Best Groups Tips

That's good.

My tip: Post an event right off the bat associated with the group and post it via the group page. It's worked well for my Walk and Talk Event Group.

Tip: Do a member search for people who might be interested in your group's topic and send them each a personal email to invite them to your group.

I did this for Steve Ulene's Dog Lover's Group. I had prodded him to start the group since he's a client of mine and he owns a doggie daycare. I knew that eventually someone would start a dog related group and I liked the idea of him being the originator.

To help him get started, I did the member search for "dog" "dogs" and "pets" and sent some notes to people who I thought would enjoy his group. Almost everyone I emailed seems to have joined!

And in an unintentional twist, a couple of those folks also asked for my rates and I am getting clients out of what was originally just an attempt to help Steve out.

Tip: Search for keywords related to your group on the Events mainpage.

Add relevant events to your group and inform the event host to post future related events to your group page.

all of the above and: * when I invite a person to biznik, I invite them to join my group, because either their values or interests probably match mine.

• Publish articles! in the group, and for general distribution...had a lot of people sign nup because of my reputation.

Dan...I'll tune into that post on your page soon...am very interested in building online community.

Thanks for asking and sharing.

Tip: Personalize and welcome members

I monitor my groups and whenever someone new joins, I shoot them a personal email, thanking them for joining and engaging them about the group theme or topic.

I likely learned this technique from the famous Karrie Kohlhaas, because I find myself responding enthusiastically whenever she invites me to or welcomes me to events/groups/what have you.

Tip: Regular emails to the community

Everytime I put some new energy into my groups, whether it's posting a new event, starting a discussion, or just even noticing and encouraging ongoing activity, I send out a message to all the group members giving them an update of what's new in the group.

Again, I've learned this by watching other group leaders.

Great tips, Rachel. And thanks for the props! I've been wanting to take my own advice and personally welcome every new member to all of my groups but have been sorely lacking in that area.

I am going to send out some group emails to get caught up on that and then take it from there. Thanks for the kick!

I regularly get people joining Biznik from communities where Biznik is unknown, or there are few inactive members. They want to know how to get the Biznik ball rolling in their area.

Along with the usual stuff about inviting people, getting events going, etc, I also suggest they start a Group for their area. When they invite people to join Biznik, invite them to join the local Group as well, so they immediately have other local people to talk to and collaborate with.

You and me both, sista!

Introduce group members to each other via the introduce function on biznik.

As I do with events, I like to introduce people to one another, a great way to build community and help people see how relevant they are by making them seen and not anonymous.

I never use the default copy. I always write something specific about each member and why I think they should know each other, talk, meet, collaborate, etc.