Pinterest group boards have totally transformed the reach of my blogs. When I started using them a few months into blogging, my traffic increased by 700% in a few weeks, and soon after I started to get that first trickle of income. It wasn’t long before I got my first viral pin, which in a couple of months got over 70,000 repins. Pinterest has become the number one source of traffic for many bloggers, myself included, so I highly recommend you use it wisely and find Pinterest group boards that work for you.
In order to make the most of Pinterest group boards, we need to understand and analyze how they work, so I’m starting from the beginning, and hopefully, by the end of this post, you’ll feel equipped to explode your traffic!
Pinterest Group Boards to Increase Traffic:
What are Pinterest Group Boards?
Any board created on Pinterest can be made into a group board by inviting ‘collaborators’. Pinterest group boards are like any other board, but with more than one person pinning to them. The person that starts the board is the board ‘owner’, but the board can have a few, or sometimes thousands, of collaborators adding pins to it. You can find Pinterest group boards by spotting the icon next to the board name in someone’s profile:
Why Would I Want to Join Pinterest Group Boards?
There are many reasons why having multiple people pinning to the same board could be useful, but I’m going to focus on the perks for bloggers gaining more traffic. In order to understand how game-changing Pinterest group boards can be for your blog you have to consider how the Pinterest landing page works:
- When you log into Pinterest, you see a selection of pins from those you follow, as well as suggestions from Pinterest. If you pin to one of your normal boards, your pin may well appear on your follower’s landing page, great!
- When you pin to a group board it does not appear on your follower’s feed because they are not automatically following the group board by following you. Despite this sounding negative, this is good news… because if you’ve already pinned your post to one or two of your personal boards, you won’t spam your followers by then pinning the same pin to several group boards.
- Here’s where the good news really kicks in… who does see the pins on the group board? Answer: Everyone following the board. That’s everyone that followers the board owner, and possibly some others that follow the board on its own. You may only have 200 Pinterest followers, maybe more… but the owner of the group board ‘Top Blogs – Pinterest Viral Board’ likely has more than you:
So by joining multiple group boards with different owners, you are massively widening the audience for your pins, even if you don’t have that many followers yourself… a genius!
How Do I Find Pinterest Group Boards?
This is where a lot of people get stuck. I have heard many recommendations for PinGroupie.com and I have used it myself, with a little bit of success. Pin Groupie is a directory of group boards, so you can search by category and it even shows you how big the board is and what the repin rate is. Sounds amazing, right? Only, I have found these boards extremely difficult to join, and I’m pretty sure any requests I sent on boards I liked the look of were ignored. I would however recommend giving it a go, you may like it more than I do, and it is specifically designed to find Pinterest Group Boards.
Personally, I find it much quicker and easier to find boards by stalking similar pinner’s accounts. If you look at any of the big Pinterest profiles, they are collaborators on loads of group boards. I’m a member of 79 group boards… yup, 79 and counting… I love them that much!
Take a look at the boards I’m collaborating on (my Pinterest account is in the name of my Family Lifestyle blog) to see if any take your fancy. The group boards are at the bottom of my profile without the matching board covers. Some of the ones I’m collaborating on might take your fancy. If not, try clicking on the profiles of the board owners of those boards… they will be collaborating on a bunch of group boards too! There is an endless chain of blogging-friendly boards you can apply to join using this method to find Pinterest group boards.
How Do I Join Pinterest Group Boards?
Not all boards are easy to join, and it can get frustrating. I would say about 2 out of 3 boards I tried to connect with as a newb ignored me… Thanks, guys. And not all boards work the same in how you join. But don’t panic and ditch the idea altogether, just be patient and you will find the perfect boards.
Most group boards have clear instructions on how to join in the board description. Often the description will also explain rules such as a pin per day limit. I only own one group board of my own, and I simply ask for you to email me to join (my board is for Twin Mom stuff). You should also follow the board owner, otherwise, they won’t be able to find you within their account to add to the board.
Sometimes there are no instructions at all, or they are vague. I have no idea why people do this… is it a test? Initiation to be accepted onto the board? Who knows, but if you come across one of these, this is what to do:
- Find the board owner – that will be the profile picture in the left-most position on the line of profile pictures (you can see me above with the kiddos). Click on the profile pic, you’ve found the board owner… follow them.
