“Tailwind tribes vs. Pinterest group boards, which is better” to increase traffic on Pinterest?
The burning question that so many of you asked, ever since the recent announcement of Pinterest restating the purpose of Pinterest Group Board and the up take of the Tailwind tribes.
This can be particularly confusing and overwhelming for those of you who just started your online business or blog and are trying to bring traffic to your website using Pinterest. (Link)
In this blog, I am going to put this question to bed by taking a deep dive on:
Pinterest Group Boards:
- What are Pinterest Group Boards?
- How do group boards work on Pinterest?
- Pinterest group boards, the good and the bad
- Best practice on using Pinterest group boards
Tailwind Tribes:
- What are Tailwind tribes?
- How does tailwind tribes work for Pinterest?
- Pros and cons
Ultimately, I will be answering the question of Tailwind tribes vs. Pinterest group boards, which is better to increase traffic on Pinterest?
Let’s get to it…
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What are Pinterest Group Boards?
I want to start with Pinterest group boards, because if you are comparing Tailwind tribes vs. Pinterest group boards, the chances are, you are already using Pinterest to increase traffic for your business?
Pinterest group boards are groups of people who pin to the same boards on Pinterest. It is also referenced as “Shared boards”, “Community boards” etc. The members of group boards are often called “Contributors”.
You can identify the boards are Group boards instead of personal boards by the little circle on the left bottom corner of the boards (see below).
How do group boards work on Pinterest to increase traffic?
Pinterest group boards were once a fantastic way for online content creators and business owners to increase traffic on Pinterest.
By joining a group board on a specific niche, your pins all of a sudden are put in front of a much larger audience who are interested in that niche. They will then either follow you, and/or reshare your pins, and/or click through your pins to your website.
As a result, you get the benefit of not only getting more followers, but ultimately increasing traffic on Pinterest. Many people are contributors to a number of group boards, from a handful to over a hundred (that’s way too many BTW)!
But increasing traffic on Pinterest for online content creators and business owners, wasn’t the original intent of group boards. This feature was originally created so people can share ideas and plans on Pinterest.
In fact, Pinterest has recently restated the purpose of group boards and they do NOT want them in a promotional way. (See if can find the link from Pinterest)
So what now? are Pinterest Group Boards dead?
The short answer is – NO.
The long answer is – you will need to be smarter about it, here’s how…
The BEST practice on using Pinterest group boards
Although Pinterest is rolling out changes on Group boards, they are still a great way to increase traffic on Pinterest. Especially if you are just starting out and have only a handful of followers, by joining group boards, your pins will get a lot more eyeballs.
So here are some the best practice on using Pinterest group boards:
1. Join niche group boards instead of all topic group boards. For example, if you are a food blogger, look for specific group boards such as “quick and easy recipes” or “healthy recipes” or “Slow cook recipes” etc. You get the idea…
2. Follow the rules. Each group board has its own specific set of rules – follow them.
3. Quality over Quantity. This applies to both the number of pins you submit to each group board and the number of group boards you join.
A good quality pin to a group board means:
- The content meets the topic of the group board.
- The pin is a vertical pin as most group boards ask for vertical pins ONLY.
- The graphic of the pin is high in pixel (anything above 600×900 pixel are considered high pixel).
- The texts on the pin are large and easy to read.
- The pin contains title, description, and an URL.
Most group boards have strict rules about how many pins you can submit per day. The rule of thumb is not to go over 3-10 pins per day per board (your own pins that is) if it’s not specified by the rule. Otherwise, you will appear spammy, which can potentially result in you being sent to Pinterest Jail.
Learn from my mistake… Here’s my post on how to reactivate and avoid Pinterest Suspension (true story)… 
As a reference. I am currently pining 1-2 quality pins per day to 8 group boards that I am member of.
In terms of number of group boards you should join…
If you are new to Pinterest, you may want to join 10-20 niche specific boards at the beginning. Give a few months to see how they perform. Then narrow down to 5-10 high performing boards where you can concentrate your effort.
