Say hello to my little friends,
Tailwind and Canva!!!

Or, what I like to call:

The Ultimate Twofur

 

Hi, I'm Tailwind!!!
(Wassup, Tailwind.)

 

Howdy, I'm Canva!!!
(Hiya, Canva, nice to meetcha.)

Having experienced so much change this year, I thought I'd share 2 of my most effective and valuable assets, with a brief, but mighty, intro to Tailwind, the Ultimate Pinterest Marketing Toolkit (and Instagram, too), and Canva, the Non-Designer's Design Tool.

So, let’s keep it going. But first (Hey, Julie!), this blog post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I actually use these items and would not recommend them otherwise. Thank you for your support.

Here's a breakdown of what Tailwind Offers:

• Tailwind is a marketing application created specifically for Pinterest and Instagram. Tailwind is a smart way to schedule on Pinterest and Instagram.
• What are the standout features and benefits offered by this app? To start, you can save time with multi-board pinning, hashtag lists, bulk image upload, drag-and-drop calendar and other shortcuts.
• Tailwind’s browser extension enables you to easily create multiple posts from any website with a single click.
• You can select specific dates and times to post or add a queue and hook it up to your pre-set schedule, thereby managing multiple Instagram and Pinterest accounts, while collaborating with your colleagues.
• You can monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) by tracking your Instagram and Pinterest profiles, #hashtags, as well as monitor your Instagram and Pinterest followers, brand mentions, likes, repins, boards and track results.

But, the best features, by far, are the following (from Tailwind themselves … found this on the internet):

Stop Wasting Time on Social Marketing

Schedule Your Pinterest and Instagram Content
in 20 Minutes a Week

Get started Free. No credit card required.

Boom. Mike drop. Gotta love it. I started a few months ago and went to my store, selected nearly all of my images and pinned to my multiple boards in minutes. Minutes, people! Did all that and still had time for soup and a sandwich from Subway. Eat Fresh.

Enjoy a $15.00 credit or one month free, on us, A Wee Bit More, when you use this link!!!

Want More Incredible information? Let Pinterest share with you what they encourage and what their SEO means, and take the guesswork out of Rich Pins:

• Get More Traffic From Pinterest With Pin Titles
• Pinterest users love fresh Pins! Repurpose your content with new seasonal images. Here's how!
• New Ways to Get Discovered on Pinterest

 Now here's the other half of this Dynamic Duo.

Exclusive Intro to Canva

What's a designer to do? You've got a 100 things going on today, need quality graphics, like yesterday, have a brick & mortar job + commute AND a new product that you just created and you want to promote it. Now, all you have to do is design an ad, and I think you have about 2.75 hours today to:

Sandi:  Get 'er dun.
Freddy:  Ain't gonna happen.

What I did try was another way to get what I needed quick, fast and in a hurry. Toot sweet. I discovered this online platform that makes it easy to create your own artwork for your every need (well, nearly every need). Let me introduce you to Canva:

This is an all-in-one (gotta love those), design platform that allows users to create almost anything: from business cards, social media posts, presentations and flyers.
(parenthetical added).

***

One of the largest questions I had this year was:

How will I find time to do everything I need to do
to post images on a weekly basis?
(Forget about daily 'cause that's just ludicrous.)

Another question was:

Do Graphic Designers use Canva?
(And should I feel guilt for doing so?)

Those were my 3 questions and here are my 3 answers:  Canva, Yes and No, respectively. Of course, I could never post daily as I have a million and 1 things to do, in addition to my Thoroughly Exhausting 9-5 (Really 8-5, But Who's Counting) Job, exercise routine for my arthritis and other ailments, and a host of little ones running about, to include Grace's cat, Lilo, who likes to climb the tree in our backyard and did so, again, on Christmas Day 2019 ... and I'm decidedly tired.

I decided, I'm tired.

So I found a solution that met my budget, soothed my spirit and shrank my guilt just a teensy, tiny 'lil bit.

I, as a credentialed graphic designer, not only took advantage of the Canva free trial, I upgraded to Canva Pro to design my graphics (yup, that's what I said) and upon completion, I then oh, so easily, with one simple click, immediately Publish to Pinterest!!!

