Food Blogging FM 016: Tailwind Tribes For Food Bloggers

Food Blogging FM 016:

Tailwind Tribes for Food Bloggers Brought To You By: RecipeThis.com

Introduction Welcome to our sixteenth food blogging Podcast.

Today I wanted to talk to you about the Tailwind tribes. Last month we talked about Tailwind and how important it is for your Pinterest promotional plans. But the hot topic on every food bloggers mind at the moment is Tailwind Tribes and what they can do for them.

It reminds me a bit of when Twitter first became popular. You had this new social media tool that was perfect for social media and for building up your brand but nobody really knew for sure what to do with it.

I remember when I said I was joining Twitter and someone said to me “you do know you have to tell people when you go to the toilet?”. And that you don’t have to do that when you’re on MySpace. Clearly it was 2008 and things have changed a lot since then and people have a much better understanding of what social media is.

But when you first discover the tribes on Tailwind it can be really scary because they are so new that hardly anyone is talking about them at all.

The Tailwind Tribes are free to use and are still in beta and it is so much fun to get involved in something that is in its early stages. But gaining an understanding is tough and I must admit it took me about 2 weeks to get my head around them and fully understand what they were about and how they could help my food blogging site. Therefore with them being free you could get to grips with the tribes before you look into Pinterest group pinning to see what kind of traffic it can bring you.

So let’s get started!

The Tailwind Tribes First things first you will need a Tailwind account to get involved with the tribes and you can get yours for free by clicking here. No obligation to sign up and the Tribes offer you a fantastic way to get your name out there and to kickstart your Pinterest traffic machine.

1) Get on Tailwind Tribes The first thing you need to do is get yourself on some tribes. It is not until you are a member of some tribes that you can actually have a Tribes section on your Tailwind account. So don’t be surprised if you are on Tailwind and you’re wondering where on earth your tribes section is.

Also with Pinterest group boards there is always the urge to be on 100 group boards. Well as I do this Podcast I am actually on about 170 but you know what I mean. With the tribes you can get good results from just being on 10 of them, so there is a lot less work on your end.

If you are just starting to take Pinterest seriously and you’re overwhelmed by everything, then I would suggest you do the tribes first and then look at growing via different Pinterest group boards.

I found that these Facebook groups are the best place to start:    

Pinterest Group Boards Pinterest Group Board Add Best Of Pinterest Pinterest Boards

They list lots of new tribes that you can join on a daily and weekly basis.

Then all you have to do is submit your Tailwind email address to be added.

Another option is a general search within Facebook as I have found quite a few like this. Simply search in the Facebook search box “tailwind tribes”.

This will then bring up all the recent entries that are either public or to do with friends and groups that you’re a member of. It’s a great way for a quick look. Then search by most recent content and have a read through the different posts and you’ll find some extra ones to join.

Once you have been added your tribes you will then have a section on Tailwind dedicated to it like I have: Then when you are in there you can explore each of the tribes that you’re a member of. Right now I am on 19 different Tribes. If you’re short on time you want to aim it so that you are on about 10 generalised ones for your niche. So if like me and you’re a food blogger you want to be on lots of general recipes ones.

The reason for this is that the Tribes are not very automated and can be rather time consuming so you don’t want to spend all your time looking to see if the tribe you’re talking about is relevant or not to your latest recipe.

It is also nice to have a few that fit in with a specific theme that you are running on your site or for non-related food ones. For example we are in a blogging tips one for content just like this.

2) Now What?

This is the general question that everyone seems to be asking at the moment. So I am on a Tailwind Tribe but what do I do now?

Well the first thing you need to do is test the tribes that you are a member of as not all tribes have an equal value. For example we have joined some tribes and they have had hardly any content, rubbish repin rates or have members in them that are posting their content but not sharing others.

In an ideal world you want to find 5 really good ones that bring you traffic but at the same time has useful content for you to share that is suited to your site.

I maybe a member of 19 Tailwind tribes but I have found that there is about 15 that are any good. Sadly Tailwind Tribes doesn’t have a “remove yourself from the tribe” feature. This means that you either have to contact the person that added you or just ignore that tribe. I choose to ignore it!

Read the rules of each of the tribes and you want to find tribes that have equal rules. Otherwise it will make your life very difficult. If you have 1 rule for each one you will end up breaking the rules under the pressure of trying to fit in and keep your content flowing perfectly.

The majority will have rules that say something like “for every post of yours you add please reshare someone elses”. This of course is rather simple to stick to and you can then have a routine in place.

What we tend to do is share 3 of our blog posts a day; this of course means we will add 21 over the week. Then we need to share 21 of other people’s. On a Monday Kyle will go through them and add 21 to our boards and this will then keep me within the rules to do the adding.

For adding my content I will install the Tailwind App on my browser and then from within Pinterest I will find a relevant pin and click the Tailwind schedule button:

Then once your Tailwind app has opened (usually in a separate window) you need to click on the Tribes section. You will find it near the bottom and it will say “add to tribes�:

Then open it up and you hold down with control and clicking the tribe you’re interested in which tribes you would like it to be on:

Then from this list you can simply pick which tribes to add it to and then it will do it for you straight away.

3) Rinse & Repeat Now bit by bit do this for all your relevant content on your blog.

Obviously we have around 300 recipes so it will take us a while to do them all. But we are doing them bit by bit and seeing what extra traffic is coming our way.

If you get into a routine of doing it each day you will soon see your Pinterest traffic growing. It is also a bit of pot luck for how viral you are going to go with it. For example you could have someone sharing it that has 10,000 followers but on another day someone could share it to a Pinterest board with 100,000 followers.

