A guild is only as successful as the amount of time that’s dedicated to it by it’s leadership. Most people don’t realize just how much they’ll have to put into it, or think that less effort can be put in than it will actually require. This isn’t anybody’s fault, it’s just the reality of guilds that most GMs and officer teams don’t really talk about. Essentially, running a guild is a second job. One that requires you to quickly learn how to be the boss of for no pay and a lot of frustration. So the first step for any aspiring GM is deciding if they’re willing to put in that level of effort, especially in the beginning phases of growing the guild.
That said, there are a few things you can do to optimize your chances of turning an idea into a success.
Network with other guilds. Introduce yourself to GMs and officers of other like minded guilds on your server. Having allies can pay dividends if you make an effort to befriend them. We have a few allied guilds that we regularly do events with that help raise the public profile of both guilds involved. We also have agreements in place that none of us will recruit directly from each other.
The best times to recruit are around patch and expansion releases. Most of the people who will be playing, will be playing around those times. Your goal around those times should be to get as many people in your ranks as possible. Expect over the long term that 70-80% of those people will go inactive, but the ones that stay will form your core membership. It’s extremely important to push as much recruiting as possible during these times.
Get to know your members as much as possible. Becoming friends with them and learning as much as you can about who they are will not only make them feel welcome and valued as members, but it will let you vet for those who will make exceptional officers for your guild.
On that note… only promote people to officer who are exceptional. Those who fully understand and live your guild philosophy are the ones you want running it for you when you’re not around. If you don’t trust an officer to essentially be you when you’re offline, then they should not hold the rank. Be picky with who you give that power, because the wrong choices can, have, and do destroy many guilds.
Trade chat advertisements are okay, but limit them. At most, I’ll throw an ad up once per day. Usually, once every few days. You don’t want to be known as the guild that spams when there are lots of other ways to advertise your guild. The guild finder tool has come a long way and we get a lot of new recruits through it. We also use FB advertisements, forum posts, etc. Avoid recruitment addons. These are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to annoying potential recruits.
Have a small but firm list of rules that you never ever bend. Make sure they’re easy to find in your guild info, as well as on discord. You’ll figure out what they should be, but being dedicated to upholding them is a big factor in maintaining your guild philosophy.
Finally, don’t try to do too much too fast. A guild that advertises that it casually runs M+, RBGs, pet battles, open world pvp, oh and we’re also trying to start a raid team will not be able to do any of it properly. Choose your focus, be the best you can be at doing that thing, and the rest will fall into place over time naturally as guildies want to expand into other forms of content.
Best of luck to you, I hope all of this is able to help you in some way!