Tailwind Communities are made up of like-minded content creators who support each other and curate engaging Pinterest accounts by sharing each others content to Pinterest – right from inside Tailwind.
Community Leads and Members alike love the way that Communities save them so much time on their Pinterest marketing. And anyone can start a Community!
There are thousands of active Tailwind Communities today, with between two and 2,800 (!!?!) members in each. They range in topic from Animals and Pets, to Books, Movies, Personal Finance, Teaching, Fashion, Organic Gardening, and so many more (find your Community here!).
While Tailwind Communities have become an integral part of many Pinner’s marketing efforts, Community Leads sometimes ask – how can I keep my Community and all the Community Members in it, active and thriving over time?
As successful Community Leads will tell you, it starts with the way you set up your Communities.
Set Your Tailwind Community Up for Success
The way you create and present your Community has a lot to do with the Community Members you’ll attract, so in all aspects of Community setup, think carefully about how to make choices that will draw in your ideal Community Members.
Choose the Right Name and Topic for Your Community
Will you go broad or niche? While a broad topic can appeal to a large number of potential Community Members, a narrow topic increases the likelihood that your Community will be full of content that’s relevant for all – making for a happier Community Members and a more active Community.
Nienke of The Travel Tester, is the owner of the Dream.Pin.Go. Community where she and her nearly 200 Community Members have generated over 80 thousand shares to Pinterest. She suggests,
Once you’ve determined the vision and focus for your Community, make sure your Community name and “About” section reflect it. The “About” section is also the place to set expectations for those who are not familiar with the collaborative nature of Communities.
If you’re open to new members joining automatically or by request, you’ll also want to use relevant keywords in your name and description to help people in your niche discover your Community. Choosing a relevant category and tags will also help the right people find you (you’ll set up tags after you create the Community). Learn More
Setting Community Rules
Your Community is your Kingdom, so you make the rules! What kind of guidelines will make your Community a fantastic resource for you and your Community Members?
Rules can cover everything from the subject of Pins allowed, whether or not product photos are allowed, the size of images allowed, the volume of submissions allowed, etc.. Learn More
Heather owns the join-by-request Community ‘Teacherpreneur preK-6 Evergreen,’ which stays active and relevant with over 200 Community Members. Her Community Members’ content has amassed 67 thousand shares and over 218 thousand Repins on Pinterest. She explains one of the secrets to her success,
Fill Up Your Community with Great Content
The first 20 Pins added to a new Community don’t count toward your limit for the month, so go ahead and fill it up! If you already have some invitees in mind, add in some of their content, so when they view your invite and preview your Community, they’ll see that some of their content is their already – and they’ll feel very welcome, indeed!
Grow Your New Community
Leads of brand new Communities may feel at something of a disadvantage when it comes to attracting the best Community Members. After all, how appealing is it to join a Community of one? But, we’re giving our start up Communities a little boost by making the first 20 submissions to a brand new Community not count against a Community Members allotted submissions for the month.
These new “Starting Up” Communities are clearly marked to attract people who might otherwise overlook a brand new Community with only a few members. Of course, you don’t need to wait for people to come to you. In fact, it can be much faster and more effective to build your Community yourself!
Invite Trusted Collaborators
Do you have a mastermind group, some friends who create similar content to yours, or a Facebook group made up of people who are hap
py to share each other’s relevant content? Why not start your Community off this strong core of people whose content you already know and love and whom you are happy to support. You can post an invite to a group, in a direct message, in an email, or a blog post!
Alyssa Basinger owns the public Community, Bloggers & Creative Infopreneurs. Her nearly 1,000 Community Members have generated over 45 thousand shares to Pinterest. About finding great Community Members, she says,
Invite Newer Bloggers to Join
Bloggers who are just starting out or who are new to Pinterest may have more incentive to stay active in a quality Community than those with established followings.
While you can include well-known content creators in your Community, don’t leave out the newbies thinking that they have less to contribute. Pinterest loves the new, fresh content beginning content creators create, and newer content creators may be more inclined to generously share Community Member content, too.
Four Ways to Keep Your Community Active
Maintaining an active Community doesn’t have to be a full-time job. In fact, your Community will save you hours of time you’d otherwise spend searching for great content to Pin. And with your setup optimized, this part should be a piece of cake!
Here are four tasks you might want to include in your weekly Community maintenance:
Weekly Action Items for an Active Community:
- Lead by example
- Manage join requests – send welcome messages to new Community Members
- Preserve the quality of your Community – review the content and sharing habits of Community Members
- Encourage
1. Lead by Example
Set aside time once or twice a week to add your content and share out content from the Community. Set a calendar reminder if you’re afraid you’ll forget.
