Pinterest Group Boards (also called Collaborative Boards) are shared Pinterest boards where multiple Pinterest users can pin content at the same time. Pins may be added to the Board by other Pinterest users who have been granted permission to do so by the board owner.
If you are a member of a Group board, you can invite other Pinterest users to it, unless the board owner specifies otherwise. For those who are new to Pinterest marketing, joining existing group boards is easier than setting up a new one. If you are a solopreneur with limited time, you should focus on low-effort effective marketing techniques.
Find out how to locate Pinterest group boards (and how to join Pinterest group boards) by following this simple step-by-step tutorial.
You will be able to determine whether a board is worth pinning to and how to identify high-quality boards that receive good engagement.
All About Pinterest Group Boards
Let’s assume you own a small business and have heard that joining Pinterest group boards is the key to gaining free website traffic.
The good news is that you are correct. Unfortunately, it is not quite as easy as it seems.
The process of joining a group board may seem daunting at first. There are several types of them:
- Almost impossible to locate
- Closed to new contributors on a regular basis
- Spam-filled
However, becoming a member of a single quality group board can have a profound impact on the success of your company. It is possible to gain thousands of additional readers, as well as potential clients, every month by finding and joining one new board.
You are putting money in your pocket by creating a quality Pinterest group board.
Whenever you contact group board owners, you are likely to be unsuccessful a significant portion of the time. In order to accomplish our goal, we simply need to get on one. Then comes the next one. And next one. And another one.
This is how you can do it.
Step 1: Make A List of Potential Boards In Your Niche
It is unfortunately impossible to determine whether or not a board is high-quality before joining it. In order to begin, it is advisable to examine the blogs of established bloggers in your field of interest.
I will use an example of a finance influencer since this website is focused on the business and finance niche.
Check out Michelle Schroeder-Gardner of Making Sense of Cents for more information
###https://www.pinterest.com/senseofcents/_saved/###
You should take a look at the actual boards that she’s pinning to instead of the Pinterest group boards she’s on.
It is not uncommon for bloggers to belong to more than 50 group boards, if not more. Those don’t necessarily mean they’re pinning to everyone.
Take a few minutes to scroll down the page and identify the group boards of the top influencers in your niche. Jot down the names of the group boards another blogger is actively engaging with. There is a good chance that those boards are of high quality.
Bloggers will probably overlap from time to time, which is expected. There is a reason why most of the top bloggers pin to the same group boards on Pinterest that feature high-quality content.
Considering that your strike-out rate is likely to be high (when it comes to actually apply for and being accepted onto group boards), it is probably best to identify 50-100 boards in your niche (if you have a large niche).
Ultimately, we will explain how to apply for them in Step 3 below, but for now, focus on obtaining a significant number of applications.
In spite of the fact that this may be a tedious and time-consuming process, it is one that nearly every blogger that came before you has successfully completed.
The process of completing this part may take several hours. Get your hands dirty and roll up your sleeves.
The following are indicators of a ‘high-quality’ Pinterest group board:
- Re-pin rates are high (Tailwind provides this information); niches vary
- Content of high-quality and visually appealing pins
- Boards with a cap on the number of pins per day are typically more successful (2-3 pins per contributor per day are usually sufficient to discourage spam).
- The performance of boards with fewer contributors is typically better. As boards with more than 100 contributors tend to move too rapidly and are often poorly moderated, we try to avoid them.
- Although not a quality indicator, it is desirable to pin to boards with a significant following (i.e. more than 25k followers). Posting to a board simply because it has a large following should not be considered an indication of quality.
- The importance of quality cannot be overstated. In the case of a spam board with more than 1,000,000 followers, Pinterest will not display pins from the board in SmartFeed if the pins on the board are not receiving engagement.
Step 2: Remove Boards That Are Likely to Be Low-Quality
Identifying a poor-performing board is usually easier than identifying a good board.
In spite of the fact that there is no blanket definition of what constitutes a low-quality board, there are several things to look out for.
Boards of low quality often have the following characteristics:
- It is difficult to moderate/protect against spam as there are dozens, if not thousands, of contributors
- Pins or content that is completely off-topic
- It is not acceptable to submit pins that are misshapen or did not pass the “eyeball” test (aesthetically unappealing pins).
- The content should be sales-oriented or gimmicky
- There are no posting limits, or the board is incredibly fast-moving (think 200+ new pins per day to that specific group board).
