How to Join the Party and Become Popular on Pinterest

What are group boards?

Group boards are community boards where there are multiple contributors to one board. There are a lot of group boards within Pinterest, with a wide range of topics.

How can they help your business?

By pinning your content to group boards, they get seen by a wider audience. If they are then re-pinned, they are seen by an even wider audience! If pinners like what they see, they will also start following you.

The board owner has to follow one of your boards to be able to invite you. Often the group board owner will re-pin your content onto their boards, which, if they have a large following, further increases your reach.

What do Group Boards look like?

In the top right corner of the board cover, there is a symbol with three heads, this indicates that it is a group board.

How do you find group boards?

There is no list of group boards, so it is difficult to find decent group boards without spending hours going through Pinterest, and most likely getting very distracted!
There are a few pinners out there though, that have compiled a list of group boards, details are at the bottom of the page.

Another way is to do a google search, which might come up with direct links to group boards, or articles written about group boards in your niche area.

Another method, although it involves a bit of time, is once you have found one pinner who is very active on Pinterest, and has their own group boards, they are often a member of other group boards in the same niche. So click on their profile, and go hunting!

How do you know which boards are the best?

Once you have found those group boards, you then need to see if they are worth joining! But how do you know? There are a few things that you need to look out for:

Make sure they are not full of spam!
If you click on the image, you want it to take you to the content stated on the image.
You don’t want to see any off topic content, or people selling lots of items.
Ideally a high number of followers.
A High number of followers to pins.
Lots of engagement on the pins, likes, re-pins. You want to see that people are engaging with the board!

How do you get an invite?

There are a couple of different ways the board owners will want you to contact them.

By leaving a message on a recent pin on the group board. Make sure you are following at least one of their boards. Go into one of the pins by clicking on the image. To leave a comment, type @ followed by their name, which will then come up highlighted as you are typing. The main disadvantage with this method is if the board owner is receiving lots of messages, yours could get lost in the mire.

Often the board owner will want you to send them an email. You will need to give them your Pinterest name or URL. This is also an opportunity to send them a link to your own board that you will pin from, which gives them examples of what you will pin, and shows them you are genuine.

Please remember to follow at least one of the board owners boards, otherwise they cannot invite you!

Once invited, what do you do? What about pinterest etiquette?

Once you are in, you need to follow the rules! You don’t want to get invited to the party of the year, and then get thrown out for misbehaving!

Check in the board description if the board owner has highlighted any rules. Quite often they put a limit on the number of pins per day, and letting other pinners pin before you pin again. A lot of boards also don’t allow Etsy items, (items for sale), and encourage vertical pins.

Don’t invite anyone else! Unless the board owner has specifically stated that you can. This is one way that spammers have managed to be so prolific, by inviting other spammers. So don’t do it, you might get thrown out of the party!!

Talk to people! Pinterest is mainly a visual media, that is why it is good to chat! Not many people are doing it, so you will get noticed more. Be the Party Animal! Like some pins, re-pin, and also comment. It doesn’t cost anything to be nice!
Chances are, you will get people chatting back, and going over to check out your Pinterest page.

Happy Pinning!

These are links to Pinterest profiles listing group boards.

Look out for Part 2 next week, all about setting up your own group boards.