25 Tips for Growing Your Big Tent Group

1. Post to the “Group” area for your local Craigslist – make sure to tell people how to join your group. http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

2. Encourage your members to use the “Group Promotion” widget on your group’s “about page” to

easily tell their friends about your group. 3. Check out websites regarding your particular area of interest to see if they allow free advertising.

For example, for a parents’ group, www.babyzone.com and www.parentzone.com allow free advertising to playgroups.

4. Look for smaller local papers that may allow cheap or free advertising.

5. Go to Yahoo! Answers and answer questions related to your group’s topic…and lead them back to your group. (Here’s an example by Tina in the Recipe Swap group: http://answers.yahoo.com)

6. Partner with other local companies or groups to cross-advertise. 7. Make business cards and hand them out to people whom you’d like to join

your group. You can also give them to other members to hand out to their friends. (http://www.uprinting.com or www.vistaprint.com – VistaPrint sends out an email with up to an 80% discount if you don’t complete the purchase process and leave their site.)

8. Run a contest to see which member can generate the most referrals and give them a “Grand Prize”. 9. Have some sort of recognizable wear that your group dons when out in public so that if others see

you having a great time, they’ll know they want to join you and will be able to identify your group. (Ideas include: t-shirts, buttons, leis, and bracelets.)

10. Write your own announcement article and submit to www.prweb.com.

11. Put fliers up in local areas that you frequent or where the types of people you want to interest in your group may visit.

12. Assign a welcoming committee – people to announce new members, create

bios to introduce them, and someone to reach out to them to make sure to welcome them at their first event.

13. Have consistent and frequent events – the best attended events are those that are consistent and occur often enough for people to plan around them.

14. Put yourself out there – to make your group cohesive and productive, lead by example. If you want

your message board to be active, start by adding posts with conversation starters, or modeling the types of posts you’d like to see from others.

15. Use the talents of others- you may have members that are graphic designers – use their skills to

have them help you design a great logo – then allow them to sell merchandise with that logo to other members – which will also create a community feel and appreciation of being a part of an established group. (You can create and sell merchandise at sites like www.cafepress.com)

16. Ask local vendors to provide raffle prizes for your group – then have occasional parties to give away

freebies. 17. Feature a member of the month of your public group page. 18. Post info about your group in other online groups you belong to – make sure to

get that group owner’s permission.

19. Email people who leave the group and ask them if there’s anything wrong or how you can get them

to stay. 20. Include a link to your group in your email signature line and encourage your group members to do

the same. 21. Talk with other groups within your area of interest and see if you can combine your efforts into one

group. 22. Write a story about a member in your group and something great or inspirational they did and

submit it to your local paper – be sure the article mentions your group somewhere in it! 23. Ask local vendors to offer you group discounts for events or special

occasions – discounts people can’t get on their own. 24. Ask others for help – it gives them a sense of ownership and they may give

you an idea you wouldn’t have thought of. 25. If you have people who have requested to join but who are not completing the sign up process, they

should send emails from their personal accounts to touch base - as sometimes invites may have gone to spam.