How To Join Group Boards on Pinterest
Many ways exist to expand your ‘reach’ on Pinterest, but joining well established Pinterest group boards is perhaps one of the best!
But wait- how in the world will you find good groups to join? Well, there are a couple techniques I recommend, searching on pingroupie.com being the first and most obvious.
Method Number One: Pingroupie
Be sure to select/fill out the necessary fields in order to narrow down your search! For example, say you’re looking for dog related group boards to join. Under ‘category’, select animals.
The second field will be called ‘Order By’, and arrange your results based upon the order you select. I like to order my results by either ‘Collaborators’ or ‘Repins’.
Collaborators
You probably want to find a board with a decent amount of collaborators; this both verifies the likelihood the you will be accepted (versus boards with only a select few), and signifies the board has been around for a while.
Repins
The entire purpose here is to increase views of your pins. Adding pins to large boards with many collaborators means those members, along with the followers of said board, have the potential to see your pins.
However, if there is a very small ‘re-pin’ rate, either the board probably isn’t active any longer, or no one is likely to save your pins to their account.
In this case, I have selected the fields ‘Animals’, and ordered them by ‘Collaborators’ (see graphic below). I’ve decided to view the description of the fourth group listed, ‘Kiss, Kiss, with Animals’.
By clicking on the blue description tab, I will be able to read the description for that group without having to spend extra time navigating away; I’ll be able to tell whether or not it is accepting members, and what I need to do to apply for membership, without ever leaving the pin groupie site!
The majority of these groups are going to be poorly described, no longer accept members, or simply no longer moderated; you’ll need to do some sifting through the ‘junk’ groups in order to find good ones to apply to. That being said- trust me, this ‘description’ option pingroupie offers saves a whole boat load of time!
Example ‘Copy and Paste’ Email: Hello! My name is _____, and my Pinterest Profile can be found at ______(your Pinterest profile name and url). I would absolutely love to contribute to your Pinterest group board, ______(exact name of Pinterest group board)! Would I be able to join as a collaborator please?
Thankyou for your consideration!
______
●If board is accepting members, the application process will be listed in the board description.
●If an email message is requested, the email NEEDS to come from Your Pinterest Email. If it is another email, the owner of said board might either try to add an account for that address, or consider the request spam and ignore it.
If you don’t know what email address you signed up with, you can find it by first clicking on your profile image, then selecting the settings tab.
That will take you to a screen looking something like this. As you can see, the email address can be found under the field ‘Email Address’.
Method Number Two: Find Other Pinner’s Groups
Do you know of well established, successful Pinterest users in your niche (target market you operate in)? Pinterest users with large accounts, perhaps 5K and over? I’m talking individuals; this method only applies to individual ‘People’ business accounts, not large corporate pages (like Wal-Mart, for example).
Maybe these people you follow run successful blogs? Maybe they are entrepreneurs, and use Pinterest as a marketing platform for their businesses?
In any case, there are only so many ‘right’ ways to become successful on Pinterest as a single entrepreneur. Joining established group boards in your niche, and pinning to those boards on a consistent basis (thus broadening your ‘reach’), is one of those ways.
It is safe to assume- if an account is successful and well established, the owner almost certainly knows this. I can all but guarantee that owner is a member of various group boards in their niche, and pin to them on a regular basis.
So, let them do the work for you!
Turns out, it is much more time efficient to simply apply to the same Pinterest group boards as other, successful members of your niche!
If you already follow successful accounts, simply click on the ‘Following’ tab, and select ‘People’.
As an example, I’ve selected Melyssa Griffin’s account from the list of people I follow. Melyssa is a pretty successful entrepreneur blogger, marketer, and businesswoman; I’ve been following her for quite some time. She was in fact the very first marketer I began following, about eight months ago.
Check out the amount of followers she has! Melyssa literally wrote the book on Pinterest strategy, and I would highly recommend reading her articles.
Note: A massive following is usually an indication the account owner is using advanced strategies, but not always. In some cases- they simply became lucky early on; perhaps their account was featured in the early days of Pinterest.
In the case of large corporations, like my Wal-Mart example above- their brands draw so much recognition, they can circumvent most of the strategies others use. I wouldn’t recommend these pages for all around solid examples.
What Pins Should You Save to These Group Boards, and How Often?
Nothing irritates people more than a spammer; someone who continuously pins 30 times (or any high amount). By doing this, they are covering up every other member’s pins, ensuring viewers see them and them only.
Whatever you do, don’t do this! Spamming is not only a surefire way to get booted from groups, but it also annoys other members; people you may consider collaborating with in the future.
Tip: I save no more than 2 pins to each group board I am a member of daily, and I spread them out; one in the early afternoon, and one in the evening. I would recommend an automation program, such as Board Booster, to schedule your pins for you.
Additional Tip: 80-90% of pins I save belong to other Pinterest users I collaborate with; don’t just save your own pins. And never duplicate anything to group boards if you can help it; try to make sure each pin ‘you’ save is saved only once. It doesn’t matter if other users save the same thing, as long as you don’t duplicate anything yourself.
In other words, don’t save a pin, then save that exact same pin to the exact same board again the next day.
How to Choose What Pins to Save
I save so many pins to my account daily, there is no way I could read all of them. In fact, I rarely ever read the articles they are attached to at all; that would take enormous amounts of time, and isn’t how I choose what to save.
I simply type in a topic (in this case, let’s go with ‘Dog Training’) into the search box on the top of my Pinterest page, and then select pins to schedule based upon their popularity. If the pin has been saved tens of thousands of times in the past, it is a pretty safe bet it leads to quality information.
Try to keep it Pretty.
Say you belong to a group filled with the type of pins you see below. Not only are these all very similar in size (you won’t find many extremely long info graphics, or little box square images there), they are visually similar. Most of these pins use white, clean, soft hues and colors.
Try to keep the theme going; don’t add something wildly outside the box here. Sure, as marketers- we want to stand out, but stand out too much (this rule applies to Pinterest group boards only. Often, the owners and members of these boards will be using a color strategy; try not to ruin it) and you run the risk of looking… unappealing.
For example, I wouldn’t add darker primary colors (light yellow and blue are fine here, being two of the three primary colors- but also complimenting well with each other).