I am considering starting a group. What advice can you give me? What do you wish you had known before you started a group? What are the pros and cons? What might not I be thinking of?? Thanks.
ok now to the topic I wish I knew to make everything to be approved from the get go the pros are you get to see everything your friends post to the groups cons are it takes time from other things and you get over whelmed... Haveing a group is great though well worth all the work!
I have a LOT of advice about group ownership...and don't even know where to begin!
Let's start off with the basics, and if you have any questions you know where to find me!
First, there are many variables involved in the decision to own, promote and manage a group on Gather.
Here are some important questions to ask yourself:
- "Are there other active and relevant groups that cover the same subject or theme as my potential group?"
- "Does it appear that my group will find an active audience here?" (for example, will your group only appeal to a very small number of people, and does the Gather community have the right target audience for you?)
- "Do I want to allow others to publish to my group, or will I use it to only showcase MY content?"
- "How much time do I want to spend managing my group and group content?"
Regarding the last question above, if you have a lot of free time, then an unmoderated group may be the best option, as you can spend more time monitoring and removing content that is considered off-topic. This also may foster more participation in your group as some members have a tendency to avoid publishing to a group that is moderated.
However, I always recommend moderating your groups, for several reasons:
You ensure all content is on-topic,
Current group members will only receive notification when content they have an interest in is published,
Prospective members will have a clearer understanding of what your group is all about; and,
Rejecting content from the moderation queue in a group is MUCH easier than removing content after it has been published to the group.
It is important to note that over 90% of new Gather Groups having a specific theme or topic end up failing within a few weeks of creation. Ultimately most of these groups succumb to the difficulty in dealing with content published to the group which does not fit the group's theme. Therefore, you greatly increase your group's chance of success in the community if you moderate group content.
No matter what direction you decide upon, be certain to have a clear, descriptive title and short description (synopsis) for your group...including an icon. Plus, you can add other group elements too, like banners and themes, but those aren't very important if your group strays off topic.
If for some reason group ownership isn't for you, you can always change the group to private later on (so it won't be visible in the community), or easily request to have the group removed.
I enjoy my group as a whole but you need to set how many pictures are added if you are going to comment on everything that is added to the group,if you are not going to comment don't do anything.You can ask that no more than -- pictures are added but I don't know that would help. Have a great gather day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for posting to sparealine.gather.com
You should also note that groups and group ownership do not generate points (directly), and 'post anything' groups really serve little to no purpose in the community.
I would only add that there are now so many post anything type groups, a theme would be better I think, and to keep it on topic. Something you enjoy doing as a hobby perhaps, or maybe you saw a theme group that didn't stay on topic and wish it did? That might draw similar thinkers... I dunno. I started mine pretty far back and tried to think of unique things that didn't exist yet by doing some group searching; even my one "post anything" group was pretty rare back then. I can see it being a little tougher to decide now... Good luck, and take care.
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Comments: 15
I have a LOT of advice about group ownership...and don't even know where to begin!
Let's start off with the basics, and if you have any questions you know where to find me!
First, there are many variables involved in the decision to own, promote and manage a group on Gather.
Here are some important questions to ask yourself:
- "Are there other active and relevant groups that cover the same subject or theme as my potential group?"
- "Does it appear that my group will find an active audience here?" (for example, will your group only appeal to a very small number of people, and does the Gather community have the right target audience for you?)
- "Do I want to allow others to publish to my group, or will I use it to only showcase MY content?"
- "How much time do I want to spend managing my group and group content?"
Regarding the last question above, if you have a lot of free time, then an unmoderated group may be the best option, as you can spend more time monitoring and removing content that is considered off-topic. This also may foster more participation in your group as some members have a tendency to avoid publishing to a group that is moderated.
However, I always recommend moderating your groups, for several reasons:
It is important to note that over 90% of new Gather Groups having a specific theme or topic end up failing within a few weeks of creation. Ultimately most of these groups succumb to the difficulty in dealing with content published to the group which does not fit the group's theme. Therefore, you greatly increase your group's chance of success in the community if you moderate group content.
No matter what direction you decide upon, be certain to have a clear, descriptive title and short description (synopsis) for your group...including an icon. Plus, you can add other group elements too, like banners and themes, but those aren't very important if your group strays off topic.
If for some reason group ownership isn't for you, you can always change the group to private later on (so it won't be visible in the community), or easily request to have the group removed.
Have a great gather day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for posting to sparealine.gather.com
I started mine pretty far back and tried to think of unique things that didn't exist yet by doing some group searching; even my one "post anything" group was pretty rare back then. I can see it being a little tougher to decide now...
Good luck, and take care.
Good luck with your group