How to find & use Pinterest Group Boards

Looking to boost Pinterest marketing with the help of group boards?Not sure how to find group boards on Pinterest and which one to join to succeed?

Whether you are a blogger, Pinterest virtual assistant, or any business person, you need to get a lot of saves or repins for your own content to generate tons of Pinterest traffic.

So, if you are using Pinterest for business in the right way, marketing on this visual search engine can drive more traffic quickly than Google.

It takes time for a new board to get recognition from Pinterest and appear in search results. Generally, the board with a large number of pins, good quality content, and engagement rate gets priority in Pinterest search results.

It becomes more challenging for beginners on Pinterest to build a successful board.

Therefore, if you are a newbie, then as a smart Pinterest strategy, you should also make the best use of group boards from day one.

Joining the right group boards and pinning your content as per their rules can be very rewarding to grow on Pinterest quickly.

If you are a beginner and using Pinterest for marketing your business or blog, the group boards are excellent ways to widen your pin's reach and drive more traffic.

Have you just started your journey on Pinterest? The below articles will help you with how to use Pinterest.

Pinterest marketing guide for beginners

Pinterest best practices to create click worthy pins

25 Pinterest mistakes you may be making

How to use tailwind to schedule pins to Pinterest

How to use Idea pins to grow fast on Pinterest

In this article, you will learn what is regular and group boards on Pinterest and how to search, join and use group boards effectively to boost Pinterest marketing.

What is a board on Pinterest, and how to create it?

The Pinterest board is where all your content(pins) is stored. Every user is free to create new boards and collect pins( standard/rich/idea pins) under them.

So Pinterest boards are the only place where all the pins on the platform are saved. Users can come back and visit these pins at any time, and the pins also have links so users can visit the destination page for more details.

If you are just starting with Pinterest and want to bookmark your first pin, you need to create a board(personal/group) or join a group board of other people where you can save your pin.

So, how to make a Pinterest board?

There are two ways of creating a board on Pinterest, either from a profile or whenever you try to save a pin.

To create a new board, click on your profile picture, click + icon, and select Board.

Enter a relevant name for your board based on your purpose for creating it. After hitting Create button, you will be shown some sample pins( based on the name of your board).

You can save a few of them to your new board. To add a particular pin to the board, hover over the sample pins and click on the red button Save.

When you are done adding some pins, you will be taken to the board page, where you can add more details about the new board.

Click on three dots next to the board to edit it, like change the name, make it secret, fill description or delete the board.

If you want to arrange the board based on subcategories, you can add sections to the board. To add a section, go to the bottom of the board screen, click + icon, and select Section.

To convert it to a group board and invite your friends as board collaborators, click + on the board page.

There is also a link for the group board that you can share on social media, emails, and your website to increase the board's following and make it popular.

The other way of making a new board is through a drop-down while saving a pin.

Browse a pin you want to save and click on the drop-down menu. Then instead of saving it to the existing boards, you can click on Create board icon on the list.

There is no limit on how many Pinterest boards you can create, but you should name them logically for better performance. You can turn a few of them into group boards by allowing people to contribute pins.

What are group boards, and how are they different than regular boards?

Pinterest group boards(Also known as shared Pinterest boards) are like regular boards but allow more than one user to contribute pins under them.

While in standard or personal boards, only owners can add pins. You can invite collaborators if you want to convert an existing personal board to a group board.

Group boards have a small circle(combined images of contributors) on the bottom left side of the board. However, you will not find such icons on standard boards. So visually, you can easily identify which are group boards and which are not.

They are collaborative boards created to share each other's pins. The group board owner can allow or reject others to share pins on the board and has full control to kick out any spammer who is not following board rules.

Group boards of Pinterest are designed for the ethos of reciprocity so that contributors can benefit from each other in reaching a new audience and finding content to feed their personal boards.

So it is not the only place to promote pins but also a repository to discover new or fresh pins that your audience might like.

How to find group boards on Pinterest?

As a newbie on Pinterest, you would like to grow fast by sharing your content to high-performing group boards, but the challenge is finding and joining the right ones.

Not all the group boards in your niche will be productive, and joining them might be a waste of time. Therefore, you should look for well-managed group boards with a high repin rate and the following count.

Generally, the more followers or collaborators a board has, the more saves your pins will receive, hence more traffic and leads for your business.

Here are a few ways to discover Pinterest collaborative boards:-

#1. The basic approach to finding such boards is by searching. Go to the Pinterest search bar and enter the relevant keyword for the board. And choose Boards as a filter from the drop-down(All Pins) next to the search bar.

After searching, you will see a collection of both regular and group boards. You can spot group boards with a circle icon(profile photos). Visit them one by one to check whether they make sense for you.

#2. You can also use an automatic group board searcher pingroupie which can also show you crucial metrics that can help you judge the boards' effectiveness.

Not only can the pingroupie tool find profitable group boards, but the premium version can help discover popular and trending keywords and influencers in any niche.

#3. By keeping an eye on competitors and influencers in your niche, you can get valuable insights like which group boards they have joined and what type of content and pins they are pinning.

Visit Pinterest profiles of your top competitors, and you can easily find the best collaborative boards joined by them.