After which I upload that image(s) online (i.e., in a simple blog post such as this one, see images below) and with Tailwind saved as a bookmark in my browser (don't worry, they walk you through that step, too):

 

Tailwind browser bookmark

My Latest Canva Pro Upload

I hover over an image and, viola, a magic "Schedule" button appears (bottom right):

Convenient Tailwind Schedule Button
Integrated into Canva and Canva Pro

to instantly send that image off to Tailwind, where it's scheduled in under a minute: all I do is select boards to pin it to (and these can be automated so you no longer have to do that) and before you can say

Bob's Your Uncle ...

... you have: (1) created a fantabulous graphic and then pinned it directly to Pinterest (and Instagram, too), using Canva Pro; (2) uploaded said image to a crisply-clean blog post, and, hovering over the image scheduled it for future pinning, thereby, you Evergreen and SmartLoop your way to success.

Remember the commercial phrase, "Set it and Forget it?" courtesy of Ron Popeil, relating to a kitchen gadget that cooked your meal for you with no fuss or muss? Well, this is like that right there, a few clicks and you've scheduled pins for days, weeks, and even into the upcoming entire year!!!

Now if that's not the Ultimate Twofur,
I don't know what is.

What I can attest to is the ease with which I, in my forgetfulness and daily pattern of having so much to do in so little, and the fact that I'm old enough to blame old age on forgetfulness (coming full circle, people), it feels good to have online tools to help make tasks easy.  Not easier, but E-A-S-Y.

Remember me? I'm the designer/artist/writer/knitter (see what I mean:) who loves to throw everything in AND the kitchen sink. It's said that folks usually love an abundance of ideas (kitchen sink syndrome) as opposed to not enough ideas (lackluster project visionary), but I always had instructors who thought I was always doing too much, and LOVED to tell me

Less is More ...

... uh, less is always less in my book, literally (but I do see that point of view and when I'm older and grayer (actually I have white, not grey hair), I'll fine tune that minimalist phase into my life. I have ideas for another blog post with that in mind for next year, so why don't I just set another alarm, right now, just to remind me to schedule that alarm for sometime in the near future ... sigh ...

I'm getting there, my friends, I'm getter there.

But before I forget, you're probably wondering what's the difference between the free version, Canva, and the Pro version, $9.95 a month, and what on earth possessed me to pay for something that I can get for free? Especially since I just posted an article this month regarding the insanity that is my "me" time with playing my "Pay to Play" iPhone games.

What pulled me in and snagged me, hook, line and sinker, was the:

one-click design resize

In mere seconds, I select "Resize," choose an option (i.e., Poster) and my wee little business card, RESIZED TO FIT into a portrait poster template. In mere seconds!!! I didn't have to give Canva Pro directions or dimensions, and this is what it did for me, taking a business card and resizing it to a poster (in seconds, people!!!):

 

I didn't have to restart with a new blank template, so that was the first pull. The second, and this is only because I didn't see it first, was that you can pull in your own branding, logos, colours, etc., and not be that kid with her nose up to the window, pining for that sugar cone in the back, but all you could afford were the plain cones in the front. You feel me? The third, and that's because I couldn't stop at 2, was "everything Free has plus: custom templates, 60,000+ free templates" and a whole lot more:

If you just need graphics to make a flyer or invitation, Canva is the way to go, but when you want to brand your way to the top, and you want that shiny new penny that's sitting right next to the dirty one where the copper is starting to look like charcoal, you should definitely upgrade to the Pro version. I'm jus' sayin', it comes with a lot more bells and whistles and it's a reasonable price to allow your creativity to soar and you pocket to stay plump.

Sandi:  See? I can do short and sweet.
Freddy:  In your dreams ...

I must reiterate that I, as a credentialed graphic designer, do use my favorite Adobe product, InDesign, and that's my go-to for E-VER-Y-THING graphic, which I much prefer over Illustrator and PhotoShop, but having found Canva and Canva Pro, I no longer stare at a blank page/window/screen. I now have options of fully realized templates at my fingertips, all I need to do is possibly change a colour and text, add branding and I'm done.

