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So you are new to Pinterest. Your account is new, too. Or you already spent some time on Pinterest but did not find success. Maybe you even got a couple of followers, but the number is so low, it is not really worth talking about that here.

Now, imagine there is a way of pushing your pins in front of a huge audience for free!

And I am absolutely not talking about advertising here.

What I am talking about is group boards on Pinterest.

UPDATE 2019: The Pinterest Group Board tactic is a strategy from the past. Before you jump right into the group board frenzy, read all about the downside of using (too many and bad) group boards for your Pinterest marketing!

What are Pinterest Group Boards?

Group boards on Pinterest are boards that have more than one contributor. Group boards can be used in many ways: For instance, brands can use them to have multiple employees share pins to the same boards. Or you can collaborate with another blogger or business partner on one board.

But there are also open group boards, where a group of people has assembled that share interest in one topic and pin about this topic to the group board.

A group board starts out with the followers of the one single person that created the board. But with each new contributor who was accepted to the board the reach of the board – and the number of followers to the board can grow. There are huge group boards out there with hundreds of thousands of followers and hundreds of contributors.

Why should you join group boards

Group boards give you the opportunity to get your pins in front of a larger audience. Even if you don’t have many followers, group boards give you the chance to pin to a lot more people: The followers of the group boards.

And even if you already have some followers, group boards are the ultimate chance to get noticed by even more people and even find more followers.

What makes a group board a „good“ group board for you

The first and most important thing is: Choose group boards that are on topic. There is not much use in sharing information for mums to a business-oriented board. That would not give you the results you are looking for. Choose boards around topics that are closely related to the content you pin – and pin matching content to the board.

But that is not all there is that makes a group board a good group board.

And it is also not as simple as looking at the number of followers. Because what you are really looking for are people to repin and click your pins and help you share the great content.

That means you are looking for group boards that

• have a good repin rate – many people pin pins from this board to other boards
• are active – you don’t want to be the only person actively pinning to the group board, a great group board is the mix of the pins of many contributors
• have a fair number of followers – yes, followers are important, too
• are on topic

How can you join group boards

Ask for it.

Sometimes you get an invite to a group board without asking for it – but the far more common way is to simply ask the owner of the group board if you can join the board as a contributor. Before you do that, make sure that your account looks great and has good pins on great boards.

Who is the owner of the group board? The first person in the list of contributors:

Most group boards have a description that explains if they are still open to new contributors and how you can reach out to „apply“ to become a contributor.

I have seen several different ways how you can ask to join group boards:

• comment on a recent pin with @mentioning the group board owner
• send a Pinterest message to the group owner
• send an email to the group board owner

Note: Before you get in touch, you need to follow the group board and the group board owner.

The message to the group owner can be simple. If you send an email keep in mind to mention your Pinterest account name. The email could be something like the following:

Hi NAME,

My name is MYNAME, and I blog about TOPIC at: YOURWEBSITE.

I would love to join your group board “GROUP BOARD NAME” on Pinterest!
Here’s the link to my Pinterest account: https://www.pinterest.com/YOURACCOUNT
And my email address is YOUREMAIL
Thanks for considering me!

How can you find great group boards

This one is a little tricky – and I am sure you will come up with some more ideas for finding group boards than the ones I am mentioning here. But the following tips should give you some idea and provide you with some group boards you can consider.

1. Use a tool

Many bloggers recommend using the tool PinGroupie, which is basically a directory of group boards. The problem with PinGroupie is that it looks as if the directory is no longer updated. A lot of the information is over a year old. Whatever groups you find, you have to check for yourself if they are still active, growing in the number of followers and still pinning about the topic mentioned on PinGroupie.

NOTE: BoardBooster was shut down.

The Pinterest scheduling tool BoardBooster also provides a list of group boards.

In some categories, this list of group boards will give you awesome boards – in other niches the number of listed group boards is still rather small. But it is definitely worth to take a look.

2. Check out blog posts

Many bloggers give lists of group boards you should join. I did not find these lists overly helpful. Either they list rather broad boards that or not really focused – and I don’t recommend to join tons of „post-everything“ boards. That is not going to give you the success you are looking for.

In addition, many of the listed group boards are already overrun and closed to more contributors.

3. Other Pinners from your niche

One of the most efficient ways to find group boards from your niche is to look at the Pinterest accounts of competitors, business partners or influencers from your niche. If they already are successful on Pinterest the chances are high that they are contributing to a number of active group boards.

Check these out.

In the list of boards of a pinner on Pinterest, you can quickly identify the group boards through the circle that depicts the group contributor. Group boards have more accounts listed in this circle.

The owners of great group boards are also a great way to find more group boards – they are usually a contributor to other boards as well.

4. Search on Pinterest

Type the topic you want to pin about into the search box on Pinterest. You can even add „group board“ to the search term. Then choose „boards“ in the search results and browse through the results. Use above criteria to choose the best group boards and get in touch with the group board owner.

How often should you pin to a group board?

This is a tricky question as it strongly depends on the group board you are pinning to:

• how active are the contributors
• how many contributors does the board have
• what does the board description say?

First of all, you need to follow the rules of the group board. Some boards clearly give you the rules for the board – and you should absolutely follow the rules, or you risk getting thrown out of the group again. Rules can be things like this:

• 2 pins per day,
• repin as many pins as you pin to the group board
• no consecutive pinning
• no promotional pins
• …

If the rules allow you to pin often, you should still make sure that you are not the only person pinning to the group board.

Final Words

Pinterest group boards are the secret (or rather one of the main secrets) to Pinterest marketing success – without paying for advertising. If you don’t want to pay for an audience on Pinterest, have only a few followers and still want to reach a large audience and make your pins spread: You should consider joining some group board and be (very) active on them.

It is an effort that is well invested!

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