Tips for a Successful Group

With hundreds of new groups created every week, and probably half as many dying out due to inactivity or lack of watchers and interest, it's clear that the group platform is a double-edged sword. Creating your own group is an amazing experience, and it can be so rewarding! But it also takes a lot of work, sweat and jolly cooperation to make the dream come true. With this in mind, I contacted various group Founders of some big deviantART groups and asked them some questions.

Creating Your Group

One day you woke up and -bam! the idea hit you, and in your head you thought to yourself "why not?". Well, here is a list of a whole number of reasons why NOT (thanks go to the lovely 3wyl for reinforcing these three points):

• a group, whether small or big, means work. It means regular activity within deviantART, and with regular I mean daily;
• leading a group will change completely your deviantART experience. You will spend much more time working for your group, and so, much less time interacting with your watchers and having a fun, random time;
• the above never gets better. A group will never run on its own, and regardless how many dedicated admins you have, they are not YOU. They are not as driven and passionate, and how could they? Ultimately the group is your baby, and without you, believe me, it will eventually die. (NB: giving up Foundership to someone else when you can't take care of your Group often revives it, but sometimes it doesn't, and it's for the same reason I just listed now)

Okay, the "whole number of reasons" might have been a bit of an overstatement. But quantity doesn't mean shit, and the quality of these three points above is priceless.
Once you acknowledge and accept them, you're ready to get down to business. You know you want to create this group, so the next step is knowing what you want your group to be about. Which is usually something you already know, so yay!

It's not that simple, however: regardless of what you want to create, it's usually good to check if that idea hasn't already been turned into a successful, active, thriving community. While there are countless photography groups, if you want to create a group to organise devMEETS for Canon-loving photographers from the United States and that group already exists and it's a happy fairyland of puppy-ness, maybe you should consider applying for an admin position there and think of some other thing you could start yourself, you know what I mean? I personally feel like deviantART should be less about individuals trying to take success from each other's hands and more about positive collaboration leading to an overall success and improvement of the community.
To get back on the subject, if your very specific idea hasn't been taken yet, if it has been taken but the group is hardly a successful/active one, or if your idea is something already existing that you want to turn into your own, unique niche for deviants, go ahead and create it!

The group Founders I contacted, when asked what was the idea behind their group, gave me the most diverse replies. There were those who started their group because even though there were similar groups already they "felt like there was a need for a new, smaller photography community for deviantART photographers to share their work and exchange ideas" (nadjasybill - PhotographersClub), those whose "idea in that moment was to help the young ones get self-confidence, to see by themselves that everyone starts from the bottom" (itt0ryu - Walkthrough-Rookie), and those who tried creating something completely different because "Both of us felt that the workshop format could work on deviantart, taking inspiration from the Times, that used to run author-led workshops. The idea was to bring lots of different writers of variating experiences together to learn off each other and dare to try new things" (BeccaJS, and lovetodeviate - Writers-Workshop). So you see that the inspiration can really come from anywhere!

My group is alive and kicking! Now what?

One of the very first things one wonders when creating a new group is "will I get members? will they like my group or will they ignore it?". Well, remember this: with hundreds of new groups created every week um, I meant, with all the groups already existing on dA, and the new ones being constantly created, your group's membership won't grow on its own unless you actively promote the group itself.

Surely, there is the situation in which you're a deviant with a lot of (active!) watchers who know you created the group because you've been talking about it nonstop with them, and so if they join and spread the word for you, well, you are indeed The mastermind for effortlessly getting people to promote your group and make it grow.

But since for the purpose of this article we need you to be the poor lonely soul who has to do all the hard work - and trust me, most of the big group Founders have worked a LOT so you're not alone! -, let's see what your options are.

Promotion comes in many forms. From my experience - and the one of all the other group Founders that helped me! -, here are some ideas:

• first off, affiliation. With the groups platform it's seriously easier than ever. Check out groups that belong to your same area of interest, read their affiliation rules, and if everything fits go ahead and send them an affiliation request. Most groups have an affiliates widget around their page somewhere, and a lot do regular features about their affiliated groups so you get a lot of indirect exposure through this! Don't underestimate the power of that tool. (:
• INVITATIONS. I can't stress this enough, invitations are awesome. You can browse deviantART galleries for artwork fitting your group's criteria and invite the deviant to join the group, or request to add their deviations to your gallery. That will bring them to your page and maybe to join, too!
• "informal" invitations (aka write to people saying "there's this new group I started, I think you might enjoy it!"). When my theWrittenRevolution started out, the admins used to go through Literature deviations and not invite the deviant who wrote them, but the people critiquing on them. Since tWR is a critique group, we used to write to them because we thought they'd enjoy the group more, having an interest in critique already. That's how I was invited to join the group, during its very first days of life, and a couple of weeks later I was invited to the admin team and never left. (:
• influential people within the community. Ask the CVs that belong to your Group's artwork to help promote your group, find people posting regular features about events in the community - how could I not mention the absolutely amazing HugQueen and her Love dA Lit here? And I trust there are many others for different forms of art -, because "If you reach out, you'll definitely get something back for that, but the main thing is making the effort yourself." (3wyl).
• competitions/activities with prizes. We deviants love them contests, prompts, workshops and stuff that helps our creativity flow! Set something strong up, find people willing to offer prizes - reread that quote by 3wyl up there again to know how to do that! - and go. slowly but surely people will come.