4) Collect Your Data If you know me by now you will know that I am addicted to the good old spreadsheets and this is another great time to use them!

Collect information of the tribe, the rules, what you have pinned, what you have shared and the results you’ve got.

5) Have Patience When I first started using the tribes I was really disappointed with the results. I looked the next day and I hardly had any shares, yet I was sharing everyone else’s content. It felt like I was putting all the work in, but not getting anything back in return.

Well I looked again after 7 days and the results were so much better.

If you are pinning a lot to Pinterest group boards you might not notice as much of a traffic boost. I notice that people that are just using tribes and are not on boards and being left stunned by the huge boost in traffic. So if you do pin a lot expect moderate results.

Recipe This Case Study In Progress I am sure what you really want to know is how well it has gone for me.

Therefore I have stuck to my schedule and after a month of using it I have found the following: Not all tribes are equal – There are some terrible ones, some average ones, some really good ones and some that are so quiet that nobody else is posting to them!

For example I have been invited to a few tribes that have only got about 10 pins on them and that doesn’t mean that they are all ones that I actually want to share!

You’re not in control – You also have to respect the fact that you are not the boss the owner of the Tribe is. This means that you could have been following the pin 1 to share 1 rule only to find out that they have cleared out the board and you have no idea of how many you have now shared. Its hard when this happens because keeping track of the stats becomes impossible. You could also have been on the Tribe done all your pinning for the week and then be removed from the Tribe.

This means that you have pinned other peoples content for nothing!

Expect the 50% rule – by the 50% rule I mean that for every 2 Tailwind tribes that you join 1 will be a success and the other 1 will be a failure.

We have joined about 21 tribes and have 9 keepers and have recently joined another 3 that we are yet to test.

If it doesn’t work move on – the most important thing to understand is that more work goes into a tribe than goes into a Pinterest group board.

Therefore times is precious and if you are getting a low reach then walk away.

Here are some case studies of some of the Tribes we are members of and how they have worked out for us: Tribe Example 1 – Foods & Drinks & Recipes This was one of the first tribes that we were approved to. It is a tribe focused around recipes which is perfect for us. Plus they have a rule of 3 pins a day maximum and this means you don’t get lost in the Tribes when people are posting 30 a day.

Tribe stats:    

Shared 111 Posted 98 Reshares 63 Repins 15

 Reach 417.5k This means for every pin that I have added of my own I have received a reach of 4,260.

Tribe Example 2 – Farmers Market & Garden Recipes This is one of my under performers that I plan to phase out. This is because it is a pin for a pin so I will get them to a level amount and then leave the tribe in a couple of weeks. Considering it is a niche specific tribe I was expecting better than this. But they can’t all be perfect!

Tribe stats:     

Shared 102 Posted 83 Reshares 11 Repins 10 Reach 28.7k

This means for every pin that I have added of my own I have received a reach of 345.

Tribe Example 3 – Food Blogger Friends This is one of two by a similar name and the great thing about these is that you must share 2 for every 1 that you pin. This means that you are much more likely to have your pin shared than you are on other tribes. It does take a lot longer to run and set up but it’s all about the long game!

Tribe stats:     

Shared 228 Posted 107 Reshares 130 Repins 15 Reach 630k

This means for every pin that I have added of my own I have received a reach of 5887.

Tribe Example 4 – Adrian’s Tribe This is the Tribe that I thought from the outset would not be a success.

This is because it is not specific to a type of food or recipe, but is more towards the “everything goes” approach. There are people on here with cooking tips, recipes, frugal living, DIY and a bit of everything else in between. But if you look below the stats are rather impressive.

Tribe stats:     

Shared 103 Posted 117 Reshares 78 Repins 114 Reach 1m

This means for every pin that I have added of my own I have received a reach of 8547.

Tribe Example 5 – Delicious Vegetarian Recipes I loved the idea of this tribe when it first came about. I am not a vegetarian but I love vegetarian recipes and was really looking forward to being part of this one. However this was the one of the tribes that performed the worst and for the effort put in I was really disappointed on the results. This is another tribe where I am using up my shares and then leaving it.

Tribe stats:     

Shared 100 Posted 66 Reshares 14 Repins 3 Reach 38.5k

This means for every pin that I have added of my own I have received a reach of 583.

These are of course the 5 tribes that have stood out the most. What we have learnt from the tribes is that they are still in beta so they are not perfect but they are worth trying and as long as you get on some good tribes then you are in for a great social media experience.

I also feel that they are aimed at the newbies that are not on a lot of Pinterest group boards. I am on quite a few group boards so when I see a tribe that has hardly given me any reach I am thinking about how I can blast one of my Pinterest board lists and know that I can achieve much greater things.

Also I am sure you want to see what my results have been like since I started on Tailwind in late June and now. For the first month after getting Tailwind it was all about getting going with the Pinterest groups, where as the second month was about this plus the tribes so you can see how the traffic has grown:

If you look you will be able to see it had:  1792 sessions before tailwind  4131 sessions after a month on tailwind  5198 sessions after 3 weeks on tribes This means that thanks to Tailwind and their Tribes I have had a 290% traffic increase. To say that your traffic has increased by that much in 7 weeks is amazing and is a great way to grow your Pinterest following and traffic quicker.

That’s A Wrap Thanks for listening to our Podcast and don’t forget to sign up for your own free Tailwind account where you can test drive it for your first 100 scheduled pins or where you can use it for free for the tribes.

Like we have mentioned in this Podcast Tailwind has allowed us to double our Pinterest traffic and now we are looking forward to similar results from the tribes.

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Samantha & Dominic Milner http://recipethis.com

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