The creation of your Guild or Team should be a fun undertaking. Though, it’s not always easy to get one started, they can be very easy to ruin with the wrong structure. Following these simple strategies should have your group prospering in no time and keep your followers satisfied.

 DO’s

Explain the group requirements.
Your group is your group for a reason. Make the rules and requirements of the group the way you want them to be. If you want your group to be for pancake lovers only, that’s your call. If you feel that there needs to be a regular fee to keep your group going, warn people on your group’s profile page. In times with a rough economy people are a little more timid in their spending, so give them a comprehensive explanation of where their money is going and how it will be used.

Keep your Team or Guild’s profile pages simple, clean, and precise.
When finished making your organization’s rules and requirements, go back through them and make sure they are clean and without errors. Try to make the rules as concise as possible so that people can read through them quickly and memorize them easier. Make sure the requirements are clearly marked and present on the profile so that members can easily find them. Keep the group’s mission statement accurate; if it is not, this will reflect badly on the group and its member’s shops.

Be helpful to your members.
Your group would not be a group without your members. Keep them happy and satisfied with being in your group. Organize all your members email addresses into a mailing list to keep them posted on happenings within the group. If they have any questions try to help them the best you can; treat them with the utmost respect. To be more helpful and more accommodating to your members, create a chatroom schedule that will meet at least monthly to discuss upcoming events and answer anyone’s questions. Take note of all the questions and answers from each chat session and then send a summary of them to each person in the group. This way everyone can have access to all Team or Guild information and can easily look at the email if they forget something.

Keep members aware of events and updates.
To help members further, set up an event calendar. On Artfire this is easy to do; just utilize the event calendar feature of the Guild pages. For Etsy Teams, this may be a little more difficult. For an Etsy Team, it would be easier to make a calendar on a group blog or website. Keep track of the calendar and update it as often as new developments occur. If any changes need to be made to the calendar, warn your members ahead of time with a group wide email.

DON’TS

Do not be too strict with your group rules.
There is nothing wrong with having rules for your group. Rules help in keeping things in order, but overextending your authority will drive away new or old members. Having too many rules can be repelling mechanism for prospective members. Keep your rules simple and to the point; confusion will, again, repel people from joining. Do not try to control others’ shops. That is something that you have no right to do, and if you do this word-of-mouth of your behavior could push away any future new teammates. For example, your Team or Guild is based around jewelry, so do not require them to only sell jewelry. Let them sell other things they want to; as long as they sell jewelry they should still be allowed to join your group.

Do not be a pushy leader.
Having group events, like sales and meet-ups, are fun for members. You will probably want as many members to join in on these as possible, but having everyone join is not likely. Do not ever force your Team or Guild to join in on an event. Everyone has their own lives and sometimes people just cannot make it. You may want your group to be known and active, but you do not want to be known as a tyrannical dictator. If some members cannot join in an event, ask them to promote the event in their blogs, Twitter, or tell their friends and family. Even though they are not partaking in the event, they are still helping the group. Again, do not force them; keep everything optional.

Do not delete members without contacting them first.
Like I stated earlier, members have their own lives. Sometimes a member will go inactive online for a little while. Just because they are inactive does not mean that they should be removed from the group. Send your inactive ally an email to try to find when and if they return. If they do not wish to return to your group or your email goes unanswered, do not take it to heart. They may have had a family emergency or they may just not want to be a part of your group anymore. Do not get angry with them; show professionalism. Deleting them without warning is never a good thing. Nobody wants to log in and find that they are no longer a part of your Team or Guild.

Do not give up on yourself.
Every Team or Guild can run into a problem eventually. Do not let these issues get you down on yourself. If you want your group to be larger and it’s not happening, relax! It can take time to get a larger group, and even if it does not happen, do not let it get in the way of you and your group mates fun. If your Team or Guild is not organized at first, do not be alarmed. An organizational system that works can take a little while to put in motion. If your group becomes something that is not what you envisioned it to be, do not immediately give up on it. Try to keep it running for awhile to see how it pans out. If it does not work out after all, then disband it, but warn your members of its impending demise. Do not ever let anything get you disheartened with your choice to be a leader.

After applying these helpful tips into your Team or Guild’s creative atmosphere, group troubles should be easier to handle. Though they will not solve all problems, they give a nice healthy start onto many major problems that every group will eventually face in its lifetime. But, there is really only one strategy that every group should follow: have a great time!

 Photo courtesy of Justin V.