How To Schedule Pins On Pinterest For Free [Tailwind]

To answer the question…

How To Schedule Pins On Pinterest For Free? The answer is: one of the best ways to get your content seen by your target audience on Pinterest is with Tailwind Tribes. It is completely possible to use Tailwind Tribes for free without having a paid account, and even when your free trial has concluded.

To be able to do this, you’ll have to do something extra to properly adhere to a Tribe’s rules to receive credit for sharing your Tribemates’ pins.

When you sign up for a Free Trial, you immediately receive 100 free scheduling timeslots that you can use at any given time.

Once the timeslots are up, your trial period automatically ends.

Tailwind’s free trial comes with a couple of perks such as having 30 total pin submissions per month and 5 free Tailwind Tribes.

The best thing is that you can continue to use these features even after your trial has expired, however, you’ll no longer be able to schedule.

So, to be able to continue using Tailwind Tribes for free, you’ll have to thread a little differently than you normally would with a paid account.

Why I Wrote This Post

I wanted to use Tribes for a second Pinterest account without having to pay for a second Tailwind account.

For months I tried to find a solution to this problem but I always failed to find a post or article explaining in detail what would happen if I tried to share pins from a Tribe account that doesn’t allow me to schedule them with a free account.

So…

What Does “Tailwind Tribes Is Free To Use” Actually Mean?

According to Tailwind, “Tailwind Tribes is Free to use,” yet they didn’t explain how to freely use it beyond the free Tailwind trial.

Because Tailwind’s statement is so vague, it can be easily interpreted to mean “free to use WITH a paid Tailwind account” or “free to use during the free trial”.

While doing my testing I wondered why they wouldn’t disclose this information if Tribes is actually free.

Perhaps Tailwind doesn’t want to advertise this in lieu of their paid options, which is completely understandable.

But not only is Tailwind vague about using Tribes for free, other Pinterest users are also stumped about it.

In all my research I found only one blogger that stated they tried to find a way to use Tribes for free.

As a paid user, I’m aware that pins normally get shared from Tribes to Tailwind’s scheduler (which Tailwind users with a trial account cannot take advantage of if they’ve reached the initial 100 trial timeslots). So, I couldn’t understand how one can use Tribes without being able to use the scheduler.

Another question that I had was:

Could free trial users properly share their Tribemates’ pins and receive credit for them seeing that they weren’t able to use Tailwind’s scheduler anymore?

How The Sharing Of Pins From Tailwind Works With A Paid Tailwind Account

With a free account, the way you share a Tribemate’s pin is you’ll have to use the Add to Queue button to directly schedule it to your Tailwind schedule right from within the Tribe.

Your pin will then post at your next available timeslot, or at a time you’ve set. This allows you to not leave your Tribe to look at your schedule.

A paid Tailwind account also offers you the opportunity to add a Tribe pin to your Tailwind schedule by using the Add to Queue button. But when you are a free user, Tailwind will no longer schedule pins for you after your 100 timeslots are used up.

The Problem With Using Tribes Without A Paid Tailwind Account

Joining Tribes can only happen if you have a Tailwind account. As soon as you’ve joined you’ll receive 100 free scheduled timeslots as part of your free trial.

A paid Tailwind account offers a lot more and will automatically post the pins you share from a Tribe, without you having to even check in on your Tailwind schedule.

The trouble with using a trial Tailwind account is that you won’t be able to enjoy the feature that automatically posts pins that are sent to your Tailwind schedule.

Moreover, in order to receive credits for the pins you’ve shared from Tribes, you need to be sharing through Tailwind’s scheduler.

So what happens to those pins you “schedule” from Tribes when you can’t actually schedule them from Tailwind? And how does this affect your ability to continue sharing pins from Tribes for free?

What Happens When You No Longer Have Free Scheduling Slots?

When you have used up all your scheduled timeslots from your free account, Tailwind schedule will gray out anything you sent to it to signal that these pins won’t be automatically posted.

This means that you are still able to send pins to your Tailwind schedule from Tribes or elsewhere, however these pins will not get automatically posted until you upgrade to a paid Tailwind account, OR manually pin them from Tailwind . . . which I’ll discuss in a minute.

