Online Support Groups

Lesson 2: Building the Group

Starting Small, Growing Big

No matter how wonderful or unique your group is, you will not have members overnight, so don't expect it. Your group may have only you as a member for a week or longer, the main thing to remember is that every online group has to start somewhere, and it starts with you.

Once you have created your group, and sometimes as you are creating it, you can usually have it listed in a directory. Yahoo! Groups, MSN Groups, and AOL Groups all have this feature, and you should consider having your group listed.

The one thing that you should not do is join another group similar to yours and then post a message announcing your group. This is considered to be spam by most group owners and is not looked on kindly. It is much easier to make sure that you have an inviting welcome message on your group's home page.

Your welcome message should inform prospective members that this is a new group, what your group will offer them (support, friendship, understanding, etc.), and your purpose for creating the group. If you are going to have restricted or closed membership, this is the place to state it and why.

The message can be altered as time goes by and you have more members joining the group. Remember to update, update, update! You don't want your message to read that your group is brand new if it has been around for six months or longer. If you alter your membership requirements from open to restricted, you also don't want your message to say that everyone is welcome to join.

You should think of your new group as a first garden. You must first prepare the soil and plant the seeds by creating the group. Your next step is to water and weed the garden making sure that it receives enough attention to be able to flourish later, that is what you are doing now. Your garden will grow, and over time, you will add to it, expanding on what you started with. If you try to do too much in the beginning you will grow to resent your garden and the time it takes to tend it, this is the same for your group.

By starting small, and knowing that you will not be an overnight 'hit' you can develop the group in a proper and balanced way. In the next Lesson, we will explore how you can get the word out that your group exists.

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