• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Before Header

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

The Social Media Hat

Always On Top Of Social

  • Coaching & Consulting
  • Community
  • Speaking
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
      • Influencer Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Newsletter
  • Search
  • Coaching & Consulting
  • Community
  • Speaking
  • Articles
    • Digital Marketing
      • Influencer Marketing
    • Social Media Articles
      • Facebook
      • Instagram
      • LinkedIn
      • Pinterest
      • Twitter
      • YouTube
    • Social Media Tools
    • Virtual Events
  • Newsletter
  • Search

9 Ways Tailwind Helps You Crush It On Instagram

Wondering why your competition is finding success on Instagram, but you aren’t? Looking for help? This is the tool to help you.

You are here: Home / Social Media Tools / 9 Ways Tailwind Helps You Crush It On Instagram

July 31, 2017 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Have you been wondering how to use Instagram for your business?

Are you curious how so many other brands seem to be finding so much success on that platform?

Despite being one of the fasted growing, most engaging social networks, Instagram remains a complete mystery to so many. The good news is, there’s help available! If you want help learning how to use Instagram and how your business can benefit, talk to Jenn Herman. For all your technical needs, there’s Tailwind!

Dive deep into Tailwind and let these 9 features take your Instagram presence to the next level.

Post From Desktop

The first major convenience is simply not having to use your mobile phone to create a post. If you’ve snapped a pic with your phone, it’s easy enough to throw that up to Instagram – and of course that was the original intent of the network.

But what about graphics or images that aren’t on your phone?

What if you want to use Canva or similar app to put together a really nice graphic, or edit an image so that it does an even better job of communicating your brand’s message?

Before Tailwind, I’d have to save my image to Google Drive through a web browser, then open the Google Drive app on my iPhone and save the image there, then open Instagram and begin to craft my post.

Using Tailwind, I can now put a great post together on my computer and ‘send’ it to my iPhone! My phone then prompts me to open Instagram, where my image is waiting for me, and any text I wrote in Tailwind is placed in my clipboard. All I have to do is tap to paste and then post!

Post to Instagram from desktop using Tailwind.

Making it easier to share posts from desktop means that you’ll be more likely to use the power of your desktop to create even better, more engaging images, and that’s going to help you make a more powerful impression on your Instagram audience.

RELATED: This App Just Became a Game-Changer For Your Instagram Engagement

Post From Any Website

Speaking of posting from desktop, one of the challenges that comes with Instagram due to the network’s technical limitations is that your profile tends to be all about you, rather than making it about your audience or industry partners.

That’s because you can’t share posts.

Since you can’t share other people’s posts, and you can’t use simple sharing buttons on other websites – even if you could, you can’t put working links into post descriptions – it’s near impossible to share other people’s images and messages. On other networks however, sharing other people’s posts and information is usually a good idea.

How, then, are we to curate other people’s content?

Assuming it makes sense for your brand and your audience, you can use Tailwind and their Chrome Extension to share images and posts from any website you wish – yours or anyone else’s.

Once you’ve installed the extension and activated the browser toolbar button, simply click it when you’re on a webpage that has an image you want to share. Just as with Pinterest Pins, you’ll see every image on the page and can choose which one you want to share, then proceed to set up your Instagram post as normal. Once saved, your phone will prompt you to share it.

use Tailwind's chrome extension to share from any website.

Use it to share great images from your own articles, as well as compelling graphics and stories from other great sites!

Schedule Posts In Advance

One of the things that you can do with Tailwind that you simply cannot do with Instagram itself is to schedule posts.

To say this is critical for businesses is an understatement.

Just because you’ve got 15 minutes to spend on Instagram between 7:30-7:45 doesn’t mean that’s the best time to actually post something. In fact, odds are, it’s a terrible time.

While there’s no single best time for Instagram engagement, as you grow your audience of followers, there will be best times for you and them. For me, that tends to be early morning and late evening.

With Tailwind, I can compose a post when it’s convenient for me, and let Tailwind prompt me and my phone when it’s time to schedule. It’s not quite as convenient as the kind of hands-free scheduling that’s possible with other networks – like what Tailwind can do for Pinterest – but it’s better than the alternative.

Schedule Instagram posts using Tailwind.

Get Suggested Times for Peak Engagement

Even better is the fact that, based on past post performance and audience analysis, Tailwind can actually suggest best times for you to post!