So What To Do as a Well-Meaning Tribe Member?

How can a Tribe member continue to use Tribes for free and also receive credits for shared pins?

I scoured the internet seeking an answer to this question but came up short.

I realized that most people never tried to use Tribes for Free and therefore mostly regurgitated the vague proclamation that Tailwind gives with no additional insight on how to use Tribes for Free.

Before I share my own solution (which a member of the Tailwind chat confirmed to be the best), I want to first share what I found on the subject and why I felt it needed further exploration.

The Advice I Found [Lacking]

I found a multitude of posts and videos that stated “Tribes are free to use,” but never really gave an explanation of how it works for free but instead went on to explain how Tribes work in general and how great they are.

I did find a post that offered a workaround, but I see the method explained in the post more as a potentially risky option that defeats the purpose of using Tribes in the first place.

It recommended foregoing the “Schedule This Pin” Tailwind button and then pinning the chosen pin directly from Pinterest (i.e clicking the pin icon on someone’s submission to open the pin on Pinterest and pinning it directly from Pinterest).

This method while it might seem helpful is actually very disadvantageous because you won’t receive any credit because you did not share it inside of a Tribe, which will likely get you kicked out fast.

Also, the pinner will have no idea that you’ve pinned their pin.

The post also advised to simply inform the Tribe admin that you’re manually pining from Pinterest if he/she asked why you aren’t sharing others pins ((i.e. why you’re not following rules), but I honestly don’t think many Tribe admins today would accept this, as they shouldn’t.

Why “Properly” Using Tailwind Tribes Is Beneficial To You

The point of using Tailwind Tribes is to keep yourself and others accountable for sharing each other’s content within Tribe as much as possible.

And the only way you and others(admins) can notice the pins you’ve shared is if you’re sharing them directly through Tailwind.

The Beauty + Ease of Accountability

Admins of Pinterest group boards or other “share for share” threads usually cannot know for sure who is on these boards just to “dump and jump” and who is genuinely there to collaborate.

But if everyone is sharing pins from Tribes as they should, it becomes easy to see who’s playing by the rules.

It is not necessary to make it difficult for an admin to verify that you’re following the rules, especially when you are constantly sharing pins to your Pinterest account.

More Shares for Your Pins

It is best to actively “alert” Tribemates when you’ve shared their pin. This will trigger them to check out your pin submission and share yours.

I know this because I do it all the time!

You should also be aware that if you don’t share pins the right way from your Tribes, all that sharing will be a waste of your time and energy unless you just want to find some interesting content to pin and aren’t worried about submitting your own content.

How To Share Pins From Tailwind Tribes Free – The Right Way

Even with the lack of information, I knew there had to be a way to use Tribes for free while still following the rules, so I decided to do some testing with a free Tailwind account.

I used my 100 free slots to check how what would happen if after that I still tried to share a pin from a Tribe to my schedule.

In the end, even though I had to take an extra step, I did find a solution (one that Tailwind chat confirmed to be the best one as well).

2-Step Method To Sharing Pins From Tribes For Free

I still want you to use the “Schedule This Pin” button to share your pins from a Tribe, but you’ll also need to do one more thing.

Step 1: Getting Credits For Sharing Pins From a Tailwind Tribe

When you “schedule” a pin from a Tribe with no paid Tailwind account and no free schedule slots, you will still receive credit in the Tribe for a share, BUT the pin will not get posted to Pinterest!

However, you want the pins to get posted to your Pinterest account because you want the pins you’re taking credit for, actually getting posted and it only shows that you’re a good Tribemate!

To do this, you’ll need to go to your Tailwind schedule and manually post the pin from Tailwind.

Step 2: Manually Pinning Tribemates’ Pins From Tailwind

Once you’ve “scheduled” a pin from a Tribe, you’ll want to go to your Tailwind schedule in your Tailwind dashboard and manually click the green Pin Now button that appears when you hover to the right of a scheduled pin you want to edit.

Hover next to a pin you want to edit in your Tailwind schedule and click Pin Now

New To Tailwind Tribes? Here’s The Rundown

To enjoy the advantages that Tailwind Tribes offer, you’ll first need a Tailwind account.