#4. You can also find a list of group boards prepared by different bloggers. Make a Google search for group boards in your topic.

Here are a few things you should consider to make sure you join productive boards.

#1. The board should be related to your business, and a board on fashion topics will not be helpful if you are a food blogger.

#2. Carefully read the description to understand what the board is all about. Does it mention your topics of interest? Is the board description SEO optimized?

#3. Is group ideal? Are people pinning frequently? Is it well organized and not spammed?

#4. Check the quality of the pins and contributors to the group board. If you find some big brands or competitors in your niche are pinning to this board, this could be the best fit for your business.

#5. Use the Pinterest analytics tool to judge the effectiveness of the boards that you have joined. You can view your top boards and sort them based on impressions, pin clicks, saves, engagements, and outbound clicks. You can focus more on boards that are working for you.

How to join group boards on Pinterest?

Once you have a profitable Pinterest group boards list, you can approach group owners in various ways.

#1. The group boards that are super easy to join will have a Join button. Just click the Join button, and you will immediately be part of the board.

#2. Sometimes owners want to filter non-serious members to maintain the board's aesthetic.

Therefore, they are not so open to general requests and only allow people when they are convinced through emails or direct messages on Pinterest.

#3. Many boards have clear instructions written in the board's description. So carefully read the description and follow what they said to join the board.

Generally, the highly productive and well-managed group boards are not so open to new members, so you can try to contact owners and send a request.

Click on the number( group collaborators) just below the group board name, and a dialog will pop up where you can find the board owner.

Generally, it is the first member on the list. Go to this member's profile page and click on Contact, where you can find the email address(If you are lucky!).

One of the easiest ways to connect with the owners is by following them and commenting on their pins.

If you are still not able to connect with the owner, you can search on Facebook groups and tailwind communities.

Do group boards on Pinterest still work?

Group boards were created to share something of common interests like party photos, collaboration with teams and clients, and travel moments.

They were created for a small number of collaborators, but contributors and followers to many group boards grew to thousands. This has led to many spam activities and mismanagement of the group boards.

People started pouring irrelevant pins and content to them in the hope of getting more clicks and leads.

The pins differed from the purpose for which a group board was created because group boards were not meant to have pins from irrelevant topics. They are like standard boards but with multiple contributors.

Therefore in 2018, Pinterest limited the visibility of group board pins and stated that group boards should focus on a single idea and have fewer contributors instead of thousands.

Does it mean group boards are dead? Not, they are still very useful for marketers to drive consistent traffic if used in the right way.

So here are the top 12 best practices if you want to succeed in group board marketing.

#1. Before selecting group boards to join, think about your niche and audience. Is their audience similar to your audience? Don't join boards that have nothing to do with your business.

#2. Look for boards that are properly SEO optimized. The board name should have primary keywords, while the description should have important secondary and semantic keywords. Try to be part of boards that are owned by big Pinterest accounts.

#3. Does it have a good number of contributors and followers? It should neither be too large nor too small. The members should be active and not have spammy accounts.

#4. How active is this one? A group board may have many contributors and followers, but what is the point if people are not pinning? If you see that only one or few people are adding their pins repeatedly, you may conclude that it is a dead board.

#5. Pinterest loves fresh and new pins, which is also true in the case of group boards. A board is not good enough to join if members are only re-pinning(pins from other boards on Pinterest) existing pins.

Adding fresh or new content regularly on the board increases its importance in the eyes of Pinterest.

#6. Are other members following rules and pinning on a reciprocal basis? Is the quality of pins being monitored?

Monitoring is much required to keep a board alive and relevant.

#7. Knowing what works and what is not is essential in any marketing campaign. You can save your precious time by testing the performance of group boards you have joined, and you can leave those boards not getting enough clicks for your pins.

Use Pinterest analytics, tailwind analytics, and pingroupie insights to test and judge the health of the group boards.

#8. Follow board rules as laid down by the owner. Don't spam the board with your pins. Sharing one pin of other members for your one pin is a good practice.

#9. You can also use the tailwind pin scheduler to add pins at the best time slots. When you add a pin to any group board, you can also add that pin to the tailwind communities so it can have maximum visibility on Pinterest.

So make the best use of both group boards and tailwind communities to grow fast on Pinterest.

#10. Add only high-quality pins that are eye-catching. The sub-standard pins will not get members' and Pinterest's attention.

#11. You can create multiple pins with the same URL and add them to different group boards, providing each sister pin targets different keywords and audiences.

#12. Only add niche-specific pins focused on the board name's keyword; adding irrelevant pins will be a waste of time.

So, group boards are still an effective Pinterest marketing method( if done with the right spirit), whether you are a newbie or a well-established account.

Conclusion

Finding and joining niche-specific group boards is a smart Pinterest strategy. Many people and brands use them successfully to increase content visibility and drive traffic.

And it becomes more important to join a few group boards, especially if you are new on Pinterest. You can leverage their power to get instant visibility and traffic.

There are thousands of group boards, but the key is to find and join high-performing ones. Using group boards in combination with tailwind communities can substantially increase your Pinterest marketing output.