Turbo Pins were over 300x more likely to go viral as other creator Pins

Over the last five months, thousands of creators participated in the beta test period for Tailwind Turbo – a new feature that aims to help creator content succeed on Pinterest through expert curation by other creators.

But did it work?

Did community-driven Pin curation lead to better performing Pins on Pinterest?

The short answer: yes — especially for high-quality Pins with breakout potential.

What we found wasn’t that Turbo makes every Pin successful. Instead, Turbo amplifies what already works — helping strong Pins break out faster and reach significantly larger audiences.

Turbo isn’t about gaming the Pinterest algorithm – but rather contributing to it. 

Creators in the beta program showed that they weren’t willing to engage with just any content – if anything, they are more discerning and choosier than the average Pinterest user.

So, in effect, Turbo adds an expert curation layer to the algorithm that also pays off big for creators.

Below, we’ll walk through:

• What happened during the beta
  
• How virality and distribution were impacted for Turbo Pins
  
• Why the biggest gains show up at the high end
  
• How to use Turbo tactically going forward

The Tailwind Turbo Beta at a Glance

During the beta period:

• 3,700+ creators engaged with Pins inside Turbo
  
• 1,900+ creators actively added Pins to Turbo
  
• 6,500+ Pins were added to Turbo
  
• These Pins earned 25 engagements from Turbo users on average
  
• On Pinterest, these Pins averaged 297 engagements and 106 outbound clicks 

The 12x!! engagements per Turbo Pin on Pinterest vs those that happened within Turbo suggests that Turbo may be most effective at helping good to great Pins perform even better.

Turbo isn’t gaming Pinterest’s algorithm.

It’s improving it.

And it’s doing that through an expert curation layer of actively engaged creators who know good content.

What Does “Average” Performance Actually Look Like?

Across the beta, Pins added to Turbo earned an average of 297 total engagements on Pinterest.

But that number doesn’t tell the full story — because Pinterest performance isn’t evenly distributed.

Just like views on YouTube or reach on Instagram, Pinterest follows a power-law curve:

• Most Pins perform modestly
  
• A small percentage account for outsized success
  
• The biggest wins are exponentially larger than the median
  

So instead of focusing on averages alone, we looked at how Turbo affects the likelihood of breakout performance.

Turbo Pins Are Significantly More Likely to Go Viral

Comparing Turbo Pins to broader averages for Creator Pins shows a stark improvement in performance — especially at the high end.

When Pins are just being tested by Pinterest, they’ll usually receive a few hundred test impressions to see if users engage. 

If a Pin reaches 10,000 or more impressions, it has done quite well. 

Pins that reach 100,000+ impressions are big winners on the platform.

Turbo Pins reached 10,000+ impressions 4x as often

• 1 in 14 Turbo Pins reached 10,000+ impressions vs
  
• 1 in 56 of all creators’ Pins

That’s a 4× increase in likelihood.

But the lift becomes even more pronounced at higher thresholds:

Turbo Pins reached 100,000+ impressions 312x as often!

• 1 in 80 Turbo Pins reached 100,000+ impressions vs
  
• 1 in ~25,000 across all creators’ Pins

That’s a 312× increase in likelihood of hitting 100,000 impressions!!

Why Turbo Has the Biggest Impact at the High End

This doesn’t mean Turbo “creates” viral Pins out of thin air.

Instead, it reinforces something fundamental about how Pinterest works.

Pinterest’s distribution system looks for positive engagement signals to decide which Pins deserve broader exposure:

• Are people saving it?
  
• Are they clicking through the link?
  
• Does it resonate with a clearly identifiable audience?

Turbo accelerates those engagement signals.

For Pins that already have strong visuals, clear intent, and audience appeal, this added momentum helps Pinterest identify them as winners faster — leading to them being tested more aggressively with larger audiences.

Most likely, Turbo also helps Pinterest avoid getting it wrong.

With a massive number of Pins added to Pinterest each day and only so much traffic to go around, Pinterest has to carefully choose how many base impressions to give each Pin when testing it with the audience. 

Any algorithmic system like this is going to get it wrong sometimes, creating “false negatives.” 

A false negative is a Pin that would have been successful if shown to a larger audience, or a better fit audience, but was determined to be a failure in limited testing.

The early engagement created by Turbo is potentially solving for this, reducing the number of false negatives. 

How can we see this? 

Because the number of engagements earned by these Pins on Pinterest is ~12x the number earned directly from Turbo users. That’s a huge multiplier effect.

This means that after Turbo helps these Pins get exposed to larger audiences, the Pins are proving their worth. 

If the response from the larger audience was poor, the Pins wouldn’t see this much success across Pinterest!

The result:

• Good Pins do better
  
• Great Pins break out dramatically

Turbo doesn’t flatten the curve.
It steepens it.

