How to promote a forum

I am no expert but one area I have been working on to promote my forum (www.talkcyprus.org ) is to try and get coverage in 'traditional' media for it like newspapers and the like. Of course this strategy very much depends on the kind of forum you are running I guess. Just a thought

I think that this is the worst way to promote a forum.

As an online community, you target to people that are very familliar with internet and forums. The best place to find these people is by using the internet itself.

So I would suggest you to advertise your forum on an online newspaper or blog or whatever else site, that has the same subject with yours

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I agree with Wolfenstein. It is really difficult to promote a digital product to the traditional world.

I hear what you are all saying and there is much merit in it. however there is a big crossover between traditional and digital media. I am for example trying to get the site featured in a local monthly magazine that has a 'online' section each month and features various websites. Again it may not lead to anything but it certainly can not harm the site either to get such coverage.

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Ofcourse it can not harm your site.

We are just saying that it could be better if you would spend your advertising money to online ad channels

Just to be clear I have not spent anything on traditional media advertising. I have been trying to get 'free' coverage only

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I see. Now it's clear to me.

With this in mind it sounds ok. I mean it is good while it is only costs you some time to contact with these media etc.

i've noticed that even getting friends to post initially is a pain in the butt.

I am mainly focusing on getting my PR up, getting search engines to eat my site, and keeping it looking busy.

Tough, but thats the way it goes.

Very good tips, coming from someone who went thru the hoops witout knowing stuff

For me in the start its by word of moth and also by just doing link exchanges and post exchanges

Ive noticed also that Post exchanges are a good way to look busy, but it is hard to get good quality, or keep them coming back once they are done. That kinda sucks.

Hi,

For me i just in the start do post exchanges and add post myself. I als sending e-mails to Fox News and hope to get a call out soon:)

Hm. I don't agree with you on your first post. I have a general discussion forum and it had 21 members online at the same time yesterday.

A great way to promote a forum is get a lot of affiliates at first. If you're linked to from everywhere, you'll gain at least some sort of activity. When you get bigger, then you can be more concerned with how active your affiliates are.

Sending members out to advertise isn't a bad idea, as long as you make sure to tell them to follow that board's rules. Making a wide variety of affilate buttons and small advertising banners also helps. Don't make just animated banners/buttons or unanimated banners/buttons, and make sure to have good color schemes and a wide variety of colors, including black and white.

Having a recognizable logo also helps. My site for instance has a specific snowflake that we put on all our buttons and banners. It helps make the place look more professional.

Joining topsites is a great way to boost activity, but having too many topsites makes you look desperate. Never be on more than 10. A good number is 5 or 6.

~Crystal

I'm quickly learning that content is most definately king.

My community is a niche site focussed on a single car model that will become a cult classic in Australia (so i think ).

When the major manufacturer (Ford in this case) released or update their official brochures for the car i immediately host it locally and then go pimp out the fact that the new brochures are out on a wide variety of other related forums... naturally i link them to my site as it's easier for them to d/l it off us rather than digging through Ford's badly designed corporate website.

Whilst it's upped my raw downloads considerably, it's also built a real buzz on all those other forums about the car in question and also about my site. Naturally i've seen a good increase in signups along with this type of promotion. 

I'm happy with how things are growing currently and my minimal adsense revenue is (just) covering my very niche adwords campaigns which is also generating CTRs of around 30%...

I'm stoked i have almost 100 quality, active members in 3 months of operation... and the car isn't even available in Australia yet. 



My next step is to write some PR and distribute it to local media.

sometimes the begging stages can be a bit slow...but if you stay with it things will pick up!

For me, I started a website I know something about.  I can write many articles on posts just based on what I know about my website.  As for the members, I am lacking in the number of members.  That is the most difficult thing as far as getting people post, they seem to not want to.  It will be nice to get over this hump but I shouldn't complain as I am just starting the site.

I agree with your points Nikolas as far as not inviting people to an empty forum and to have content for the site.  I cannot just create fake members though, it just does not seem right to me.  Content for the forum and site though, luckily I should have en edge there since I know about the topics.  I hope the people can get over the fact that there is no one posting there right now.

So gang this is good advice and except for the fake users piece I am slowly trying all of these things. Please take a look at my forum, it is a forum for sales people at startups, so I do not know how much this group willl want to join. I just want some feedback.

I will post a new thread too.

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