- If they have a blog linked, visit it and you should find a number of ways to contact them. I find email is best for full impact so check their ‘contact’ page if they have one. Write them a friendly message asking them to join the board, leaving a link to your Pinterest profile. Name the board you’re applying for, use the board owner’s actual name if you can find it on their blog. Just like applying for a job, make it personal instead of sending a generic email to 100 boards. It doesn’t take long to change the name in a draft email and coming across as a human being gets you a long way.
- If you can’t find an email address, you can try commenting on one of their pins to ask the question. Just make sure it’s one of their pins and not someone else’s pin on the group board or they won’t get the message – It does not need to be a pin on that board, any of their pins will do… most people have a board just for pins from their blog, that’s the easiest way to find one of their pins!
Occasionally, boards close themselves to new contributors because the board owner is happy at the size the board has got to. I’m not sure there’s a lot you can do about that unless they specifically say existing board collaborators can add people. If so, click on any member and get in touch in the same way.
Once you’ve got a decent following and you’re already collaborating on big group boards, you’ll find people start to invite you to their boards without having to apply. I have not applied to all 79 group boards I’m a collaborator on… many of them have invited me. You’ll just get a message in your Pinterest notifications and can accept with one click!
How Many Boards Can I Join and How Much Can I Pin?
I don’t know of any limit that exists as far as Pinterest goes, join as many boards as you like. However, I would say if you’re pinning manually it will likely get difficult to keep track of which pins you’ve pinned where and when if you join multiple group boards. You can just pin your new posts once to all your group boards the day you make the pin and be done with it, but you’re not making the most of them if you do this.
Occasionally boards specify in the rules that they do not allow repins, however, nearly all Pinterest group boards will not mind you repining the same pin multiple times as long as you use some common sense and manners, and don’t spam the board. If you’re struggling to decide what spamming a board looks like:
- When you scroll through the board in a normal browsing kind of way (say the first 50 pins) and see the same pin twice, that’s spam.
- If you pin the same image to the same board every day, that’s spam.
- If you copy the entire contents of your blog board to the same board at once, that’s spam.
Some boards will give rules on the number of pins you can add or how long between repins, most don’t so you have to use your judgment. If the board is small like my Twin Mom board with only 22 collaborators, don’t pin to it often and maybe only come back next month to see if your pins have moved down the board enough to repin them again.
If the board is medium-sized with around 200-300 collaborators, you can probably pin 2-3 pins per day (although I would recommend spreading them through the day) and repin the same pins 2-3 weeks later without being spammy. If you find Pinterest group boards with thousands of collaborators you could pin a couple more pins a day, but only if the rules allow it, and after about 10days you’re probably good to go back and repin the same content if you want to.
How Do I Pin to Multiple Pinterest Group Boards Without Losing Track?
This is the bit I find most challenging, and I’m currently working on a scheduling worksheet to help myself and you guys keep on track and reduce brain strain. I have 79 group boards I can pin to… how do I remember which pin I’ve already sent to which board? How do I not create a wall of the same pin in my profile under ‘pins’? A large-scale Pinterest strategy takes a bit of work…
If you’re going to take on multiple group boards there are two options:
Pin manually
You can pin the same pin, all at once to all your group boards. This will not spam your followers, because they don’t follow those boards, but Pinterest may start to flag you as a spammer. If Pinterest suspects you’re a spammer they may reduce the amount they suggest your pins to people, or worse, shut you down altogether. Now, you have to be creating some serious spam for this to happen, so if you’re collaborating on 5 boards, I wouldn’t worry. But if you’re going for more, you’re going to want to spread out and mix up your pins.
If you’re really organized, you can stagger your pinning through the day, decide on three slots a day when you pin to one-third of your group boards each time, and mix in some other people’s pins to your own boards. Don’t forget to pin other people’s pins, it gains you followers and creates a much more authentic profile.
Use a Scheduler
There are a number of different tools you can use to pin for you and make life easier. I would recommend trying Board Booster – they let you do a free trial so you might as well give it a go. If you’re a crazy pinner like me, the pricing gets expensive, but for a few groups boards, it’s fab!
If you’re hitting your Board Booster pin limit quickly, and want to go large scale, Tailwind is the best value scheduler out there (it does Instagram too!). They also do a free trial try both and see which one you prefer. I find Tailwind a little more fiddly to start with, but once you get going it’s fantastic. I love that I can see exactly which pin is going where and when it is going out. It’s great for finding other people’s content to pin in amongst your own, and their Tribes feature is also excellent… I’ll have to put a post together on Tribes too!
If you have any more questions about how to find Pinterest group boards or use them effectively, drop me a comment below.