you can only overcome your fear by facing your fear

Hi @emmadavies, you don’t have to wait for an active community to start something. Most of the successes in the world today did not have support, until they became successful.

I like the concept you have, and I can understand the fear of not having people join, especially with the way people are constantly bombarded today with unsolicited group invites (Be careful how you do this).

Here are a few tips. 

• Focus on adding more value (Photography lessons) to the people you are connected to through your blog or your fan page (If you have one). Then track the responses.

• Create an ebook, audio, or video training (Whichever one your prefer), sharing a few tips about photography, and give it out for free. This will serve as a lead generation tool. Within the info product you can share the idea of your group, telling your subscribers that they can join and learn more from you or others within the group.

• After building your list, you can send them emails with more tips, and also tell them about your idea of forming a group.

• Put out a survey to them and others you know to find out the interest level.

• Set up your group and invite people you know that are already involved in your line of business (Share the idea with them and why you are inviting them; it’s always best to use this approach rather than just adding people at random).

• Set group rules that will favor both you and your community. Rules that will stop people from spamming. Let your group members know that you have things in control, because if that’s in not in place, they will leave.

• Don’t focus on having 1000s, but a few people who will also bring value to the group. That way, you will build a thriving community (Groups with people over 500 are usually a problem if not handled well).

Thank you both. @otoabasiumonting thank you especially for the immensely practical and useful tips.  I hadn’t thought of many of your ideas and they are all invaluable advice. @annfurnivall, maybe I need to phrase it better, but I think I want to stick to the no negative criticism part – there are so many other places and forums photographers can go to get solicited and unsolicited critiques, I want this group to have something a bit different – safety from unsolicited negative criticism. i want my group to feel safe and supported, a lot of my readers are brand new photographers. But thank you for mentioning it, I’ll be careful how I word it.

@emmadavies Emma, just be honest with yourself. What’s going to happen if noone joins? Nothing. It’s definitely better than not even trying, because by trying you give yourself a chance. And if you fail? Never mind, you will learn from your mistakes and grow stronger and better, having a bigger chance to succeed next time. If you keep hiding and not doing anything because of your fear of not succeeding, you will never achieve anything, because you will not try. 

So face the fear and go for it. If you are smart and don’t take it personally, failing will only make you stronger and teach you new things. 

about the no criticism policy… I get your idea, and It’s good, but I think it’s a bad idea to limit peoples opinion like that, don’t be like etsy, they will hate you, I’m serious.In etsy, you can’t criticize anyone, you can only say good things about people crafts. It makes everything really weird… like a lot of fake happy comments of people scared to say you’re a terrible artist because etsy could close their stores…people started to make communities outside etsy, just so they could speak freely…
I know it’s not the same! but be careful, allow people to speak their minds but without being offensive. I’m afraid the group could turn up a place like etsy right now, a community with a lot of fake opinions that doesn’t really add value to the artist or to you…

thats a good idea, artist could choose if they want criticism or not, maybe they want help to take better pictures or maybe just want to show their pictures but nothing else…Good luck and I hope you do the group!!