Guild Wars 2

So I joined this relative new and small guild, currently only 10 members. Since I am the most active members of the guild currently, I am tasked with expanding the guild. Our goal is to reach 50 players and we aim to draw players that are relatively new to the game or undergone a long hiatus.

Since I never done this kind of work before, how should I go about advertising and recruit new members. Our guild is a casual guild that focus mostly on PVE content and guild missions, with some WvW on the side. Most veteran or high ranking members of our guild members have full time job or study full time in schools so no one will be on during the day on weekdays.

Be honest when talking to potential recruits when giving information / asking questions.
Not too honest to scare them away, but make sure you’re talking from your personal opinion.

Also Map chat might be a usefull tool, but when you use this make sure you make a nice message out of it. Not the same message everyone else got:
Bla Bla [BLA] recruiting we’ve got (Guild missions, ts, forum, events, awesome community, friendly players, newb friendly, etc etc)

What might help your guild, as you’re small and “new”
Go to low level zones and try to find players new to Guild Wars. After recruitment you can guide these players and help them with their stuff, makes them loyal to you so that they aren’t as likely to hop to another guild.

Also, recruiting for a small guild can be a really tough job, as players join and leave when they find the guild isn’t big enough, not active enough, not many players online at same time, etc etc.

Guardian of Angels.9867:

Be honest when talking to potential recruits when giving information / asking questions.
Not too honest to scare them away, but make sure you’re talking from your personal opinion.

Also Map chat might be a usefull tool, but when you use this make sure you make a nice message out of it. Not the same message everyone else got:
Bla Bla [BLA] recruiting we’ve got (Guild missions, ts, forum, events, awesome community, friendly players, newb friendly, etc etc)

What might help your guild, as you’re small and “new”
Go to low level zones and try to find players new to Guild Wars. After recruitment you can guide these players and help them with their stuff, makes them loyal to you so that they aren’t as likely to hop to another guild.

Also, recruiting for a small guild can be a really tough job, as players join and leave when they find the guild isn’t big enough, not active enough, not many players online at same time, etc etc.

Gotcha, thanks for the tip. Guess I will be stationed at Queensdale for a while now. I would assume human starting zone would be the most likely place to find players new to GW2

Humans were the most played race I believed (was some infograph on those a while back). Though it doesn’t hurt to switch between all the low level zones

I can tell you from my bag giveaways that Queensdale is the hottest zone for new players followed by Metrica Province, then Wayfarer Foothills. If you want to keep yourself occupied while you help random strangers, keep an eye on the world boss timers at:
http://www.sanctumofrall.com/pve/world_events.html or one of the many others. Change zones around the time the world bosses are spawning. Those typically draw a crowd and should help get you in front of more people.

My advise for growing a guild, recruit with kindness, let your actions do the talking. Always keep your word, and always pick people up rather than push them down. This will keep your guild healthy and happy for a long time.

Offer weekly prizes/gold. Have a ‘mentor’ rank where they are tasked with teaching new players more about the game.

Or you could do it my style, make a mesmer, be good at jumping puzzles and port players/member through them. Honestly, if you hang around a jp long enough, you’ll find noobs that are so thankful for your help, they’ll join your guild.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Offer weekly prizes/gold. Have a ‘mentor’ rank where they are tasked with teaching new players more about the game.

Or you could do it my style, make a mesmer, be good at jumping puzzles and port players/member through them. Honestly, if you hang around a jp long enough, you’ll find noobs that are so thankful for your help, they’ll join your guild.

I wouldn’t suggest this :P
Prizes / Gold to keep players from leaving, that’s just bad…
Mentor rank only works with those experienced and intrested in that stuff.

Also I wouldn’t call your potential recruits noobs, don’t think they’ll appreciate that xD

Guardian of Angels.9867:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Offer weekly prizes/gold. Have a ‘mentor’ rank where they are tasked with teaching new players more about the game.

Or you could do it my style, make a mesmer, be good at jumping puzzles and port players/member through them. Honestly, if you hang around a jp long enough, you’ll find noobs that are so thankful for your help, they’ll join your guild.

I wouldn’t suggest this :P
Prizes / Gold to keep players from leaving, that’s just bad…
Mentor rank only works with those experienced and intrested in that stuff.

Also I wouldn’t call your potential recruits noobs, don’t think they’ll appreciate that xD

I do weekly guild competitions with gold prizes. Some of them are picture contests, scavengers hunt, hide-and-seeks and trivia. When I or other guild members are to tired to think of one up, I’ll do a random gold raffle for active guild members. Its not paying players to not leave the guild, its rewarding players for being active with other guildies.

Noobs are noobs, the first step in fixing a problem is realizing it. Everyone has to start somewhere, and in a MMO, you start of as a noob. If you go about it in a negative way, then it’ll be negative.

And if you’re playing with a guild who doesn’t want to help other guildies out, then I wouldn’t want to be a part of that guild anyways. You don’t need a ton of experience to be a “mentor” or show a new guildie where to go to get to Lion’s Arch or know what zones are best to level/explore at their level. Though its nice to have members that can teach you the harder things like fractals, its not necessary to keep a guild.

Edit: “Mentor” rank may have been a bad word to use, but a rank that’s specific role is to help your new guildies out would be helpful and will keep players from leaving. How many ranks do you have in your guild? What are all of their roles? I’m sure you have a “ventran” rank that doesn’t have any specific role but identifies them as someone new guildies can ask for help because of their higher guild rank?

The main thing that worked for me was a recruitment post in the Lookin For subforum. The important part is to keep it positive and to the point. People have short attention spans. You just want to hook them, not bore them with long posts with multiple bulletpointed segments.

Make sure that the title of your post encapsulates what you stand for. People need to see at a glance on which server you are, what your guild does, and when you play.

Now that you got your post, you need to bump it, daily. Keeping your post on the first page will deliver maximum exposure. Keep your bumpposts friendly and positive. Use it to tell people what your guild has been doing, make them want to be apart of it, show the reader you’re active.

Make a guild website. Services like enjin make it easy for you to form a community hub outside the game, with all the extra info you wish to share. It alsomakes you look more professional and engaged.

ChoChoBo.6503

Noobs are noobs, the first step in fixing a problem is realizing it. Everyone has to start somewhere, and in a MMO, you start of as a noob. If you go about it in a negative way, then it’ll be negative.

I’d go with newb over noob. Two different things. http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20060823

On topic – My advice would be keep an eye on the looking for forum, and, from my point of view, an active leadership is good. If the Leaders/Officers aren’t massively active I’d probably start looking for another guild.