How Tailwind Changed My Instagram Game
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Are you struggling to grow your Instagram following? Consistency is HUGE for Instagram. I took my Instagram account from under 2000 followers to over 8200 in less than a year. Growing my Instagram has helped me increase my income and helped me connect with some pretty neat people.
So how did I do it?
I credit most of the growth to Tailwind . . . and they just made an amazing change that is going to take things to an entirely new level.
I love Instagram but it started off as such a slow-grower for me. If you don’t follow us on Instagram already, I’d love to have you jump over and follow so I can check out your account.
That has changed this year as I went from just under 2000 followers (that took me several years to get) to over 8200 and growing quickly!
Most people think of Tailwind as a Pinterest scheduler (and it’s awesome for that). Did you know they also have a separate Instagram scheduler.
I never thought I’d need a scheduler for Instagram, because typically I’d just post whatever I felt like straight from my phone.
There were a few problems with that:
- I ALWAYS had typos. It turns out, my auto-correct just isn’t very good at guessing what I wanted to say.
- I could only use pictures from my phone unless I wanted to take 10 extra steps to get a photo from my DSLR onto my phone to post.
- Typing out those hashtags took FOREVER.
Tailwind fixed all of those.
Instead of typing out my Instagram captions on my phone, I could type them out on my computer.
It is SUPER easy to upload any pictures I want into my Tailwind draft folder. I love this because not only does it make it easier to Instagram photos from my DSLR, I can also keep a library of images that are ready to use when I need them.
And the hashtags?
So much easier with Tailwind. They actually have a hashtag tool that will show you recently used and suggested hashtags. This makes it so much easier for me to find hashtags that are relevant to my post.
What happens is, every time I type a hashtag, the suggestion hashtag list below changes. When I see a hashtag I want to use, all I do is click on it and it will appear at the bottom of my caption.
Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags per caption. Another Instagrammer told me to ALWAYS make sure to use all 30 of those hashtags or you are limiting the reach of your post.
I used to use only a handful of hashtags but now that I’m using the full 30 hashtags that I’m allowed, my reach on each post has grown like crazy.
What about when you find a list of hashtags that you think you’d like to use again? I don’t know about you, but I can never remember all the hashtags when I need to use them.
Tailwind lets you save lists of hashtags so you can reuse them on similar posts. This is a game-changer.
Hashtag lists make it so easy to plug in hashtags I know will work for different types of Instagram posts and I don’t have to spend forever researching them or typing them out.
How to Schedule on Instagram
Tailwind makes it super easy to schedule your posts. You can either view your upcoming posts as a list or, my favorite, in a grid preview format.
This lets you see exactly what your feed is going to look like with the posts you have in your Tailwind queue, which is especially helpful if you have any sort of theme you like to follow on your Instagram page.
Instagram didn’t allow direct posting through 3rd party sites, so what would happen is I’d get an alert on my phone that it was time to post to Instagram and I could post directly from the Tailwind from the app on my phone.
Pretty easy.
BUT, remember I said they made an amazing change???
Instagram will now allow DIRECT SCHEDULING from Tailwind.
This just launched and makes it so much easier to be consistent with Instagram.
I tested it out this morning and it worked perfectly.
My plan is to still be online when my Instagram posts go live so I can interact live, but I love the idea of Tailwind making sure those posts go out.
A Tailwind account for Instagram is $9.99 a month ($119/year) or $15 a month if you pay monthly.Â
To me, that is well worth the cost. I easily make that back with sponsored work and affiliate sales and my Instagram is growing much faster than it would be without Tailwind.
To try it out, you can get a FREE TRIAL of Tailwind through this link (No credit card required).
Need some help?
I’d love to help you get going. Drop me a DM on Instagram if you have any questions about Tailwind.
*This post contains affiliate links, but we only recommend products and services we truly love.Â