Promoting Forums

asya · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 5:59 am Post subject: Promoting Forums

Many of the members of the eWebdevelopment forums host forums, message boards on their websites. We hope they will put in their two pence into this thread. Launching a forum, promoting it, and then keeping your visitors prove to be a tough task for many.

In case you are planning to launch your own forums, or are looking for a way to promote them, please post your questions over here.

Your experiences in launching and promoting a successful forum would also be very much appreciated.

(I am hoping bbott will do the honours of being the first poster in this thread)

A lot of important information has been shared in this thread, I am making it a sticky. I hope more of our members will come forward to share their views and strategies of promoting forums.

-- Asya
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Web Guy · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 9:42 am Post subject:

Hey! Good thread. Starting up a new forum can be a very difficult task. The two primary problems you run into are finding new members to sign up and being able to keep those new members to stay keep around.

The topic of your forum also plays a big part in it's success. Our forum is designated for webmaster, web developers, programmers, etc. - as you all probably know there are a good amount of already very successful and highly populated forums in this caegory already. So why would a member at a highly successful and lively forum come signup on our new forums?

The answer is easy, PROMOTIONS

If you give your new members an incentive to join, a good percentage will!

Here are some promotional ideas our team came up with that might help all of you whom are trying to start up a forum.

PROMOTIONAL IDEAS

1) Offer a prize of some sort to the top number of forum posters by the time community hits a certain population point. For example on our forum we offer 6 months free text advertising on all forum pages to the top 3 users once the community reaches 100 members.

2) Offer a referral program w/ awards. For example, you could run a referal program that awards the top 3 users whom refer the most new members to your forum. Rewards could be issud weekly, monthly, etc.

3) Offer advertising rewards to the first set number of forum members to reach a certain post count. We ran this type of promotion here - offering users 1 month free banner advertising if they reach a post count of 30.

4) Money or Services Prize Incentives. If your budget is flexible you could offer a money reward. Hold a raffle for say 100 bucks. Say the first 100 members to join are entered into a pool to win the 100 dollars. You'd be surprised how many people are willing to jump for free money! As for offering services as rewards... here is an example: Say you run a SEO forum , you could offer a prize offering to SEO the top 3 users websites.

5) Last but not least is not really a promotion method to draw in new members, but is probably the MOST important of them all. Get your new forum listed EVERYWHERE - search engines, directories, PPC, forum signatures, etc. There is an old saying - if you build it they will come, and this is NOT TRUE!! You can build anything on the web but unless you market your site and get known on the world wide web you will generate no traffic!!
Personally speaking, our forums generated most of our members from forum signatures and advertising on other forums - so with that said - if you have time and dedication you can deffintely start up a successful forum. Just remember, "Patience is a virtue!"

Hope this helps everyone
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cjvj · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:04 am Post subject:

My ideas

Tips n' Tricks

Here are some tips and tricks for helping you with forum promotion:

1. Create new users yourself.
Right, you've set up your forums, made some posts, made a skin. But there is one thing missing; members. Sometimes a forum needs a kick start to get it going, creating a double identity can help. You register yourself several times under different usernames, and then you post under each username. Also don’t forget to post under the admin username as well; a guest likes to see an active admin. To a guest, it seems as if there is a small community going so they have a reason for joining.

2. Submit to search engines
Simple! Use a free submission service like Addme

3. Submit to forum directories
See the links section; try to find directories with a high PR to help your PR.

4. Make your forum stand out
Try to find a good skin to fit your forum to make it stand out from the rest and so the forum does not look like a 'stock board', make your logo stand out and unique. If in doubt find some help on the many webmaster forums. Also find some smiles, remember, everyone likes smiles

5. Get a domain name
It will make your forums look more professional and also boost your traffic. 1and1.co.uk offer cheap domain names (starting at 2 quid a year for a .co.uk)

6. Links
Try to find link exchanges and set up a links page. More links = Higher PR = more members/traffic!

7. Join a post exchange
Read about post exchanges at http://www.theforumzone.com

Links

Directories

1. http://www.forumshowcase.com/
2. http://www.forumzilla.com/
3. http://www.forum-search.com/
4. http://www.boardreader.com/

Forum Skinning Help/Free skins

1. http://www.ipbhelpers.com
2. http://www.invisionize.com/
3. http://www.invisionskins.com/
4. http://www.nbsdesignz.com/
5. http://www.ipb-graphics.com/

More Info

1. http://www.theadminzone.com
2. http://www.webmaster-talk.com
3. http://www.theforumzone.com

Enjoy
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Ruben · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:05 am Post subject:

Pitty my website only falls into the category Gaming Movies

Web Guy · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:08 am Post subject:

Ruben · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:20 am Post subject:

Yes, but it's really hard to find them

cjvj · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:23 am Post subject:

Ruben · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:25 am Post subject:

Also that, is pretty hard seeing that I only have 37 members and about 2 active ones

Web Guy · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:28 am Post subject:

Ruben · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 10:31 am Post subject:

I will

Trusylver · Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 3:04 pm Post subject:

My forum is slowly growing, would like it to be a little more active but don't want it too big.

at this stage I have not needed to create alter ego's but have just added HTML banners to the top of each forum page and members can earn a position in the rotation, the more posts the more frequent the members banner is shown.
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350z-tech · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:49 pm Post subject:

well i have had my forum up adn running now for a total of 10 months and have 3200 members adn avg about 25-30 a day. not to bad but i am always trying to think of ways to promotoe my forum as well. you just got to keep with it, its not an over night process!

<link removed. Please review forum rules>
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jlknauff · Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:37 pm Post subject:

Web Guy · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:22 pm Post subject:

Anyone who still needs help starting up a forum or has forum related issues to address, www.theadminzone.com is a great place to look for answers and get feedback.
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akeol · Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:33 pm Post subject:

I've just launced a free advertising forum, covering from business advertising to anything you wish to promote online. Feel free to drop by and promote your Forum in there (in the FREE FOR ALL section)

Click here to go

I'm trying very hard myself to get members to my forum, but as what i've read in here, i guess time will say.

All the best to all forum owners!
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