The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Group Boards
One of the biggest keys to going from 100 to 7,270 pageviews a day in a month is Pinterest. I’ve loved Pinterest as an avid pinner since it first started (not in enough time to plan my wedding to be all cool and DIY… *sobs*).
But now that I know that you can actually make Pinterest part of your strategy as a business, I love it even more! Pinterest has really been instrumental in my recent exponential growth. Without Pinterest, I’d still be hoping for that 99 pageviews to turn into 100 before midnight.
You’ve been warned.. this is a LONG post! But you’ll thank me later!
So how do I get my pins seen by more than 2 million people each month?
Pinterest group boards. There’s no magic formula, it’s been joining group boards to help my exposure (and using Boardbooster to schedule my pins every day to the boards).
What’s a group board? A group board on Pinterest is like a pin board that more than one person can add pins to. People can follow the board by itself or follow each of the contributors (people who add their content and pins to the board, sometimes called “collaborators”) and their group boards will be followed as well.
Why does it matter? Joining a group board is the difference between you writing a Facebook post for your friends to see, and sharing it with your email list, having your friends share it, and putting it in the news. Yeah, it’s like that! The idea is that you want more people to see your Pinterest posts! If you’re just starting out with 500 followers on Pinterest (PS- GREAT job!!!! It took me for. EH. ver. to get that many followers!), would you rather have your 500 followers see your pin, or would you rather have 20,000 followers see your pin? I think I know your answer!
Do I automatically get the same amount of followers that are on the group board? If you join a group with, let’s say 9,000 followers, sadly no, that doesn’t mean that you now have 9,000 new followers. BUT you’ll likely get more followers from the group board who like your stuff!
But I only have a few followers, does this apply to me? YES! Even if you have 5 followers, what I’m about to tell you applies to you! I’d still focus on getting new followers, too, but absolutely you should still apply to the group boards!
How to join Pinterest Group Boards
First off, how to FIND group boards!
Do you have a blogging bestie? A favorite blogger? Someone else in your blogging niche who you look up to who’s been at it for a while?A Pinterest Spirit Animal? Go to their Pinterest and see what group boards they contribute to and start there!
You can also search for boards. For example, you can search for “frugal living” and then click “boards” and you’ll see alllllllll of the boards with the words “frugal living” in the title.
Now that you’ve found the boards, you need to ask to join!
The directions at the top of a group will tell you what to do to join.
If there’s an option to email the owner of the board directly (whether it’s like this one where it says the website, or if they use an email), this is the best way to get into the group. Why? Because wouldn’t you rather know that someone isn’t a spammer from the beginning?
If the only option is to comment on one of the owner’s pins, you first need to find the owner (or “creator”) of the board.
Once you know who the owner is, you’ll need to find their pins to comment on! The super easy way to do this is to hit ” ctrl + f ” or ” command + f ” to find the person. In this case, you’d be looking for “Frugal Living Mom.” You might need to scroll down a few screens and then do the search again to find pins from the creator.
Once you’ve found the way to contact the owner/ creator, you need to let them know that you’d like to join the group! Make sure that you include:
- Your email.
- Your Pinterest profile link.
- The name of the group board that you want to be invited to.
Here’s an idea for what you might want to say:
“I’d love to join your group [group name] as a contributor. My Pinterest email is [your email] and my profile is [profile link]. I’ve followed you and the board. I can’t wait to join!”
You also want to make sure that you follow the board as well as the owner/ creator. Why? Because they have to add you, and if you aren’t following them, you can’t be added easily. You want to make this as easy for the owner as possible! If they have to try repeatedly to get you into the group, they might just skip you and go to the next person asking to join.
There are always boards that say “not accepting contributors,” and that’s ok! There are other fish in the sea or group boards on Pinterest! Move on and find another one that’s right for you that is accepting new contributors.
There will be times when the owner never emails you back or tells you straight up “no,” and that’s ok, too. If you stopped trying to find a date after your first rejection, you’d be really lonely. Remember, there are other fish in the Pinterest sea!
Once, you’ve been added to the group board, you need to accept the invite, do a happy dance, and get pinning! But before you go and add every pin in your blog to the board right away, here are some ground rules before moving any further:
- Respect the pin limit –Â If the rules say 1 pin a day, only pin one pin a day. Not 2, just one. Why? Because if everyone else is only pinning one pin a day, it’s a slow moving group and you don’t want to be the only one adding your pins. Plus, it’s a good way to get kicked out of the group.
- Follow the guidelines –Â If the group is just for recipes, don’t pin laundry hacks. If it’s a group for frugal living, don’t post about how to contour makeup.
- Repin as you would want to be repinned –Â Even if the rules don’t tell you to, repin other content from other pinners from the board. It’s a great way to introduce your own followers to great content, but also a great way to get good karma! Do unto others…
You can also find Pinterest groups to join in this Facebook Pinterest Group Boards group. It’s a great community and a great place to get answers to your Pinterest questions. It’s basically a one-stop-shop for finding group boards that are actively looking for contributors.
PinGroupie.com is a site that is JUST for finding group boards! You can search for sites based on keywords, number of contributors, number of followers, and more. It’s a great way to see a ton of groups without doing a whole lot of work!
Once you’ve joined your Pinterest group boards, you’re all set to schedule your pins!
Here’s how I schedule pins with the amazing BoardBooster:
You start by connecting your Pinterest account to BoardBooster, and once that’s been done, you can start adding your boards. The way that BoardBooster works is that they make Secret boards for all of the boards that you connect with them.
They will then take the pins from the secret boards and post them throughout the day at the best times. If you only have 3 pins scheduled for the day, BoardBooster collects the data from all of the boards to see what times have the highest traffic and will post your pins then. It’s really great!
Once you’ve added your boards, it’s time to edit the settings of each board. You do this by clicking on the board that you want to edit and then clicking on the little symbol.
From here, you can edit the number of pins per day (remember to stay within the guideline of the group boards and to not go crazy pinning!), and even more important, you can set it up so that you never have to keep adding the same pins to the same boards every week!Â
The “Pin selection method” should be “Chronological, newest to oldest” so that it keeps cycyling through the pins. But you also want to get your new content out there right away.
“When a pin is published” Â should have the “Keep it on the source board” option selected. This was, it stays in your secret board and doesn’t get deleted from it once its been pinned to the non-secret group board.
“When all pins are published” should “start over” so that you don’t need to worry about your old, good content getting lost in the Pinterest universe. It will constantly be published when it is cycled through.
So there you have it: the long guide to Pinterest group boards!
I can’t contain my excitement about Pinterest and how much group boards have changed my blog and my marketing strategy. If you’re looking to blog for profit, you need to get started joining group boards! Make sure that you get BoardBooster to schedule your pins to your group boards easily!
If you want more Pinterest tips, check out this post for the Pinterest course that changed my marketing strategy!
Dara says
The group boards don’t mind if you repost your content?
Caroline says
Group boards usually say to ONLY post your own content. Some of them have rules about the frequency of duplicates, but for the most part spacing them at least a week between any duplicates is enough for the owner of the group board. Just always make sure to read the rules first! 🙂
Christine @ The (mostly) Simple Life says
This has been really helpful to me! I asking to join a few boards right now 🙂
Christine @ The (mostly) Simple Life recently posted…Let’s Talk About Christmas! (in July?)
Lily says
Thanks so much for all the helpful information. I just joined my first Pinterest group board. I’m excited to find more bloggers in my niche and to expose my blogs to more people as well.