How to Use Pinterest Group Boards To Grow Your Business

It’s no secret that I love Pinterest—even more than my first flame, Instagram! And if you’re curious as to WHY I made the switch, you can read all about that here: 7 Reasons Why I Broke Up With Instagram & Started Dating Pinterest.

One thing that I mentioned in that blog post was that while I loved using Pinterest’s group board feature, I wasn’t sure if the way that I was using it was best for my business and I had decided to try a few experiments before I gave more detail. This blog post is the result of those experiments, and I cannot wait to share this information with you now

Pin one of these for later:

What IS A Pinterest Group Board?

Simply put, group boards are Pinterest boards that more than one person can pin to. The creator must invite people to join the group and then that person must accept the invitation. After that, each contributor can add to the board (they can be secret or public) as often as they wish.

But WHY use group boards?

Because your pins will be exposed to more viewers. Anyone who follows that board (even if they just clicked “follow all” on another contributor’s page) will be exposed to your work. Thus, you will have a much broader impact and get in front of more eyes than just those who are on your board or searching for your one-of-a-kind product/service/post!
Are you convinced yet?
Thought so.

How To Find A Pinterest Group Board:

I suppose we should start here! If you don’t even know where to begin, I recommend visiting Pingroupie and searching for boards within your niche. Think of this as the interview process. You will want to find a list of boards, research them and join a few (you can view the boards by clicking on the board name on the Pingroupie search) to test out and collaborate with. To join a board, the leaders often leave their contact information in the board description—otherwise you may have to do a little more detective work and go to their website.

Stick To Your Niche:

As in any form of advertising, zeroing in as close as possible to your target audience is key. The more general the board (“All Things Weddings” miiiiight not be where you want to start), the more likely that your pins will fall on def ears. I even go so far as to look at the style of photos being shared. My site and overall aesthetic is very light and bright—thus if a board fits my target audience but has a moody photo aesthetic, my images won’t fit and might even repel the viewers, causing them to be ignored.

Pro Tip: Search the pages of those who contribute to a group board that you really love—chances are, they are in another group that will fit your style as well!

Don’t Get Lost In The Crowd:

When I first started getting serious about my Pinterest game, I went for the biggest boards with the most followers. As you might imagine, this did not help me stick to my niche very well! On top of that, there were so many contributors to these boards, that my pins quickly got lost and did not experience many clicks or re-pins—even if the same pin on a different board was a huge hit. That was a lightbulb moment for me.

Using Tailwind, I started to watch my board analytics really closely. The large boards with hundreds of contributors were actually performing the worst! I was shocked. At least for my business, it seems that having a board with 10-30 active contributors is the happy spot. Once they grow too big, everyone is too distracted growing their own following to look at your pins—and there is so much content that even the audience is too overwhelmed.

To track this without Tailwind, you will have to be really diligent to track your re-pins and activity, but I assure you that it’s worth it! Don’t waste your energy and pins on a board that isn’t going to serve you.

Look For Active Boards:

When you are browsing your potential group boards, look to see who is posting—is it all the same person? If it seems to mostly be the host/leader, then I wouldn’t worry too much about activity from the other pinners as long as they are occasionally active. A good example is my Wax Seals board. I have about 10 active pinners, but they only pop in occasionally, pin a few things and then leave for a few weeks. However, their repin rate is great and overall it’s a valuable board to be a part of! My “Midwest Wedding Inspiration” board, on the other hand is an absolute dud! haha, despite the fact that other 25 members “appear” to be active, in general there isn’t much activity on it and I will probably delete it soon. In this case, looks can be deceiving, but keep an eye on it. It’s a red flag, but not necessarily a reason to jump ship.
If you join a group and find that you are the only one pinning to it consistently, then I would bow out (unless you are getting a ton of activity from it!)

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I hope that you found this little blog post helpful! I am still fairly new to Pinterest, but I have been all in for about 5 months now and have learned so much! I would love to hear your favorite Pinterest tips, what surprised you the most about the post I just shared, or what you would like to hear more about next!