Group boards are defined by Pinterest as a “fun way to organize ideas with others.” Redecorating your kitchen? Solicit ideas from friends with a “Fix my kitchen!” board. Invite select Pinterest users to add their favorite ideas to the board. Members can choose to be notified of new pins, so it leads to great collaboration. Looking for a new haircut or shopping for a new car? Let your invited friends add suggestions for that, too!
Decorating and parties are all very nice, but what about businesses? Can group boards help you realize business success on Pinterest?
Increase Exposure with an Instant Boost
When you first join Pinterest as a business, it may feel like a real uphill battle. Followers are slow in coming, and likes and repins are few and far between. Enter group boards!
When you pin an image to a board you own which has 100 followers, your 100 followers may see it and it may show up in search results. If it’s repined, it may be seen by anyone following your repinner and so on.
Now let’s say you pin the image to a group board with 200 members and 200 followers. Now your image may be seen by all the same people as above AND by the 200 members of the group board AND its 200 followers. In addition, members of group boards can choose to be notified when a pin is added to the board – so each time you pin – they get an email with your name in it!
Increase Followers with Group Boards
Some group boards have thousands of pins and a dedicated following. If your images are among them, it’s easy for people to find, like, repin and follow you.
Increase Repins, Comments, Website Traffic, and Leads with Group Boards
Pinterest is turning into a fantastic content curation resource. Looking for something to share on Facebook or Google+? Check Pinterest! I have a group board called “Truly Amazing Marketing Articles & Tools” which really is designed for the best of the best. When my fellow-pinners share something there, I notice! If it’s great, and it usually is, I might repin it to another of my boards, or share the article linked to on other social channels. So, one pin to my group board can result in three or four shares – just from me!
Other boards have similarly loyal promoters who use group boards to find great content. Find the right one and your Pinterest-referred website traffic will increase quickly!
Have a great Ebook, webinar or free trial to offer? Share an appealing image to your group boards and watch the leads come in!
Group Pinterest Boards – Collaboration at its Best
When you have a quality board with plenty of fresh and exciting content, everyone wins, and every member has a vested interest in getting people to find it. When someone shares the board on social media, your chances of discovery are increased, too.
Finding Group Boards
Look through the Pinterest accounts of your competitors, industry experts and complementary businesses for group boards that they are members of. Group boards are marked with a little grey icon of three avatars.
A new Pinterest group board directory, Pingroupie, contains over forty thousand group board listings. The site allows you to search by category and description keywords and sort to by a number of factors including number of collaborators, followers, repins, etc. You’re sure to find something relevant!
A Word of Caution
As in life, be careful of getting mixed up with the wrong crowd on Pinterest. Before accepting an invite, check out the board. Some users spam boards, so be wary of a group board dominated by one pinner. Some pinners are self-promotional. You’ll get a feel for the board’s quality with a quick look.
If a board isn’t working for you, you’re under no obligation to stay. Just edit the board and click the “Leave” button next to your name.
How to Get Invited to Group Boards
Before you seek out invites to group boards, make sure your profile is complete and that you have a good number of boards with plenty of pins. Group board owners who care about maintaining the integrity of their board WILL check you out before they invite you.
On some group boards, there are instructions for sending an invite request. Just check out the board description.
If there is no published method for obtaining an invite, get active on the board. Like pins, repin a few and comment on some. Make sure you are adding value - and don’t be a pest!
How to Be a Good Group Board Member
Good etiquette is a must on group boards. So, commit to:
- Following published rules.
- Pinning only quality, relevant images.
- Checking links before you repin to the board (dead links are a sign of careless pinning!).
- Don’t flood the board with too many pins all at once. Use a scheduler like ViralTag to space them out and take advantage of peak times.
How to Create a Pinterest Group Board
Edit your board and type in the names of people you’d like to invite (you must follow at least one of their boards first). Save - and that’s it! Pinterest will send the user a notice that they’ve been invited and allow them to accept or refuse. Notice that you cannot send a mass invite for group boards. This is actually a great protection. You do not want just anyone pinning to your board! Also, note that members can invite others to join your group board.
You may consider posting rules as part of the group board description. For example, “Comment on a pin if you wish to join. Please, no profanity or spam.”
Choosing and Managing Group Board Contributors
Certain favorites will come to mind right away, but go beyond the obvious and consider inviting employees, and even your best advocate-customers. Just make sure you check out their Pinterest profiles and pins for quality and make sure the topic is something they seem likely to be interested in!
You can invite business partners and others in your industry to join, too. For example, Pinterest superstar Nordstrom invited the Bauble Bar to their group board, Shiny Things. Pins are a nice mix of Nordstrom and BB.
Has a pin or a comment been added to your board that is inappropriate or doesn’t fit with the theme of the board? Delete – it’s your board, so control the image your company is presenting. If a particular member continues to post inappropriate pins, contact them and give them a friendly reminder. If they continue the unwanted behavior, remove them. Just edit the board and click the “Remove” button next to the name of the user.
With a few common-sense precautions, Pinterest group boards can take your business from obscurity to success quickly. Have group boards increased your online marketing success? Tell us about it below!
Alisa's Bio:
As co-owner and chief inbound marketing consultant at Scalable Social Media, Alisa Meredith spends a lot of time keeping up with online marketing trends for the benefit of our customers. Computers have been a passion of hers since her first T1-99, so inbound and social media marketing is a natural fit.