Within the Publish tab on desktop, click on Your Schedule. This is where you can set up specific times on specific days you’d like to schedule a post. Then, when you’ve created a new post for Instagram within Tailwind, you can simply choose “Add To Queue” and the post will fill the next available timeslot.

Get suggested times for peak engagement on Instagram using Tailwind.

As you can see in this screenshot, I happen to have two times per day set up, and Tailwind has suggested a number of additional times for me to consider posting, if I want to post more often per day. I can also wipe out the schedule and generate a new smart schedule (something to consider doing every 4 – 6 months so that your sharing times change a bit, and can reflect the latest data). You can add specific time slots if you need to, as well as remove any existing time slot by clicking on it and clicking delete.

Measure Post Performance

In addition to helping you to understand the best times to post, you can use Tailwind review your past post performance to determine other things, like which types of images got the most likes or most comments. If your posts contain video or carousel images, or if you use different Instagram image filters, you can filter and sort by those values as well to narrow down which posts did well, and why.

Measure Instagram post performance using Tailwind.

You can see a nice thumbnail image to immediately recognize your post, as well as totals for Likes and Comments (and date posted).

For those images that performed exceedingly well, you can even schedule it be shared again in the future!

Identify Influencers & Partners

Once you get going with schedule posts and a growing audience, you’ll begin to attract other Instagram users who have significant reach and authority – commonly referred to as Influencers.

Influencer Marketing is a nuanced strategy that essentially boils down to this: identify people who have developed a targeted audience in your niche and establish relationships with those influencers in order to create opportunities for mutual benefit.

In other words, look for other people who can help you reach more people, and vice versa.

While Instagram does not offer this information natively, Tailwind has a nifty report that tells you exactly what you need to know.

Use Tailwind to identify influencers on Instagram.

Top Followers shows you your most influencer followers based on their follower count. While certainly not the most accurate gauge of influence, it’s an easy place to get started.

You can follow them back right from the report if you wish, or click on Media to open up their profile in a new tab and see what they’ve been posting.

In my case, not only did I find some great profiles in my industry who were following me, but I hadn’t followed them back and could begin to build a relationship, but I also found a celebrity!

James Kyson, the actor best known for his roles on Heroes and Hawaii 5-0

Apparently James Kyson, the actor best known for his roles on Heroes and Hawaii 5-0, had followed me at some point in the past, so I immediately followed him back for fun.

You can even export your Top Influencers to a CSV file that includes their Instagram profile name, the link they’ve included in their bio, the text of their bio, and their profile data (followers, following, #of posts, etc.).

Review & Preview Profile Awesomeness

Now that you’re investing more time in creating and scheduling excellent posts, and reviewing how your audience and influencer relationships are progressing, it’s time to start thinking about your overall profile.

Is it awesome?

Seriously… are you creating awesomeness with your profile?

Think about it this way: if someone finds one of your Instagram posts due to a hashtag search, finds you interesting and then taps to see the rest of your profile, will they be impressed?

Part of that is making sure that you have a great profile image and bio. I recommend crafting a bio that really speaks to the type of person you’re hoping to connect with on Instagram, as well as being mindful of the Instagram subculture. That might mean using more emoji than you normally would, or perhaps being aware of how Shoutout-For-Shoutouts work and having an email or Kik address listed.

The other part is how all of your posts look when viewed on your Instagram profile view – as a grid. Here’s mine:

Mike Allton on Instagram

As you can see, I happen to like the checkerboard look, as it’s called, and have made sure that every other post is black & white, save for my logo, which is always present.

When someone decides to check out my profile, they can scroll down and easily see what I’m about – sharing interesting & motivational quotes, alongside the occasional piece about social media & blogging.

Within Tailwind, you can see the same thing – both past posts as well as future scheduled posts – so that you can make sure that you continue to keep your profile looking awesome.

Preview your profile grid using Tailwind's 9-grid preview.

When scheduling a new post, to the right you’ll see a calendar view that shows you what’s coming up next in your schedule. Simply slide the 9-Grid Preview toggle over and you’ll see what your profile looks like now, and in the coming days based on what you currently have drafted or scheduled.

Here, you can see my past 9 posts, as well as the test post I’ve got in my Drafts as a result of the steps I’ve been taking to put this article together.

 

Of course, I’ve saved the best for last. These next two features are really the cream of the crop, and are tactics that I’ve long-used other apps for. The fact that they’re now integrated into Tailwind is quite simply incredible.

