

Being active on a community site is an excellent way to keep your guild's name out and notable without having to rely on shouting about yourself. Obviously, not everyone can be a top-level theorycrafter or run dozens of events per month, but even just taking part in discussions and being friendly can make a significant impact. Just being active and helpful in the community of your game can often build up significant word of mouth alone. This is the same principle as the open events mentioned above if your guild is running something that people attend and like, they're more likely to remember your guild positively. Passive advertisement can often be as effective as outright advertisement, if not more so. Of course, running these events also requires a certain critical mass of people, so it's not always easy to do in the earliest stages of a guild's development. Instead, just run the event, thank people for coming, do the best you can, and then know that you left a positive impression on people when they are looking for a guild. Indeed, outright ending open events with "now join our guild" is a good way to make the goodwill you earn evaporate quickly players will feel like they've been held hostage for an advertisement. It's important to recognize the distinction here between advertising and recruiting open events are worthwhile even if your group isn't recruiting at the moment. You don't need to tell people about what your guild does, because you're showing them what you can do, welcoming people to take part in something fun while at the same time demonstrating your ability to handle it. All you have to do is organize and run an event that happens to include strangers.

Open events are a great form of advertising, in part because you don't actually have to do any advertising. But if I see a guild in World of Warcraft offering sign-ups to people who want to run old Mythic raids for transmogs as an open event? Now my interest is piqued, even if I don't want to join that guild. If I see a guild telling me "join up with us, we want more members," my eyes frequently glaze over. Just by focusing on actual things instead of buzzwords, you can make some extra impact. That's something that you can check on and provide, something tangible. Saying that you have a community focused on small-group content and scheduled runs for new players? That's an actual thing. Similarly, advertising a "great community" or "helpful players" isn't really an advertisement in and of itself what you call a great community might not be what another player sees as great or even acceptable. Instead of making a four-line advertisement stuffed with the stuff every guild has, a one-line advertisement with one unique feature is more likely to stick with people. Instead, what you need to convince people is that you can offer something above and beyond the normal. Those offerings will take care of themselves. When you're advertising your guild, you don't need to advertise things that everyone naturally assumes are present. You can argue (convincingly) that all of that is necessary, but you can't argue that it's unique. That's like advertising a car based on the fact that it has a windshield, headlights, and tires. And I always roll my eyes seeing them, because those things are not features. When I play Final Fantasy XIV, I regularly see advertisements for guilds that have a laundry list of features - buffs always on, a stocked guild bank, plenty of players, voice chat servers, and so forth. But how do you advertise effectively? It probably comes as no surprise that there are tricks to it, and mastering them is well worth the time it takes. Yes, some of this comes down to managing how your group interacts with others who aren't among your members. This means you have a complex problem on your hand, a need to advertise along with a need to avoid being seen as annoying. Sure, you may or may not to be recruiting right at this moment, but you still need people to know you exist or you'll be out of luck when you are recruiting again. Of course, you also know you need to promote your guild, even if you're not doing so by swinging a yowling cat over your head and shouting about it on the regular.
