How to Join a Group Board on Pinterest

How to Join a Group Board on Pinterest

Hello Readers!

Today I’m going to blog a quick guide to joining and pinning on a group board on Pinterest, mostly because I believe there’s a great marketing opportunity on this growing platform, especially for writers/authors/self-publishers, that inherently is a great tool for selling and in my own efforts to get on group boards and now creating one of my own, it took a bit of work to get a clear notion of how it’s done. So hopefully this short list will help others interested in getting on group boards but struggling to make sense of the process.

Group Board:  A Pinterest board owned and managed by one person who invites others on Pinterest to join and pin onto that board. This occurs by invitation only. You can tell a group board by the multiple person image icon at the bottom left of the board.

Why a Group Board:  The power of increased activity/exposure to the marketplace also leveraged by the help of others. Aside from pinning to just your own Pinterest page, to pin and re-pin on active group boards will really up the number of times your pin is seen and possibly re-pinned by many others, further increasing exposure. The other members of the group board may also re-pin your pin their own boards considering that you have a common interest.
Quick Steps

·        Identify a suitable group board that you want to join.

·        “Follow” the main page of the owner of that group board (a must).

·        Message the owner (once you’ve followed someone a “Message” option becomes available top right of your screen to communicate with them and which starts a dialogue box that later shows up bottom left of your screen) that you would like to join their board unless they note differently in the description of the board.

·        In order to actually become a member of the board you will need to receive an Invite from the owner. The owner must also ‘Follow’ your main board first.

·        You will know you’ve been invited when you receive a message in your Inbox (top right … icon on your page). The invitation will show either a ‘Decline’ or ‘Accept’ option. Choose ‘Accept.”

·        Refresh your Pinterest main page.

·        Look back onto your main page and you will find a new board, the group board you’ve just joined! You can now click on the board and pin away (allowing for board rules). This extra board on your main page may be the only downside depending how you feel about the number of boards on your page. When you subsequently go to pin on this board, depending on whether you have 100 boards of your own, this will add to the list of boards to choose from when you place your new pin.  I’m now involved with about 10 group boards and find this manageable.

·        You can later ‘un-join’ if you change your mind by clicking on +people icon which will then show a drop down menu of all the collaborators. When you find your name you can remove yourself and the board will vanish from your home Pinterest page.

·        Be aware that if the owner of the board finds that you’re pinning inappropriately they can delete your pins and remove you from the board.

Both parties get a win~win as you both get more followers and more activity/views on Pinterest.

On the other hand I find that Pinterest overall moves slowly (I’ve heard the term ‘slow burn’ applied) in terms of response (sales) and re-pins. This may be due to many factors including I likely have limited reach at this time, I haven’t been active enough or don’t know important facts to making pins go viral, etc. Still, I think the opportunity is too valuable to pass up. Consider that with every pin you can add a URL to your sell site. When you think about Instagram, for example, you cannot put links into your posts or comments (Facebook I won’t address as I refuse to go there, especially now after the Cambridge Analytica etc. scandals.) but on Pinterest you can with every single pin.

I find it interesting that Pinterest has removed the ‘likes’ function for pins. At first this annoyed me but as I think about it, if someone really likes your pin they will re-pin it if they have a suitable board. I think Pinterest is more of a marketplace versus social media because it’s really a search engine for finding something that you want. It’s sort of like a giant store that you search visually for either items you want or ideas.

As the world is going more mobile, a recent stat I saw that Pinterest has 80% mobile traffic is important. It’s also growing with increase in male participation (article HERE).  

And consider that you can not only pin book covers (authors/writers/indies) but create a variety of advertising type pins that include snippets from your book (example to left is of a recent pin for Fated for Sanchez), promo pins for discount days, etc. The possibilities are endless.

To get an idea of what types of pins are getting lots of re-pins, check out this page from Pinterest stats (study the construction of these pins!) HERE.

As with everyone, the time demand to participate in and research/learn ‘social media marketing’ is crushing. I’m currently only on Twitter and Pinterest as an indie author and Zazzle designer. From a business perspective I’m thinking Pinterest may evolve into a very good online marketplace that is not too mired in privacy and other scandals that is definitely worth considering, especially for indie authors/writers as I don’t see a huge presence there yet (I’ve done a trial of Tailwind Tribes) meaning huge growth potential.

So come and join my Fiction Reads group board for writers already HERE! Let’s grow a hopping writer’s community on Pinterest.

I would love to hear your comments about experiences, successes and failures about Pinterest in comments below.