Find All The Hashtags

In 2015 I was attending a presentation at Social Media Marketing World by Nathan Chan, the founder and publisher of Foundr Magazine. He was talking about Instagram – specifically, how he and Foundr had been using Instagram and absolutely killing it. (At the time they were passing 775k followers, and are now up over 1m!)

This was one of those epic presentations that comes along once in a blue moon where the presenter simply lays it all out there, all their secrets and tricks, and all you can do is try to keep up.

In addition to numerous tactics and recommendations, Nathan also provided many different app suggestions to help with growing a thriving community on Instagram, including Wordswag, Pronto, Canva and Typorama, which I continue to use for most of my posts.

There was one app he mentioned that both Peg Fitzpatrick and I immediately jumped on and used extensively called Grama.

Grama would allow you to type in an idea you had for a hashtag or topic and then spit back dozens of actual hashtags being used right then – the kinds of popular hashtags that you, too, should consider using on your relevant posts.

For instance, a search at the time for hashtags about business might have returned: #neverquit #success #successquotes #successful #entrepreneur #entrepreneurlife #marketing #business #businessquotes #businessman #businesswoman #businessowner #hustle #hustlehard #hustleharder #onlinebiz #onlinebusiness #workhard #workharder #workhardplayhard #internetmarketing #startup #makethatmoney #successquote

Putting all of those hashtags onto a motivational quote graphic would have resulted in 300-400 likes, easy.

Sadly, Grama is no more. Other apps have tried to fill the role but none had the wealth of data and ease of use (just tap all the tag bubbles you wanted to use and instantly put them into your phone’s clipboard to paste into Instagram).

Fast forward to today, and now Tailwind has actually gone even further than Grama ever did.

Instead of a simple list of hashtags related to your search – and you don’t know which ones might be better than others – Tailwind has integrated smart suggestions right into the posting interface.

As soon as you begin to craft a new post for Instagram, Tailwind will begin to recommend specific hashtags for you to add.

Initially the hashtags are based solely on what you’ve used in the past. As you begin to use hashtags, either clicking on recently used ones or typing in ones of your own, Tailwind smartly shifts to Suggested Hashtags and begins to offer recommendations that are relevant to your post.

Find great hashtags to use on Instagram using Tailwind.

What’s more, the hashtags are color-coded to give you a sense of which ones might be best. They could be Niche, Good, Best or Competitive, where niche means the hashtags don’t see a lot of usage, whereas competitive suggests your post could get buried.

According to their extensive Instagram hashtag research, Tailwind recommends that you “use a variety of hashtags: one or two “Competitive” ones, some highly-targeted “Niche” ones (if they exist) and a fair number of “Good” and “Best” ones.”

As you add more hashtags, the hashtag counter will increase so you can see at a glance how many you’ve used – Instagram allows up to 30 per post.

Tailwind's Hashtag Finder in action.

Once you’ve assembled your optimum set of hashtags, you’ll be ready to share or schedule your post and watch the engagement levels soar… but there’s more thing you can do.

Keep All The Hashtags

Save those hashtags as a custom list!

See that hashtag button in the screenshots above, to the right of the hashtag counter? That, my friends, is where your ultimate time-saver resides. The ability to save and retrieve complete lists of hashtags that you’ve cultivated and tested and marked their performance.

That’s right. Instead of coming up with new lists every time, or using Evernote or some other note-taking app to save lists separately, you can store them right within Tailwind and call them up as needed.

Save your best performing hashtags in custom lists within Tailwind.

As you can see, I have a couple of lists saved already, pertaining to my two most common types/topics of posts. Selecting a saved list will immediately add the designated hashtags to your caption.

Or, alternatively, click on the + button to begin crafting a new Hashtag List. You can name it whatever you want and type or copy whatever hashtags you wish. If you’ve used Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder utility, click on the Copy button just above the Add Your Hashtags field to automatically add all of the hashtags that are already in your caption – a great trick to make sure that you save and can re-use those hashtags that you’ve found!

PRO TIP: When you see older posts using the Media Inspector report which have performed exceedingly well, take note of the hashtags you used and save them as a new list. You can click on See Comments to bring up the post within Tailwind, highlight and copy the hashtags you used in that post’s caption, and paste them into a new list.

With a growing number of Hashtag Lists, you can quickly and easily make sure that every one of your posts has the best possible hashtag strategy!

Wrapping Up

As you can see, there’s a lot to be said for what Tailwind is doing to help serious Instagram users find success. If that’s a platform where you see your business growing a community of interested followers, Tailwind is well worth the $10 a month. If you aren’t already a Tailwind user, you can try it for free!

