritating people who are in more than one of those groups with you.

You may be wondering why we believe this, so allow us to explain.

Tailwind Tribes users who share your pin from one tribe don’t want to have to keep hiding it on all their other tribes. Frankly, it’s annoying as heck. Yes, we’ve seen this pin before… like 10 times… Wait, make that 20…
Members may forget they shared your content yesterday, and it may still be in their Tailwind Pinterest queue. So, when they see it (again) tomorrow in a different tribe, they think it would be great content and they re-share! Or, maybe they have a different board they think to put it in to!
New people join tribes constantly. Some members will go through all the old content, some won’t. Keeping your pin at the top of the list, if even in a different tribe, allows you to capture new eyes!
Spacing out your tribe sharing allows you to reach different people at different times. We stagger our Tailwind tribe activity throughout the day and throughout the week to reach people with varying schedules and time zones.

We’ve seen pin shares increase drastically by spacing our pins out. Because our articles are not time sensitive, we have no reservations of posting article X’s pin to Tribe A on day 1, Tribe B on day 2, etc.

While it may sound confusing, we are able to keep track of all articles and tribes using a simple Google Sheet. Articles down down the first column and tribes across the top row. A simple spreadsheet like this will take little time to prepare, but we can almost guarantee it will increase shares.

>> Spamming Split Tested Images to One Tribe

We will never argue the importance of split testing… Ever. However, your tribe mates don’t need to see eight different images for the same post at the same time. While you’ve already heard our opinion about dropping the same pin to all your tribes at once, we have another suggestion…

Post the split test images to other tribes if you insist on a massive drop. Alternatively, share your alternative images at various times throughout the day/week to maximize shares from tribe members who perhaps didn’t like the initial image(s).

>> Ignoring Tribe Rules

Ignoring tribe rules not only irritates the tribe owners, but also the group members who ARE following rules. When we set up the Positive Productivity Tribe, we established rules and state them clearly. We also let group members know there’s a one-strike policy. They break a rule, they get kicked.

As of the publish date of this article, we’ve only had one infraction, and as stated, we kicked immediately. We don’t have time for nonsense, and if the rest of the group members (however small we still are) can follow the rules, anybody should be able to.

Common infractions we see in Tailwind Tribes are:

Inappropriate content

Some Tailwind Tribes ask members to only share specific topics. Unfortunately, some members clutter the feed with content that’s not allowed. For example, a marketing board which wants only visibility and marketing related posts, but (some) members post recipes, cosmetics ads and parenting posts.

Our recommendation: Stick to the topic of the tribe. Share your recipes to recipe or all-topic boards and the people who want them will find you there.

Disproportionate posting

Most, if not all, tribes we’ve seen ask members to share at least one fellow’s members pins for each of their own that they share. Meaning, if you wanted to share a pin from your Pinterest account, the expectation is that you have shared a group member’s pin to your account first. Unfortunately, some people don’t do this. They’ve shared ten of their own pins to the group, but have only shared ONE group member’s pin. Successful Tailwind tribes are built when members support each other equally, if not generously.

Our recommendation: Share 2+ pins belonging to group members for every ONE of your own.

>> Ugly (or Out-of-Focus) Images

At the risk of being rude, some of the pins we see are NOT eye pleasing. With easy-to-use tools like Canva, we’re puzzled by the uglies, and to be honest, we don’t share ugly.

We know some people are graphically challenged, however Canva makes good-looking pins easy with dozens of customizable templates. Whether you choose a free or paid template, we guarantee you will be able to make better looking pins than some we have seen.

>> Images without Text

Pinterest, like Instagram, is extremely visual. Unfortunately, more users than not, on both platforms, will not read captions or descriptions unless they are EXTREMELY compelled.

We are NOT telling you to add text to your Instagram images, however, on Pinterest, text is more often than not a crucial element. You need to tell users what they’re looking at, and give them a compelling reason to click through to your article. This can be as simple as – and often doesn’t need to be more complicated than – the name of the recipe or the title of the.

And, for goodness sake, please do NOT just post your headshot and expect people to click through.