So with a little bit of success after sharing my Facebook group, I have come to the conclusion that making a group successful and gaining members is very difficult. Self promotion is difficult and often not allowed.
After attempting to self promote to another Facebook Group called CRTV24 Group, my post caused ten new members to join in 30 minutes. My post (shown beside) was taken down by an admin about 30 minutes after posting. The group I used to attempt to gain followers from, CRTV24 Group, was a group made to connect people attending a 24 hour online conference for “church creatives” which I attended over the weekend. CRTV is another Facebook Group that is already pre-established with about 25,000 members. The creator, Nik Goodner, which I previously wrote about started this group. He decided to host a 24 hour long conference for church creatives (videographers, graphic designers, social media managers, photographers etc.) and created a Facebook group for the attendees. I figured it would be a great place to promote since I was meeting other attendees online. I found semi-decent success with this post since I gained 10 new members from the post before it was deleted.
I double checked the rules about promotion and there was no mention of any rules against such posts, but since it was deleted I can understand that the admins do not want promotional posts pulling members from their overall “church creatives” group.
Since Nik Goodner was the creator of the previous two groups, and the creator of CRTV Church as a whole and has a large following online, I sent him a direct message on Instagram reading:
“Hey Nik, I am working on creating a group specifically catered to church videographers. I’m trying to make a safe place for video peeps to post their content and get constructive feedback from other videographers. I think CRTV is amazing and what you’ve created is an incredible place for church workers to gather and get encouragement, but I hope a videography specific group will be a smaller place for feedback. Would you mind if I post in CRTV FB Group and get some people to join?”
Well, sadly I sent that message on Monday, 10/19/2020 and today is now Sunday of the same week and I have not received a response. I tried the same message on Facebook and got the same result.
Another Facebook group titled “Church Creatives” is very similar to the “CRTV” group mentioned above. I attempted a post on it, pictured below, and it was sent to be approved by the admins. I checked the rules of the group and a rule stating “No Self Promotion” was listed but it was regarding freelance work such as freelance photography / videography. In the post I stated “I’m hoping to create a small safe space for videographers to gain feedback from other videographers in a group made only for videographers.” with the goal to not seem as if I was making a competing group. I know posting in this group was a long shot since admins for both groups I've mentioned so far are the same people. Much to my surprise… just kidding… the post was submitted for admin approval and was denied.
I figured I would try my luck again on a different type of church page. This one titled, “Church Sound and Media Techs” made for people who specifically work in sound and media departments (not including videography) is the next group I posted in. Below you can see a photo where I made a similar post as the previous two. Much like the previous two, I got denied.
Since I got 10 new members with my first post before it was taken down, I immediately shared this post:
To conclude, group admins do not like cross-group promotion, and I totally understand. I wouldn’t want people posting promotion for their own groups within my group. I get it. At least I can say I gained 10 followers and hopefully they will share the group with their friends.