Try Tailwind For Free!

Note that Tailwind’s pricing is per social profile, so if you want to add a Pinterest profile, or multiple Instagram profiles, the price rises accordingly. If you’re also trying to make Pinterest work for you, I’ve written before about how incredibly helpful and powerful Tailwind is for that network.

If you have any questions at all, please leave them in the comments below!

9 Ways Tailwind Helps You Crush It On Instagram

Share this image to Instagram using Tailwind!

Here are all nine features in a convenient infograph:

Wondering why your competition is finding success on Instagram, but you aren't? Looking for help? Here are 9 features of @Tailwind to help you crush it. | http://thesmh.co/Crush-Insta by @mikeallton

Related

Category: Social Media ToolsTag: Instagram, Tailwind

About Mike Allton

Mike is an international keynote speaker, an award-winning blogger & author at The Social Media Hat, and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse where he strengthens relationships with social media educators, influencers and partner brands. He has spent over a decade in digital marketing and brings an unparalleled level of experience and excitement to the fore, whether he's delivering a presentation or leading a workshop.

Join The Community!

34,720 savvy marketers have signed up to get the latest social media insights and ideas. Will you?


Previous Post: « The Ultimate Guide to Micro-Influencers
Next Post: Facebook’s Hidden Gems: Underused Tools for Facebook Marketing »

Primary Sidebar

Work With Mike

Work with Mike Allton in a consulting capacity, or to speak at your next event.

Meet Mike

Mike Allton is an international keynote speaker & consultant, and an award-winning blogger and author at The Social Media Hat, where he has been educating businesses and organizations on the best use of content marketing for reaching and converting target audiences. Mike is proud to serve as the Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse, where he builds relationships with influencers and brands around the world.

Since 2012, Mike has worked with over a hundred brands and executives to help them identify and implement successful strategies. As a certified NLP Coach & Practitioner, he helps YOU achieve excellence. Work With Mike

Partnership Unpacked

Featured Posts

How To Develop Profitable Relationships With Big Brands w/ George Thomas

March 20, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Partnership Unpacked, Episode 13, with George B. Thomas

Influencer Marketing Trends & Insights For CMOs w/ Gordon Glenister

Influencer Marketing Trends & Insights For CMOs w/ Gordon Glenister

March 13, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Partnership Unpacked, Episode 12, with Gordon Glenister

How to Craft a Sponsorship Pitch No Brand Will Ignore w/ Justin Moore

How to Craft a Sponsorship Pitch No Brand Will Ignore w/ Justin Moore

March 6, 2023 //  by Mike Allton

Partnership Unpacked, Episode 11, with Justin Moore

More Like This

  • How Influencer Marketing Can Help You to Define the Best Content Marketing Strategy for Your E-Commerce Business in 2023
  • The State of Partnership Ops in 2023 w/ Asher Mathew & Kelly Sarabyn
  • 10 Reasons to Become a B2B Influencer

Footer

Recent Posts

  • How To Develop Profitable Relationships With Big Brands w/ George Thomas
  • Influencer Marketing Trends & Insights For CMOs w/ Gordon Glenister
  • How to Craft a Sponsorship Pitch No Brand Will Ignore w/ Justin Moore
  • How Influencer Marketing Can Help You to Define the Best Content Marketing Strategy for Your E-Commerce Business in 2023
  • The State of Partnership Ops in 2023 w/ Asher Mathew & Kelly Sarabyn
  • 10 Reasons to Become a B2B Influencer
  • Is Artificial Intelligence poised to do your job for you?
  • How SaaS Companies Can Leverage Affiliate Marketing in 2023

Marketing Resources

  • Marketing Hyperdrive Podcast
  • The Virtual Event Strategist Podcast
  • Partnership Unpacked Podcast (Coming soon!)
  • How To Craft Your Marketing Plan
  • The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
  • Social Media Spring Cleaning
  • Social Media Planner
  • Get The Newsletter
  • Home
  • Virtual Event Strategy
  • Mike Allton, Your Next Keynote Speaker
  • Mike Allton’s Newsletter
  • Work With Mike
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure

Site Footer

Partnership Unpacked Podcast

  • Listen on Amazon
  • Listen on Apple
  • Listen on Google
  • Listen on Spotify
  • Listen on Stitcher
  • Social Media Articles
  • Digital Marketing Articles
  • Social Media Tools & Resources
  • Virtual Events Articles
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2011–2023 The Social Media Hat · All Rights Reserved