You can start with a FREE Trial Account, which will give you the 100 scheduled pins, including super helpful analytics and even SmartLoop, which allows you to reschedule certain pins on autopilot.

So, when you’re out of free slots, you can continue to use Tribes for free, using the method I just gave you.

With this method, you can join up to 5 tribes and submit a maximum of 30 pins per month across all of your tribes.

You might think that 30 pins is not much, but if you use it strategically it can be plenty e.g for only putting out new content once a week.

What’s So Great About Tailwind Tribes Anyway?

I personally find that with Tailwind Tribes I can genuinely get a “leg up” from other bloggers in my niche, while simultaneously share their pins as well.

I say that those 30 free submissions can be extremely helpful because at times I’ve received tons of shares from one pin submission, and often these shares came from much bigger names (with much bigger Pinterest reach) in my niche.

In all honesty, you can get a lot of free and quality Pinterest exposure fast. Especially for new piece of content!

Overview of Tailwind Tribes for Beginners

As a beginner, you need to find up and sign up for maximum 5 tribes that are relevant to your niche, next you submit your pin(s) and if members of the tribe find your content helpful, it is highly likely that they will share it to THEIR Pinterest account.

Some Tips for Newbies

Share For Share And Other Tribe Rules

Each Tribe will have its own rules, so make sure you read them and verify that you can commit to them before joining.

Most Tribes are well-monitored and have a rule of at least a 1:1 sharing ratio.

With this rule admins want you to share at least 1 pin from someone else when you submit your pins.

Also, sharing a Tribemaid’s pin to a private board does not count as a share and you will not receive credit for doing so.

Most Tribe admins are very strict about these rules and will kick tribe members out of they do not follow the rules.

Unlike Facebook share-for-share threads, Tribe rules do not require that you share a pin from the same person who shared yours or everyone in your thread … meaning you don’t have to pin pins that have nothing to do with your niche!

You can share a pin from anyone in the Tribe and it will count towards your personal sharing ratio. But it is always nicer to share pins from people who share yours.

There were times were I received tons of shares and times where I got no share at all from people that have a lot more followers than me, so keep that in mind as well.

Which Pins Should You Share?

Some people will say that it is best to share only “established” pins from big names in your niche, with high share counts.

I personally do not subscribe to that belief, especially since Pinterest claims that they now prefer new content.

I don’t care about whose pin I’m sharing and how many times it’s already been shared, as long as I believe that it is a quality pin and that my audience will like and benefit from it, I will share it.

I am, however, reluctant to share a pin that looks suspect e.g. a pin that has an affiliate link attached to it.

I won’t share such a pin if it is not clearly disclosed in the pin description and I wouldn’t add a disclosure myself to someone else’s pin.

I often get just as much exposure when smaller pinners share my pins as when they get shared by pinners with a big following.

Benefits Of Upgrading Tailwind and Tribe Power Ups

While you can continue using your free Tribe account as long as you want (or until Tailwind decides to change this), you still might want to look into eventually having a paid Tailwind account, and even a paid Tribes power up.

Upgrading To Tailwind Plus

Since we’re talking about Tailwind Tribes, the most obvious benefit of upgrading to a paid Tailwind account is that you’ll have access to the scheduler, which will definitely make sharing from your Tribes easier!

You’ll be able to skip the whole going back into your schedule and manually pinning each pin, and your shared pins can be scheduled months in advance on whatever date you like.

You can utilize “interval scheduling” to schedule the same pin to multiple boards at once while making sure they are spread out in your schedule.

With a paid account you’ll also have access to all of Tailwind’s other PLUS features such as analytics and SmartLoop, which is a feature that repeatedly schedules pins on autopilot.

Start your FREE Trial to Tailwind

Ready To Power Up Your Tailwind Tribes Account?

The more often you use Tailwind Tribes, the more you’ll realize how beneficial and valuable it is and decide that you just might need more of it – more tribes, more pin submissions, or both. If so, you can upgrade your account to Tribes PowerUp.

But remember, to upgrade to Tribes PowerUp, you’ll first need to have a Tailwind Plus account.

For more information about how often you should pin to Pinterest click here.

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Thanks!