As you can see, it all involves a lot of work from you. But one of the main reasons and probably the sole reason for newborn groups dying out is that their admins weren't willing to work as much as it was needed for the group to survive all the others around it, and the "competition". So if you do work enough, you've pretty much ruled out the only reason of failure!

I set all those things in motion. My group is growing healthily! What should I do now?!

Your group is your baby. you need to keep it alive yourself, even after it has taken its first steps! As alltheoriginalnames, from Realm-of-Fantasy rightly said, it's "activity and interactivity" what keeps a group alive: "A group is cultivated and nurtured, and one must take care to sustain it after it is established. "

All the group Founders I talked to agreed on this one point: it's involvement what keeps a group alive. It's novelty, but not novelty for novelty's sake - it's a constructive evolution to keep things new, but not confusingly new.
Always remember that the fate of your group, whether it will be glorious or a failure, is very dependent on how you treat your members, by what you give them and what you ask of them. Remember that your members will give you everything only if your group does the same for them!

A few things to consider to entertain your members are:

• contests! They are a huge hit, and that's also when all your affiliation efforts and involvement with CVs and important individuals within the community can come in handy. Don't be shy and share the news about your contest with everyone! Politely ask for prize donations, features, any kind of prize that is specific to your kind of group - my group, theWrittenRevolution, as I said is a critique group so I would love to have people offer critiques as prizes! - because everyone enjoys a nice reward every now and then, and contests add on top of that the fun of competition itself.
• Activities. Periodic activities that actively involve members are super fun. Not everyone might always be able to participate, but nonetheless, they are super worth the organization they require. Prompts, workshops, features, chat events, themed submissions, any kind of challenge really! Some simple prize is always a plus, but keep in mind that you don't want prizes to be the reason why people participate, so don't make it about the prizes, the focus is on the activity you chose! Also remember to share around the community the info about your activities to reach the most deviants possible.
• admins aren't those entities high up in the food chain that members feel they won't ever get in contact with. Get in touch with members, comment on the deviations they submit when you can, favourite here and there and always, always reply to their comments on your blog entries, galleries, profile page, polls and so on. It's not always about official group duty, and casual chatting helps members get comfortable and enjoy the group more. People like feeling important, and what better way to do so than communicating with them?

These might look like very generic, not so helpful tips, but that's really all there is to it. The possibilities from these are endless, and each provide such a huge number of options that exploring all of them is impossible! It's about you and what you want your group to do.

Any last tips from the Group of Wise Founders?

Actually, quite a few.

From alltheoriginalnames, of Realm-of-Fantasy,
"Numbers are just that, numbers. If you are in it for a high score, I would suggest a video game instead.
Numbers may act like a barometer to a certain extent, but can also be very misleading.
Use numbers as a tool, rather than a defining factor.
"Ok, more people looked at this article than the last one. Why? Let's look into that."
But don't think something is an utter failure because of a lack of numbers or a total success because of an over abundance of them."

From 3wyl,
"do something different that other groups do not do. Have something that separates you from the rest. Keep the idea simple so that others from all ages, backgrounds, etc. can understand."

From nadjasybill,
"There is nothing as valuable as finding admins who are genuinely interested in keeping the group alive. Quite often, you will have people who are very enthusiastic at first and eventually lose interest, which causes a high admin turnover. If you are running the group, you have to make sure that you are dedicated or have admins who are as dedicated as you are and can take the reins when you can’t. Running a group can be very time-consuming and you should never start one without putting some serious thought into keeping it active. " (I wholeheartedly agree with this and would have mentioned if it hadn't come up from one of the other Founders! Having a team that you can trust is pivotal to the success and well-being of your group. BeccaJS pointed this out also, so kudos to her too)

From itt0ryu, of Walkthrough-Rookie
"give them hope and the tools to get better at doing what they love." (this is a suggestion you better not ignore! Collecting resources to help your members improve is an amazing idea. Sharing them regularly lets newer members be in the know, too!)

From BeccaJS, of Writers-Workshop
"Change is very important, but changing too much to suit one or two over opinionated members is not good. Change needs to be clever, and as a founder you need to be completely into your group to identify when it needs to happen. Keeping the group fresh is always a good start- up to date resources, staff and communication will keep your members happy and enthusiastic."

And some last personal advice from me. One question I asked to all group Founders was "Do you think that if you changed your rules to more strict ones, especially regarding submissions, members would leave the group?". The general response was that while change for change's sake is wrong, a meaningful, positive change that the group will benefit from should simply happen. Change is scary, especially when you're making things stricter because a lot of deviants are allergic to following rules - ScarletteDeath from iLovePhotographyClub rightly says, about this topic, "Every couple of months we have to hire new moderators because some of the older get tired of the constant effort they need to put into this. It’s not just voting on submissions; it’s also feedback to members and constant reviewing and debating acceptance/decline of submissions that gets exhausting.", it's something I suggest you keep in mind! - and might leave your group immediately or keep getting their submissions declined because they aren't following the guidelines AND SO leave.
However, "With changes some people may come and go, but we hope to stay true to our core audience. some people don't like rules, others respect them. Either way the guidelines are a necessary evil." (alltheoriginalnames - Realm-of-Fantasy), this is a big truth. As long as you stay true to your group's purpose, and the changes are appreciated by your core audience, the audience that cares about getting the most out of your group (AKA the members who care enough to read and follow your rules), then I believe you'll be fine. (:
Always explain your reasons for any change, always be open to outside opinions and consider them when weighing new ideas, but don't let some negative feedback get you down and completely change your mind about what you wanted to do. Be balanced in everything, that's the only way things work out!