2. Manage Join Requests Thoughtfully
If your Community requires people to request to join (a good idea for screening potential Community Members), you’ll see notifications in your dashboard when people ask to join. Potential Community Members can add a personal message to the request or not, but you’ll always see which Community they want to join and you’ll be able click to view their Pinterest account and website (assuming they have them!).
The first thing I look at is their website. Do they have a blog? If so, would the topics of the posts fit well in my Community? Further, do the blog posts have great Pinnable images and do I think they’ll go over well in the Community? Look at the descriptions on Pins that lead to their website. Are they well written and appealing?
I’m very protective of my Communities, and have no problem ruthlessly rejecting requests when I think either they or the Community as a whole will not benefit,
If anything looks amiss, you won’t be doing them any favors if you accept their request – and you could be damaging your Community. Protect the quality of your Community by only accepting good Community Members.
Note: Sometimes people without a blog join a Community for the express purpose of sharing other people’s content. If they state that in their join request, I’m likely to let them in! Otherwise, if they have no blog and they don’t send a note, I don’t see much value for them or the other Community Members in my accepting their request.
When you do approve a new Community Member, make them feel wanted by sending a welcome chat! It can be particularly motivating and a great testimony to the collaborative nature of Communities if, when they visit for the first time, they see that you have already added some of their content to the Community.
3. Preserve the Quality of your Community
Your Community is a place where Community Members can find fresh, quality, relevant Pins to share with their audience. If ever it starts to feel like the quality of the content or the relevance of the Pins is slipping, that can quickly discourage your Community Members from continuing to participate.
So, keep an eye on what’s in the Community. Remove content that isn’t relevant or otherwise breaks the rules. And send offenders a chat to remind them of the purpose of the Community and the rules. Make sure to emphasize that you’re happy to have them and you just want to make sure this remains a valuable resource for all Community Members – including them!
Pamela Arsena owns the join-by-request Community ‘All Things Beautiful Home Decor & Art.’ Search for that Community by name in Find a Community if you’d like to join! She explains why she sometimes removes content from her Community.
Most of the time you’ll find that a Community Member shared an irrelevant piece of content by mistake and they appreciate the reminder of the purpose of the Community. If one Community Member continues to break the rules, you can always remove. Heather, quoted above, says, “I give people the boot if they don’t comply with the rules.”
Similarly with Community Members who visit the Community to drop their content in and never share anyone else’s content. If they’re not finding content worth sharing, they may be better off in a different Community – but send them a chat first to ask them if that’s the case. They may just need a reminder to share…
Appoint Administrators to Help
As your Community starts to grow, you might want to enlist some help with maintenance. Consider appointing a Community Admin or two! Community Admins can edit Community info, accept or reject requests to join the Community, remove content from the Community, and invite or kick out members (except you – they can’t kick you out!). Learn More.
Reach out to Encourage More Activity
What if, despite the outstanding quality of your Community, the relevant content that flows in daily, and the reshare and repin numbers that grow all the time, you find that some Community Members never quite get going. Or they might start out strong, and seem to lose steam? All is not lost.
Reactivate Lapsed Community Members
If you see that Community Members have not started using the Community, or have slowed their activity, send them a message using Communities chat to tell them you miss sharing their content, to make sure they understand how best to use Communities, and why it’s so valuable. You could perhaps point to an example of their content that was particularly popular in the Community and let them know how many shares and saves it generated. Everyone likes to be missed!
It’s also possible, particularly if they never used your Community at all, that they do not understand how! You can send them to the Communities explainer video or give them some of your own favorite tips.
Reward Stellar Community Members
Most of us respond well to positive reinforcement – so use it for the good of your Community!
Is someone’s content doing really well in the Community? Send them a chat and let them know how happy you are to have them and how much you appreciate their amazing content.
Is someone a super sharer – scheduling out more than they add to the Community? Tell them thank you and give their content a few extra shares in return.
Finding it difficult to get Community Members to respond to Community chat? It’s very possible they’re not seeing your messages. We are working on enhancements to the chat feature which will (very soon!) make them much more prominent to all Community users. In the meantime, you might find their email addresses from their websites and send messages there.
In Conclusion
We value all the hard work Community Leads invest in keeping their Communities active and we know your Community Members do as well! With an intentional setup strategy, invite process, by sticking to a simple maintenance schedule, your Community can continue to serve for years to come.