What This Means for Creators and Small Businesses

The biggest takeaway from the beta is this:

Turbo works best when it’s used intentionally — not indiscriminately.

Below are practical, data-informed guidelines for getting the most out of Turbo after launch.

A System For Choosing Which Pins to Add to Turbo

Prioritize Pins that already shows signs of strength, then new Pins

During the Turbo beta, both already well performing Pins and new Pins benefitted from being shared with the Turbo community.

That said, Pins that are already performing well saw a bigger uplift, faster. 

Consider starting by adding those Pins to Turbo first. 

A suggested system might look like this

FIRST – Add already successful Pins you want to amplify more

SECOND – Add new Pins showing strong early engagement or outbound click rates

THIRD – Add new Pins that are strategic for you, such as targeting keywords you want to rank for on Pinterest, or Pins related to to emerging or seasonal Trends on Pinterest

LAST – Add Pins you simply believe in, even if they aren’t yet showing that spark

Momentum on Pinterest compounds over time. 

Turbo can accelerate that compounding effect across the lifecycle of a Pin.

Additional Tips for Maximum Impact with Tailwind Turbo

1. Be selective — not every Pin belongs in Turbo

Turbo amplifies breakout potential. It does not turn weak Pins into strong ones.

Use Turbo for Pins that already meet your quality bar, such as:

• Clear, compelling visuals
  
• A focused topic or promise
  
• Formats that have worked for you before
  

If you wouldn’t want a Pin circulating for months, or seasonally year after year, it’s probably not a Turbo candidate.

2. Add Pins to the Turbo Feed for longer timeframes

We saw very early Turbo users adapt a strategy of frequently switching Turbo Pins in and out – because at first, Turbo gave you a set number of Pin slots that you could use to share different Pins over time.

This seemed effective at first because it would maximize exposure for Pins within the Turbo community. However it was NOT effective at driving longer-term engagement gains on Pinterest.

During the beta we switched to a model where unlocked Turbo Pins were one-time use to encourage longer, more consistent boosts to Pins. This ended up being more successful at helping Pins succeed.

Going forward, we will likely move more in that direction, encouraging longer time horizons for Turbo Pins to maximize your odds of finding success.

3. Vary the content you add to Turbo

Some users would add batches of Pins linking to the same piece of content in batches, back to back.

This WAS NOT an effective strategy.

Turbo users showed VERY LOW tolerance for feeds filled with redundant content. 

Creators who did this were reported or blocked at higher rates through our community moderation tools. 

4. DON’T add spammy content

A small number of beta testers posted spammy Pins linking to scammy-looking affiliate programs, get rich quick schemes, low quality / unapproved marketing tools and the like. 

This content was NOT tolerated by the Turbo community. 

That goes for A.I. slop, too.

Turbo users posting this type of content were blocked very frequently – and much of their content added to Turbo was removed quickly due to it being flagged.

We even had to ban a small number of accounts permanently, if they repeated this practice even after being warned not to.

5. Participate consistently

Turbo is powered by creator participation.

Creators who regularly engaged with others’ Pins and used their unlocked Turbo Pins regularly saw a much greater uplift than those who were less consistent.

Think of Turbo as a flywheel, not a switch.

You want to keep it spinning over time.

6. Pair Turbo with strong Pinterest SEO

Turbo works best when Pinterest can clearly understand what a Pin is about.

That means:

• Clarity on what topic the Pin is serving
• Descriptive titles
• Clear keyword alignment
• Helpful, specific Pin descriptions and alt text

Early engagement is most powerful when Pinterest knows who to show your Pin to next.

If Pinterest shows your audience to the wrong audience because it’s not clear who it should be shown to, Turbo will not correct that.

What Turbo Does — and Does Not — Do

Turbo does:

• Increase the likelihood that strong Pins break out
• Accelerate engagement signals and audience exposure
• Amplify Pinterest’s natural distribution curve
• Contribute to Pinterest’s algorithm through expert curation by creators
  

Turbo does not:

• Guarantee virality for weak Pins
• Replace content quality
• Override Pinterest’s relevance systems

Think of Turbo as a catalyst — not a panacea.

Looking Ahead

As Tailwind Turbo moves out of beta, we’ll continue to study performance to learn how to help the Turbo community succeed even more.

In the near-term, we’ve also gotten lots of great feedback that we’ll be working to improve.

Here are some of the key things we’ll be focused on near-term:

• Making it easier to Add Pins to Turbo
• Helping identify Pins that are good candidates to benefit from Turbo
• Integrating Turbo more into your day to day workflow, so it isn’t forgotten
• Improved content feeds for non-English language content

The beta results are clear: accelerating momentum matters, and when applied to the right Pins, it can dramatically change outcomes.

Turbo doesn’t replace great content.
It helps great content travel faster.

—
Research conducted by Tailwind using five months of Tailwind Turbo beta data across thousands of creators and Pins.