If you have been a member of many Pinterest group boards and have a decent reach, I would suggest to really start studying the statistics of the group boards and narrow the numbers down.
Here’s some advice directly a Pinterest marketing guru Louise Myers:
and the result? …
As for how to know if Pinterest group boards are performing for you or not?
There isn’t an easy way to check it out especially comparing from one board to the other on Pinterest, however Tailwind can spill many key performing scores in just matter of clicks. More on that in the Tailwind section…
Pinterest group boards, the GOOD and BAD
So let’s wrap up with the GOOD and BAD on Pinterest group boards to increase your traffic…
Good:
- You can find group boards for just about any topic.
- Group boards can help you increase reach, explode the traffic and get more followers, especially if you are just starting out.
- Certain group boards have no limit or a high limit of number of pins, which is great to get your pins out there. But please keep those best practices that I mentioned earlier in mind.
- Fresh pins are always being added to the feed without you doing the work.
Bad:
- Time consuming applying for many group boards and the acceptance rate is low.
- Certain group boards have no limit to the number of pins, this can appear to be spammy.
- For the host of the group board, it is also difficult to control any irrelevant pins.
- There is also no way to know if other people are sharing your pins.
- It is also difficult to tell if one of your pins has gone viral.
Now that you have a good idea on Pinterest group boards, let’s take a look at the similar concept called – Tailwind Tribes…
What are Tailwind Tribes?
Similar to Pinterest group boards, Tailwind tribes are groups of people who are sharing the pins.
The difference is that Tailwind tribes live inside Tailwind – a Pinterest approved auto-scheduler service. Moreover, Tailwind tribes are designed specifically to help content creators and online business owners to increase their reach and explode traffic on Pinterest.
How does Tailwind Tribes work for Pinterest to increase traffic?
High re-sharing rate of your pins:
One of the fundamental Tailwind tribe rules is that, you MUST share others’ pins, otherwise you will be kicked out of the tribe.
So for all the pins that you submit to tribes, not only you can count on a high percentage of re-sharing rate but also you can track each pin. More re-shares equals more traffic on Pinterest.
More quality pins from tribe mates to boost your own engagement:
By reciprocating your tribe mates, you will be re-sharing their quality pins, which is another way to boost your Pinterest engagement.
Know before you join:
Tailwind provides statistics on tribes that Pinterest can not on group boards.
You can search niche topics on Tailwind. Then all the related tribes will appear with key statistics. It shows how many members are in the tribe, and more importantly, the Activity score.
The Activity score shows how active the members are submitting and sharing the pins. The higher activity score, broader the reach.
You can also preview the tribe without committing to join so you know exactly what you are getting yourself into.
Tailwind tribes is one of the BEST features that Tailwind offers, however, it is not the ONLY benefit to help you increase traffic on Pinterest.
Pinterest rewards traffic to high quality and consistent pinners. Having a Pinterest approved auto scheduler will help you pin consistantly without having to manually pin everyday.
You can try Tailwind for FREE for up to 100 pins using my link below. With the Free Trail, you will also have access to 5 tribes.
If you love it after that, it is $9.99 a month when you pay for a year in advance, or $14.99 paid monthly.
Tailwind Tribes Pros and Cons
Pros
- Provides key statistics that Pinterest can not
- Many tribes you can join straight away without having to go through a tedious application process
- Higher re-sharing rate due to the tribe rule
- Comparing with Pinterest group boards, Tailwind tribes have higher quality pins, less spam due to the limits on the number of pin submission (if you are not on an unlimited plan)
- Easy to find popular pins to re-pin to your own boards.
Cons
- It’s a paid service once you finished the Free trail.
- Unless you are on the unlimited plan, there is a limit on the number of pins you can submit per month. So put your best pins forward =)
- Depending on your plan, you are also limited to the number of tribes that you can join.