I would urge you to cease pinning to boards like these immediately if you have done so or are currently doing so. If you send out a pin and it receives no engagement in front of a particular audience, Pinterest is going to assume it is sending “repeated bad signals.” If the pin receives no engagement in front of a particular audience (impressions), Pinterest is going to assume:
- There is something wrong with your content or it is misleading
- Boards that are being posted are of low quality or unengaging
It is not something that you wish to associate with your pins.
Tailwind: Finding Pinterest Group Boards Retroactively
A majority of the time, you won’t be able to gauge exactly how ‘high-quality’ a certain Pinterest group board really is until you have been accepted.
We recommend that you compile a list of quite a few boards and then attempt to get on as many of them as possible. In the event that you are accepted to a Pinterest group board, the first thing we recommend you do is to evaluate Tailwind to determine what it has to offer.
Here are some steps you can take:
- You can do this by viewing the Board Insights section on the left side of your screen and selecting only “Group Boards” from the drop-down menu.
- You can then filter the list by “Virality Score” or “Engagement Score”:
This is an important note: Tailwind calculates these scores based on historical data from all of the pins on the board (i.e., the virality score is calculated as the number of lifetimes repins divided by the number of lifetime board pins).
In spite of this, these metrics are not well suited to determining the quality of a board at the present time.
A board owner may over time add too many contributors to their board, which can degrade the quality of the board and cause its re-pin rates (virality score) to decrease.
The number of re-pins in the last 7 days should be divided by the number of pins in the last seven days in order to obtain an accurate assessment of the quality of the board at the present time.
As An Example
It is estimated that the lifetime re-pin rate for the unnamed board above is 16.10.
Despite this, the re-pin rate over the last seven days has been only 4.0 (80 re-pins/20 new pins).
It is unfortunate that Tailwind does not offer a sortable list to make this sort of calculation for you, but if you are an Excel nerd, you can easily do this yourself.
Would you like high-quality boards?
It is through this method that you can determine whether you are on their list.
If you are posting to a board with an effective repin rate of less than 1, you should seriously consider why you are still posting there. You are only hurting yourself by doing so.
Step 3: Applying for Pinterest Group Boards
Now that you have eliminated the bad seeds, you have come up with a list of high-quality group boards that you are ready to apply to.
However, there is one major problem: The process of getting on them is quite laborious.
In each case, the administration of the group board will have a different process for applying for membership. There are some who would like you to send them an email, some who would prefer a direct message, some who wish to receive comments, and some who do not give you any directions at all. Once you have reached this point, you must go into full stalker mode and search for their contact information on their website.
It will take a long time for you to complete this task. There is a good chance that you will never hear back from them and you will not be added to their boards. This is just the way things are, and it’s okay. If you want to succeed, you need to cast your net as wide as possible and be prepared to be rejected.
Please find below the email template we used to contact group board owners. If you wish to do something similar, please modify the message as follows:
Hello there _________,
I was hoping to catch your attention and ask if you would consider adding me to your ___________ (actually link to the board, they may have several and this makes it easier for them) group board.
My website regularly covers topics that would be both interesting and valuable to your readers, including __________, __________, and __________. To ensure everyone benefits from collaborating, we promote and highlight other members of the community regularly.
My Pinterest profile: ____________
My Pinterest email: __________
Thank you in advance,
[Your Name]
Make it as simple as possible. It would be sufficient to send a quick note in which you provide all the information they need so that they are able to scope out your profile and decide whether or not to add you to the list.
Before contacting the board owner, make sure that you are following the board and the board owner on social media. Even if a board states that it is not accepting new contributors, we reach out to the board owners.
Most of the top-quality boards consist of older, more established boards with quality pinners. In the event that you believe you are capable of contributing high-quality content to a group board and that you have something to offer the board owner, they will be happy to entertain your request at the very least.
When they attack you with their full wrath, make a mental note (or a physical note) and move on with your life.
There is no gain without risk.
If you have not heard back from group boards, it may be worthwhile to reapply.
In spite of the fact that you have been rejected the first time, you should not give up. There are several reasons why you should review your spreadsheet periodically:
- It is possible that the board owner missed your direct message, email, etc.
- Back then, your profile may have been unsatisfactory, but now it is much more impressive.
- It is possible that they simply forgot to include you.
It is best not to repeat the same script, and to remain polite and courteous at all times.
Conclusion
You should focus on quality if you are having trouble understanding Pinterest group boards or if you are not getting the results you are expecting.
As a final note, focus on quality.
It is no longer possible to spam or litter a person’s news feed with pins.
The algorithm of Pinterest is now too sophisticated for that to be possible. The company will be putting highly engaging pins in front of targeted eyeballs because it will provide a better user experience. Ensure that you focus on creating high-quality pins and posting on high-quality boards in order to achieve successful results.
