Hi everyone! My name is Marly and my blog is Namely Marly. Thanks so much to Cynthia for providing me the opportunity to guest post on Oh So Pinteresting.
The reason I’m here with you today is to talk about something very near and dear to my heart, Pinterest Group Boards. I manage and contribute to several group boards and credit them for helping me grow my following on Pinterest to over 100,000! As a result of this, I was recently named one of the top vegan bloggers on Pinterest. That’s a great honor, and it also means I was able to grow a significant following while also fitting into a more niche market!
I’ve discovered a few tricks and tips that I’ve used to both manage and participate in group boards, and I’m going to share those with you today. Are you ready? Let’s get started!
Creating Your Own Successful Group Boards:
• Define success. First of all, determine what success means for you and your board. Do you want a lot of followers? Do you want a lot of repins? Maybe you’d just like a board that has a lot of beautiful posts. Any of these are great goals, I just encourage you to focus on one and be sure to include it your Group Board Description so everyone is on the same page.
• Invite the right people. I’ve been careful about the people I invite to participate in my group boards and as a result I haven’t had to “uninvite” anyone. At least not yet! If you have a themed board, make sure the people you invite can work within that theme. So, for example, if I started a Vegan Board, I wouldn’t want to invite Chillin’ for Grillin’ to participate in my board, unless I happen to know he or she has a passion for grilling veggies. I have plenty of people who participate in my vegan boards who are 100% plant-based and others who are simply veg-curious.
Quick Tip: This has changed over time, but in order to add people to your group boards you must be following at least one of their boards and they must be following at least one of your boards.
• Be skeptical of strangers. From time-to-time you will receive requests from people you don’t know to be a part of your group boards. Be sure to check their profile to make sure they’re legitimate pinners. Some things to look for are the number of pins and followers. If these two are grossly mismatched or if the profile appears incomplete, you may have received a request from a spammer. I also encourage looking at their pins. If they are pinning the same things over and over, you can expect the same kinds of contributions to your own board.
• Curate your boards. If you manage a group board, you have a responsibility to curate them. People you invite to participate in your boards can also invite other people to be a part of those boards. Now, usually that’s a good thing, but if you’re finding someone posting a lot of questionable or downright spammy pins, don’t hesitate to show them the door. Also, go through your boards from time-to-time to make sure you’re getting the right kinds of pins. Sometimes you might need to send a quick reminder to some of your board contributors to help them stay on task.
• Set some ground rules. Here are the rules I establish for my group board contributors:
- Please don’t inundate a board with too many pins at one time – try to spread them out over the day
- Please keep your daily allotment of pins to the board reasonable as well
- Do not pin only your own stuff – it’s important to share the Pinterest juju
- Pin only high-quality pins/photos (that includes ensuring that your pins link back to the blogger originator rather than a scraper site).
I also encourage you to go the group board from time-to-time to see how your pins are doing compared to others. If you’re not getting repinned as much as others, you might want to adjust the pins you’re contributing to the board.
Thank your board’s contributors with something like this: Thanks again for your participation in my group board. I know with everyone sticking to these rules we will continue to experience growth in the number of followers and a high level of repins.
• Thin the Crop. If you’ve followed the steps above, you shouldn’t have to worry about this one, but if you’ve got people who are consistently breaking the rules, you might want to consider removing them from your board. Being a part of your group board is a privilege and from time-to-time you may need to make some changes to keep your boards high quality. Unless someone is obviously a spammer, I recommend reaching out to them first to make sure they understand the ground rules. But if they continue to bend the rules, it may be time to give them the boot!
If you’ve been invited to participate in a group board created by someone else, I’ve got some tips for you there as well.
Being a Great Group Board Contributor:
• Don’t overdo it. Try not to contribute too much content all at once. If you’ve got two or three pins you’d like to contribute to a group board in one day, spread them out over the course of the day so you’re not inundating the board all at once.
• Know the rules. I happen to love pins with a few stacked images. Have you seen them? Oftentimes I’ll see a recipe pin with 2 or 3 images on one pin, showing different views or steps in the process of the recipe. I love these and they usually get lots of great activity on my group boards. However, some group board owners don’t like them and will delete them from their group boards. You can check with the group board administrator to see what their rules are for the types of pins they prefer for their group board.
• Rinse and repeat. Be sure to both pin and repin from the group boards that you’re on. Pinning original or repinned high-quality content to your group boards is a great thing to do, but so is repining from the board. I recommend doing a little of both!
• Cross promote. There have been times when I’m excited about a particular pin, I will share it on Facebook or other social media sites. Doing this with a link back to the pin is a great idea and helps promote the board that the pin resides in as well.
• Don’t be a narcissist. Be sure that you’re not only contributing your own content to a group board. This is a rule that applies to both Pinterest in general and the group boards that you’re involved in. Contributing content to group boards that is sometimes your own and sometimes other peoples’ pins is the best way to go.
• Consider invites wisely. As you begin to grow in followers, you may also receive requests to contribute to more group boards.
I always recommend the following when considering a group board request:
- Look at the person hosting the group board. Do you know them? If not, does their profile seem legitimate? Look at their pins. Are they pinning the same things over and over again?
- Look at the group board they’re requesting you to contribute to. Are you interested in the topic of the board? If it’s not a good fit, it might be best to pass.
- Do you know any of the other contributors to the board? Look at the pins already posted on the group board.
Again, ask yourself if it seems like a good fit. If, based on your answers to these questions, you think it is a good fit, then accept the invitation and enjoy the fun of participating in a group board that’s a good match for you!
Let’s face it, on Pinterest we’re all trying to grow the number of followers and repins on our boards. That’s what we call “Pinfluence.” With these guidelines under you’re belt, you’re well on your way to mastering Using of Group Boards to Grow Your Pinfluence!
