Mostly, I use word of mouth to advertise my forum. Or, i might mention that i have a forum and another person will ask for the link. I like backlinking from social bookmarking/social networking sites as i can link to specific posts. I'm thinking of starting a blog just for my forum where i give commentary about specific things and link to relevant forum posts so readers can contribute to the conversation. What are some other ways to advertise a forum?
I like blog reviews. These work very well. They give you exposure, back links and text related to your forum.
A good way to get your name out locally is by placing your logo and what-not at various places in the neighborhood geared at your audience. I know this article is for free advertising but I’m going to break that rule slightly. If you have the funds, buy small cards with your site name, logo, url, and a bit of information on it. Get as many as you can afford. If you run a movies site, for example, get the cards and go to your nearest blockbusters and video stores. Place the cards near the movies section or inside the dvd/video boxes. So when someone rents a movie and opens the box, he’ll see your card inside and get interested. You could also go to your nearest mall and put the cards on benches in front of stores dealing with your topic. Like if you run a clothing site, put your cards in front of clothing store on benches where people sit or stand. That way, they’ll see the card and be interested. Finally, you could have friends spread the cards at various colleges and high schools (if that is your audience). Like, for example, I will be putting cards at the lunchroom where people wait in line to get food. They will see my card, pick it up, and possibly pocket it to check it out in the future. I will also be putting a few on the lunchroom tables, in the various computer labs, and near any computer/programming classes (my site is a gaming site, so most computer geeks play games, making them my audience).
Offline promotion is always a good idea, so long as you are targeting right. For instance, you might pin notices about your mom/baby forum on local day care center message boards. Or, leave business cards for your forum at local kiddie gym/dance studios.
1.Advertise your forum on other forums or websites. If advertising at a forum, be sure to put it in the advertising section or in your sig. For websites, you could try putting it in the guestbook or hooking up with the affiliates page. This step is a major key in getting new members. When advertising your forum, you may want to put the advertisement in the form of a mondo, eye-catching banner. 2.Spruce your forum up and make it fancy and unique. Visitors will be more obliged to join a forum that is well-combed. Try getting a good skin, good images, good smiles, and think up some good topics. If you can, try to put some features on your forum that aren't common on some of the more popular ones. 3.Encourage your members to promote your forum. Have them advertise it on other forums/websites and have them refer to good friends about the forum. You shouldn't force them to do so, but if they are loyal to your forum and want to see it grow, they'll be happy to oblige. 4.Try your best to shine the light on all your members. If any member feels left out or is being mistreated, then they're most likely going to leave. Not only did you just lose a member, but you probably lost the member's ability to promote your forum. 5.Do everything in your power to keep your forum active. Visitors don't like to join dying forums, so be sure you can post something every day or so. If you're presenting something new every now and then, your current members will probably follow.
You've made some excellent points. And, it is worthwhile to hire forum posters to keep your forum looking active until regular membership is established.
I'm going to try out this idea. I like blogs anyway. Where could i find good blogs to get reviews from? Are these paid reviews? Do those work?
Yeah, I usually buy paid blog reviews and then back link those for extra link juice. We just added a blog review section here: http://www.seoclerks.com/reviews
After i added a free advertising subforum on my forum for active members, i started getting backlinks from other sites that were linking to me as a courtesy to their members. Even got included on a free advertising sites list and that got a lot of new traffic.
My forum is only for local audience so I'm not sure if I can just promote it anywhere but a blog review of someone where my location is will be great. I might try buying a review. The only problem with this is that there are just few users from our country who are here and most of them aren't providing these services. I mostly promote mine to some other local forums too but too bad I get to be banned there because of it. They just hate promoting website that might compete them lol
That's cool. I think that's the main advantage of having a free advertising forum section. But of course, you need to watch out for spam.
Can you tell us how is working? I mean, roughly how many visitors you get strictly from social media?
Think of your Facebook page more as a community where you can talk freely with your fans, rather than just a place to update. Many times, people just use their Facebook page for spamming links, but that negates the real community building features of the site.
Signature links are good. But so are the blog reviews. And you can also think outside the box. Hand out business cards, hang up flyers, advertise in your paper. The possibilities are endless.
Other forums would be a great place to start, IMO. People on another forum are already forum experienced, enjoy forums (or they wouldn't be there), and would be an easy target. I'd say a forum signature might be best to prevent you from being banned.
Getting banned from? In my opinion, forum signatures as a bringer of traffic only works well if you have many posts on a certain forum. And of course, you need to be active. If you just have 10-15 posts on a forum, it won't bring you enough traffic.
