Glossy-Neo

Advertising your guild

Once you have made your guild, try to use some of the advice given in the "Creating a guild" guide, then your guild should be looking fairly respectable. It might not be the greatest guild you have ever seen but it looks nice and there is a good possibility that someone would be interested in joining. I'm going to help with some of the things you may want to do to get members by advertising.

The perfect advertisement

Once you think that your guild is up to scratch, you will have to advertise. It is not likely anyone will be joining if they haven't heard of it! You should have an ad ready, so that when you see someone on the boards saying that they are looking for a guild, you can post really fast!

An advertisement can be a list of things about your guild but then again, some people get really annoyed that you haven't bothered to write anything meaningful. An advertisement can also be a paragraph about the guild and some of its wonderful features. These also bug me, they are just annoying to read! Try to use both methods in one, a few bullet points and a couple of sentences.

Otherwise, depending on your guild, you could have a few paragraphs and post one after the other, finally getting the story out. I like these ones, they can be really interesting and keep reminding me of your guild, as everyone else posts about their guild (then leaves) and your posts pop up between their's! It also show that you have actually tried. Although, I think it really depends when or if you use one of these.

Another really important thing you absolutely have to have in this advertisment, is your guild's URL. I know I can be lazy, I wouldn't expect much more from many people.. Just have it there so people can easily click on the link, instead of having to make the trouble of visiting your userlookup then your guild!

Once you have your ad, try to advertise an hour or two every day for at least a couple of weeks. You made the guild, you want it to succeed, it's your responsibility to make sure that happens, not anyone elses!

Where & how to advertise

You may be thinking, "there is more than just the boards you can use to advertise??" Of course there is! Generally the boards are one of the better places but you can advertise on your userlookup, in your shop and maybe even a [popular] petpage. There are some sites where you can advertise your guild on their webpage and some even offer a guild database where you can add your guild!

On the boards, you might like to make your own board for your guild. I suggest using a few smilies to get people interested, I don't like caps, they make me feel as though I'm being yelled at (although, chatspeak/sticky caps are a whole lot worse than them!) but use whatever you want in the topic, it is your guild! On this board, please don't just "bump" it all the time, at least offer some information every so often!

One thing I suggest you don't do is to lie about your guild to make it seem better, or making a guild board titled "guildless". I would have to say that is one of the not-so-great [worst] ways of advertising! It is just going to attract people advertising their guilds, if the are advertising their guild, then I don't think you have much chance of a new member :P

You can join a site's forums if you wanted to, most of them have a particular spot in their forums for everyone to advertise their guilds! Just make sure that you post about your guild where you are allowed to and don't ever break any rules. To make sure you don't do this, read all the forum rules or any rules regarding advertising. Through forums, you will be able to target a range of people and may even find some people interested in joining!

There is also the good old way of searching for possible guild members on the boards. There are plenty of boards titled "guildless" or "guildless - ignore no. of posts", they can always be found around somewhere. Usually the person looking for a guild will have posted a number of things that they would like in a guild. Please read these and only if you actually fit most of those things - post! Sometimes, the person may have asked for you to type a word at the top of your post e.g. "socks rock" or "chicken". Do this to show that you have actually read the person's post!

Some members!

After a lot of hard work with advertising and all, you probably have gotten some really awesome members! Make sure that you welcome them to your guild, actually care for them, members make up an important part of a [successful] guild ;) Send them a neomail, welcoming them to the guild, you're hoping they will enjoy it, it would be great if they could introduce themselves on the guild board! Or something along those lines, maybe even compliment them on their userlookup or a petpage.. Just make sure you don't sound like a robot, send a personalised message to every new member, at least while your guild is small!

Members love to be wanted/needed in the guild, to be involved, so make sure you give them plenty of oppurtunity to do so! Post a message asking if anyone would like to host a contest, write something for the guild or make some guild-related graphics for other members to use. Give them plenty of different things to do so that they can use a talent or skill! If you involve them in many different activities then they will be active and very happy with your guild!

Although, not all members will want to do these sort of things, they might just want to chat or are in your guild just for the sake of being in a guild. Don't try to shove the different things that members could do in anyone's faces, this just annoys people! Just casualy mention it on the board, post a short message on the front page and mention on the guild website [if you have one]

One thing to really avoid is to ask constantly for donations! It is extremely annoying to be constantly asked for neopoints, people will give when they want to. If they think that there is something worthwile in giving neopoints to, to they will give. So it will be good if you could tell them a little about where their neopoints are going e.g. if it is a major giveaway. They will be happy to know that their neopoints are being used for the guild, not going to your pocket!

Feedback

Wow, that was a long guide! Hopefully you have gotten some ideas as to what to do when advertising your guild and how to do it. Then how to keep members you get.

Any information wrong? Got feedback or comments? Feel free to contact Emily.