Yes, it's a shortcut of sorts, but I'd be silly to try to pander my skills as a web designer in this age, when there are drag and drop apps online everywhere, and one I used to use, LightCMS has just provided notice this month that they are closing up shop. You really do have to go with the flow and Remember the Time, as it's so easy to become obsolete, I mean my relevancy points are dropping as I type :)

I think this option is so easy to use and provides a huge selection of templates for social media posts, presized for you so no guessing involved; you an add video, backgrounds and animation. It's well worth it to have a base with which to build on, and still have time to do those other things that are so important in life, i.e., esting sleeping, relaxing, sleeping and did I mention sleeping? How I miss that ...

Let's Recap Tailwind for Pinterest (and Instagram, too) ... :)

Described by Google as "the complete Pinterest marketing toolkit for bloggers and small businesses," which covers at least half the population, I suppose, and that many people I'd listen to. However, Tailwind is for Instagram, too. Say what, now? Yes, people, indeed Tailwind works with Instagram, and they also just added an Android app, so everybody gets a piece of the T:

And you get a Tailwind and you get a Tailwind,
etc., etc., etc.

Also from Google, is this description: "a marketing application created specifically for Pinterest and Instagram." Hmmm, so I did try it, Tailwind, with Pinterest in mind—initially, via a free-trial through a program I bought last year—and I forgot to mention above that the free trial (for small business or blogging) offers, in a nutshell, 30 days to:

Schedule and Publish up to
100 Pinterest pins and/or
30 Instagram posts

For larger businesses, the free trial offers:

Tailwind for 14 days with no financial commitment
(whatsoever . yup . none)

So these free trial offers let you take advantage of many helpful features, meld a myriad of opportunities and prance through a plethora of possibilities.

Join Now  or Get Your $15.00 Credit to Tailwind free-trail on us, A Wee Bit More!!!

Again, you can pin your content (i.e., images w/links and whatnots) effortlessly. Just schedule them—up to months in advance—and let Tailwind do the rest. They even add a little Shuffle—off the buffalo?—to make sure you're not pinning the same content to the same boards—which you can change at any time, and they've just added video!!!

Quick as a flash, part of your monthly marketing is scheduled to work without your touching another button, no swiping endlessly, just set it and, well, you know the rest. 

And Tailwind even has "Tribes," where you can get a little help from your "friends" by:  joining a Tribe, pinning their content, and check this out: THEY pin YOUR content, thereby, everybody scratching each other's backs and sharing content to wider audiences and most likely ones you'd never be in contact with.  What fun, and y'all know I love Survivor as much as Big Brother, so I can't pass up the opportunity to vote someone off the island ... I mean share their content with the world. Seriously.

 As you can see, I haven't completed the "Getting Started" section of Tribes in Tailwind, but I'm inching closer. I do sign up for live webinars with Alisa from Tailwind and here's a screenshot of a December 10, 2019 email, wherein Tailwind and Androids are now going steady:

 

How cool is that?

With all of these benefits at my fingertips, I'm able to get a huge task which took me at least 30 minutes each day ... erryday, people, when I could remember that I needed to do it ... and once scheduled, not have to worry about it at all.  With a mission statement of: "make world-class marketing easy for everyone,"

It doesn't get much better than that!!!

 Join Tailwind Now  or  Get your $15.00 credit to Tailwind's free-trial.

Let's Recap Canva Pro, Shall We?  We Shall.

I'll be brief, 'cause a picture's worth a thousand words, oui? ... and Freddy's telling me it's time to go catch our train, so "hurry up, already":

Easy Peasy, so go grab your free trial with Canva Pro and tell 'em AWBM sent ya, and I'd hurry if I were you, otherwise, you might find yourself feeling something like this and saying "... I've had a busy day." and please note, the BEST part is at the VERY END:

  

See what I mean? I just love this cartoon.  

P.S.
I start this post reviewing Tailwind, as I joined that first. I had the $15.00 credit to Canva, but I hadn't activated it yet, so you all do realize you would use Canva or Canva Pro first, then schedule what you created with Tailwind.

Freddy: I think they know that. You don't want to insult anyone.
Sandi: I know. I'm just explaining why Canva Pro wasn't reviewed first.

Blog Post #025 | 27 December 2019