Are Tailwind Communities and Pinterest Group Boards hurting your reach on Pinterest?
This is going to be a blog post that is going to get mixed reviews. But as someone who has been working in Pinterest marketing since 2015, I can tell you one very common factor that always comes into play when an account has a low confidence score (reach) is Tailwind communities and Pinterest Group Boards.
Before I get into why you may want to think twice before pinning to communities or group boards, I want to talk about a confidence score since you may not have heard of it before.
What is a confidence score?
Each pinner on Pinterest has something called a “confidence score.” A confidence score is how the Pinterest algorithm ranks YOU as a pinner and content creator.
So when your pins are getting a good reach and engagement, your confidence score is most likely on the higher end. But if you are not getting the reach and engagement you want from Pinterest, it’s probably due to a low confidence score.
Sadly, there is no way for you to know your “score,” but if your pins are getting a reach of 10, you can guess it’s probably on the lower end.
Common factors that make up a low confidence score:
- Consistency: You are not sending out fresh pins daily and staying active on the platform.
- Relevancy: Your pins are being sent to or saved to non-relevant boards. Thus showing the algorithm they don’t really “belong” in any specific spot.
- Outdated Pinning Strategies: You are pinning with outdated pinning strategies: EX: Sending the same pin to multiple boards on your profile. (THIS is a BIG NO NO)
While consistency and pinning with outdated pinning strategies play a large part in how the algorithm ranks your content, relevancy is the MOST important factor in how your content ranks on Pinterest.
Why you should think twice before pinning to group boards and Tailwind communities…
The Pinterest algorithm picks up on where your content is being pinned to. It picks up on the keywords your pin is optimized with AND the keywords of the board it is being saved to.
It also picks up on the other content within each board.
Pinterest shows you content in your smart feed based on a few different factors. But the main reason pins on “Gluten Free Recipes” appear when you type “Gluten-free recipes” in your guided search is that all of those pins have a few things in common:
- Relevant SEO in the title and description of the pin
- That pin was saved to a board specific to gluten-free recipes.
- The board that the pin was saved to is not only relevant to gluten-free recipes but also contains other pins specific to gluten-free recipes.
The algorithm goes, “ok, all these relevant factors line up, and we know this pin is specific to gluten-free recipes, so we will show it up at the top when those keywords are being searched.
Make sense?
Here is the biggies issue with Communities and Group Boards…
First, let’s take a look at this TailWind Community.
Title: Blogging and Social Media Pins:
Description: Tribe for Pinning social media, craft business, making money, and blogging-related pins. Please share TALL IMAGES ONLY. NO KEYWORD STUFFING OR REDIRECTS ON AFFILIATE LINKS!
You can see three different niches: Social Media, Craft Businesses, Making Money, and Blogging. Since this community is not extremely niche specific, the chance of your pin being saved to a relevant board is much lower.
99% of the time, the users that participate in a group like this one save your content to a board filled with pins on various topics. This way, they are playing by the rules of the community.
Unfortunately, when this happens, the algorithm has no clue where your pin belongs, thus hurting the reach of that pin and your account’s overall performance, as Pinterest thinks you are creating non-relevant content.
Now, let’s talk about Pinterest Group Boards.
Just a short 18 or so months ago, group boards were still a highly sought-after Pinterest practice. Users wanted to be a part of as many group boards as possible to get their pins out to a larger audience. 
Then Pinterest said: “Right now, we want creators to focus on relevancy. And many group boards have steered away from our original idea of what we wanted them to be, a place where creators shared ideas and inspiration.”
Basically saying that they are now used as a place to dump pins in the hope of getting that re-pin.
The issue with group boards is this:
- Unless they are VERY niche specific, they are usually not optimized for SEO AT ALL.
- Participants of these group boards (just like communities) tend to pin your content to a non-relevant board so that they comply with the rules of the group board. Now your pin is saved to a non-SEO optimized board, not relevant to your pin, and saved in a board full of pins on various topics.
- And these two things confuse the algorithm and hurt your pin’s reach and your confidence score as a pinner. Thus hurting the reach of your entire account.
The solution is this…
Even if your account has a low following, your pins and account will perform better overall if you are saving your pins to YOUR niche-specific SEO-optimized boards.
After spending the last 8 years personally working on 100’s of different accounts, I know this to be 100% true.
I can promise you that if you ditch your group boards, focus on updating all of your boards with proper Pinterest SEO. Focus on using proper SEO and trending keywords in your pins, AND make sure you are pinning within current best practices and guidelines; your account will grow.
Your content will start to rank under the right keywords, and Pinterest will start showing your content to more and more users. My account ranks in the top 6 when you search “Pinterest Marketing” All because my account and content is optimized with proper Pinterest SEO.
And the more your content ranks, the higher your entire profile will rank within your niche.
Pinterest can be confusing as there is a large amount of mixed information, false information, and highly outdated practices floating around the internet.
I promise it’s not as confusing as many make it out to be. Get your SEO down and a solid (up-to-date) pinning strategy, and you will be golden!
If you want to learn step-by-step how to properly optimize your Pinterest account, click HERE!
Happy Pinning!
xo Megan
