Advertising

[LunarScorpio]

You've got your forum, your blog or what have you, now what? You need people to use it and use it consistently. So, how do you advertise your forum so that you gain new (and active) users? What are some of the techniques you feel have worked and have no worked? Give us your tips and tricks!

 

[Joshua Farrell]

As I haven't done paid direct advertising in awhile, advertising my sites in siguatures on the forums I am active on, seems to generally draw a few people to join up every now and then. In regards to Forum Promotion, I am not all too active on the support forum on ProBoards, and it seems that there is generally around 5 people on the average that joins up weekly, just by my occasional replying to threads there on their support board.

 

[Ash]

With Discussion Hub, we haven't actively tried to advertise it as yet as we want to get some more content on here first so that the community looks attractive enough for users to want to join. When we do start, we plan to advertise it around on a few forums and place some banner s in our signatures as well. After that, we'll have to wing it a bit and see what other sources are the best for advertising a general discussion forum.

 

[JoyFreak]

I have used Google ads and bing ads, both were good. I found Bing ads got me more users. They also give you some discounts every so often.

 

[Jayson]

Getting people to come to the forum is one thing - and I've used Facebook ads, FB group posts. Getting them to chat is another. Well, on my drumming forum people probably liked the free material, but they don't want to chat.

 

[Demon_skeith]

search engine and current members seem to be doing well enough these days. Back in the day I did affiliate advertising, sig advertising and anything else I could do. Not much these days though.

 

[Jayson]

A good strategy would be to have something "in it for them" to get the ball rolling. For instance, I remember this dude offering a free domain that was supposed to be "search engine gold". Well, it got the party rolling fast! Well, that's unless he was paying people to be on there . Well, even if he wasn't, I was drawn in to work hard, post 100 posts or something, to get the domain - so I figure it motivated some free work at the least.

 

[ZandraJoi]

What about those people who, like me, are the only staff (too small to get more staff) & are not techy whatsoever? I don't offer prizes, contests 'cos 1- I honestly don't know how to, 2- I'd like people to post 'cos they want to learn & grow.
I've advertised on many forums, even in our local newspapers. Holistic is a different niche.
Without post exchanges, it wouldn't be going too well. I had a forum 15 some years ago & the difference between then & now, my members didn't have their own forum, site, or blog. Now, people help each other out but there's a lot of burnout.
I'm open to more suggestions tho