Increasing Group Size

Groups---We love em and we hate em.  Spam...how many of us, now be honest, turn off group notices from the very groups we post to?  I do.  As a venue owner there is nothing more distracting than getting a million group notices ever half hour to hour.  Yet at the same time we can't do without them.  As a venue owner, I look at a following as part of the formula that goes into whether I book an artist.  True talent plays the largest role in that formula, but there are also many times I have booked some awesome acts only to be the one one in the audience, or myself and a manager.  To be extremely realistic, following counts.  Once booked I do believe it is my job as a venue owner to promote that artist as much as possible, through SL event listings, Moolto, SL profiles, FaceBook, and the dreaded group notices.  I am sure that or I would hope that performers also take into consideration the size of the group of the venue.  I, myself, if I were a performer, would want to ensure that I was performing at venues that would give me the most exposure.  Exposure for both performer and venue is one of the main keys to success.  Exposure gets more people to the venue and the performance, hopefully accomplishing a few things, one being increased tips to the venue and to the performer, as we;; as good exposure for the best way of advertising will always be word of mouth.  As much as we hate groups, we also embrace them.


Differnet ways to increase group size.  The only examples I can share with you are ones that I have seen, done, or heard about.  I know of performers that are growing and actually spend their time in SL meeting and talking to people, at times performing just for them.  Sid Slade was soooo good at marketing himself that way.  His group began to grow slowly but steadily.  Managers and hosts encourage people to join the performer's group during live events.  I have seen group inviters that hit me with a request when I land on a sim or venue.  Rarely do I myself ever join a group that way, preferring a more personalized approach, but for many it works. Myself, I send out a group invite once during the middle of an event and follow it up with a message to tap the subscribo if they need their group space.   There is one performer, and I have to question the ethics behind this one...he once told me that he keeps his group numbers that high due to the fact that he would start like a new avi, he then went through got the current list of last names, then would look them up in search and issue group invites.  It is common that noobies join whatever pops up, whether they know what it is or not.  Ethical or not, I have to admit that it must take a great deal of time to do this.  Yet it allows the person that does things this way to boast of huge group numbers, and more people to spam too.  The bottom line to this is that there are many ways to increase your group numbers.