Since my first post about Tailwind, I’ve been using it for another 6 months, bringing the time I’ve been using it up to one year! Using Tailwind for Pinterest growth continues to be the most enjoyable and effective aspect of my blogging strategy. To read my first post about Tailwind, see How Tailwind Changed the Way I Use Pinterest Dramatically.

How I Exploded My Pinterest Growth in My First Year of Using Tailwind

This post is based on my own personal experiences, and some of the links present are affiliate links. For more information, please see my Disclosures.

It has also been a year since I left my desk job to pursue blogging full-time. Looking back, I’m so glad I made the leap. I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity of creating and sharing information and art that I’m passionate about and also has the potential to positively impact other people and the world.

Are you still loving Tribes? Yes, and I’m fully utilizing them now. Tailwind allows you to submit 30 pins per month to your tribes. Previously, I never came close to reaching that limit. Nowadays, I am more cognizant of gradually submit pins to my tribes in order to ensure I make full use of the 30 pins/month limit. My tribe, Mindfulness & Healing with Purpose, continues to grow!

How many pins do you have scheduled into the future? I went from having 600 pins scheduled to having 3,000 pins scheduled. This number will continue to grow as I continue to create more and more content on my blog.

How about your monthly Pinterest viewers? My monthly Pinterest viewers have grown from ~390k to around ~800k – 1.1million. Like anything, this data fluctuates. Sometimes I have certain pins go viral. For example, one of my pins received 5,000 saves in one week, skyrocketing my monthly viewers in the process. You can see that this data has a trend of peaking at an all-time-high and then balancing to a new low that is still higher than any previous low. I believe this Pinterest growth trend will continue.

How about Pinterest followers? My Pinterest follower count has increased from 600 to 2,600.

How about actual blog traffic? Pinterest continues to be the #1 referrer to my blog. In my last post I mentioned my top month had 7k viewers. Prior to that month, I was only getting 500 – 1.5k viewers per month. Now, in the past 8 months I have been consistently receiving 5.5k – 8k viewers per month. I’m confident that with continued use of Tailwind, my blog will continue to see new record highs when it comes to traffic.

How much are you actually pinning? I have increased my daily pins from 2-5/day to around 5-8/day. I plan on continuing to fill out my schedule while increasing the number of pins I post daily.

How many total boards and pins do you have? I have 83 boards and 5,500 pins published on Pinterest. Compared to other people who are quite successful on Pinterest, that number of pins is quite low, which shows me I’ve yet to tap into the full potential of what Pinterest can do for growing my blog.

How are you making any money? I use MagicLinks to create custom affiliate links in order to monetize my blog posts. I’m also an affiliate through ShareASale, and I have online art stores on Zazzle and Redbubble.

What about using hashtags in Pinterest posts? Hashtags aren’t really used anymore on Pinterest. You’re better off using keyword phrases that are frequently searched.

What about people stealing your pins? It happens a lot. People tend to steal the exact pin along with the exact description and use it to link to a malicious website. To identify these pins, I include at least one hashtag that is not overcrowded, so that I can check on it to see if someone has blatantly stolen it. For example, if I use #lifequotes, that hashtag is too overcrowded so if someone steals my pin, I will not notice. But if I use #watercolorquotes, it is a less commonly used hashtag so it’s easier to see when someone steals my pin. I regularly report all offenders for copyright infringement and Pinterest removes the pins within a day or so. When I report these pins to Pinterest, I include a link to my web page where the image can be found along with the link to my original pin. So far I have caught and reported 50 instances of my pins being stolen.

What does the future look like? I expect my Pinterest followers, monthly viewers, and website traffic to continue growing exponentially as I continue my Tailwind strategy. I will continue writing follow-up posts with my results.