Tailwind Tribes vs. Pinterest Group boards, which is better? to explode traffic on Pinterest?
Now that you understand what Tailwind tribes and Pinterest group boards are, and how they can help you to increase traffic on Pinterest. The ultimate question is – which one is better?
****Drum roll ****
They are better TOGETHER, my friend.
If you are new to Pinterest and are considering if Tailwind tribe is worth the investment to further increase traffic on Pinterest, I’d say definitely YES.
You can join many highly active tribes instantly, and start to get your pins out to the right audience consistently. This may take some time… to supplement that, apply for some high quality Pinterest group boards. To find out which Pinterest group boards are the best for your, I use this 3rd party Pinterest group boards directory – Pingroupie.
For those of you who are established Pinterest Pinners, I will be surprised that you are not already using Tailwind as the auto scheduler. This is a game changer when it comes to increasing productivity alone.
You can also use Tailwind to analyze how each of your Pinterest Group Boards is working for you. As you can see below, I wanted to check how my pins perform on some recent group boards that I joined.
Sorting by Virality score (how many Repins per Pin you get on average), it ranks the group boards that I get the most re-pins to the least.
Using the statistics Tailwind provides to fine tune your Pinterest strategy will help you reach the next level of your Pinterest game.
Want to learn step-by-step on how to use Pinterest group boards and Tailwind Tribes to increase your traffic on Pinterest and make money? Check out Elise McDowells’s eCourse Paid by Pinterest. It helped me to triple my Pinterest engagement and blog traffic.
I hope you find this helpful my friend. What methods do you use to increase traffic on Pinterest? Leave comments below, I’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for this amazing article on pinterest. I am new to pinterest and don’t really know much about it yet, but this is the first social media platform that I am using at the moment to try and promote my blog.
I joined tailwind and I think it is fantastic to grow followers on pinterest. I didn’t really know much about group boards so I am glad I read your post and now I will be using both to promote my blog. I have bookmarked this page so I can come back to it.
Thanks for the read
Hi Jenny,
I am so please to hear that you found this article helpful.
Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your website. You are doing right by concentrate one social media platform at a time.
Let me know if I can be further help on your Pinterest and Tailwind journey.
All the best,
Chloe
Thanks for such an in depth overview Chloe! I love Pinterest as a viewer but this is such a timely post because I was just reading about how to use Pinterest for traffic. I’ve bookmarked your page and will be back once I start diving into using Pinterest more. (p.s. the Tailwinds part was a bit over my head so I’ll be back!)
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for the honest feedback and glad to hear this was helpful. Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your blog especially new blog, however it requires getting your business account setup properly then pining constantly. Tailwind is a great tool to help you to do that.
I know all of these can be confusing and overwhelming at the start. I was too… I do recommend a good eCourse to help you to learn properly. I learned my skill with Elise McDowell’s “Paid by Pinterest”. It helped me to triple my blog traffic. Check it out – highly recommend it!
If I can be any further help on your Pinterest journey, please feel free to reach out.
All the best Tracy,
Chloe
Hello Chloe, the last time, you showed me the exact steps I needed to create really attractive pins. That was such an awesome tutorial. But that’s by the way. I have to say though, I recently came across tailwind but didn’t really understand how it could possibly help me achieve my pinterest goals so I quickly tagged it a distraction and brushed it aside.
But this review now makes me look at that action I took in retrospect. You give details so well I doubt it is possible to misunderstand your articles. Well, from the look of things now, I have to find a way to integrate this powerful tool into my business.
It’s been really informative. I’m glad you shared
I totally understand that all the tools can be SOOO overwhelming. I was too Rhain… but Tailwind is one definitely will HELP you to simplify things and set on auto pilot. I also highly recommend to find a good eCourse to learn (I recommend “Paid by Pinterest” ), otherwise, you will be spending hours weeding through the free stuff online and ended up making silly mistake by taking the wrong advice and ended up in Pinterest Jail (like me)…
All the best my friend,
Chloe