One of the main things people forget when making and promoting their forum is guests.  Guests are what members start out like before they register.  It is important to keep this in mind when making your forum and promoting it as the site will have to be appealing of the people visiting won’t sign up.

One major thing people do is restrict the guest access.  That is fine to prevent them from seeing profiles, memberlist, who is online and posting posts and topics.  It is not good to hide all the forums from guests or restrict what they can see in the forums.  As a member your forum may look good with loads of forums and loads of good posts and content but how will the guests which are your future members see what your forum has to offer if the see a blank forum?

A few top tips:

• Open as many forums to guests to read as possible
• If you have a forum with content that you really don’t want guests to see such as downloads then make the forum visible but don’t give them permission to read the topics so they can see the forum exists and what topics there are but they can’t see the contents.  Or attach the downloads as attachments (if available) and not allow guests to download the attachments.
• If you have content that you don’t want guests or members to see hide it from view.  This is things like staff sections as there is nothing worse i think then going to a forum and seeing forums that 95% of people can’t enter.  You may as well make it hidden to everybody apart from staff.

This will make your forum more appealing to guests when you start promoting it and will increase the amount of members alot more then if you hide everything from guests.  If you have any more suggestions to get your forum more attractive for guests then post a comment below and i will add it into part 2.

This weeks interview will be with Fowler and EFC2008, as you know they are the founders of forum promotion, now one of the most successful promotion forums. This is a double interview, witch means we will see both Fowlers and EFC2008’s answers. This time I decided to start with some background information…

(Q) I’d like to start by asking you both, where you both met?

*Fowler*
“We met about 1 and half years ago on a previous forum i ran which was a general chat one and we both sort of became friends and helped each other with each others forums.  We then decided to make a forum between us which is how Forum Promotion started.”

*EFC2008*
“I was looking for a small football forum to affiliate with mine and I ran into Fowler’s. I saw a link to his general chat forum (hangout zone) and I signed up. As Fowler said we started to help each other with our forums and then decided to make a promotion forum.”

(Q) Apart from making promotion forums, what other interests do you have?

*Fowler*
“My main interests other then forums are mainly music as i do listen to my Ipod a lot when i am not on the computer and i am a big football fan and i like watching and playing football as well.  Nothing that interesting really.”

*EFC2008*
“Apart from forums I have quite a lot of different interests. I play and watch quite a lot of football because I love it and without it I do not know what I would do. I play some other sports like badminton but not as much as football. I do listen to music but only really when I am on the PC.”

(Q) Explain how you advertised forum promotion, and what you found was the best way to advertise?

*EFC2008*
“A lot of the first members of FP where from the freeforums support forum. We usually advertise on any forum we see what has an advertisement section. I know we submitted to quite a lot of topsites as well which has brought a couple of members in. From what I have noticed as the forum has got bigger we have been getting more members from search engines like google. I can also remember using a couple of banner exchange networks. For me I think the search engines and just advertising on other forums have been the most successful.”

*Fowler”
“We have advertised Forum Promotion is many different ways such as posting adverts on other forums, directories, topsites and affiliates.  The best way we get members and hits is from search engines and our high ranking in the search engines has come from a large number of quality backlinks on other sites however the best promotion way we used is other forums like in sigs and places like that.

This is what helped us get active early on and it still does help bring in alot of members still but now we do have google bringing in alot of new members every day as well which is why we are growing even faster then ever before.”

(Q) What would you say is the best thing about running forum promotion.

*Fowler*
“For me the best part of running forum promotion was helping out the members with problems with their forum and helping them promote and watching their forums grow bigger and bigger and knowing that you had helped to make the forum successful and that is what i think the best part of running FP was for me.”

*EFC2008*
“There isn’t just one best part, there are lots of reasons what makes running FP so good.  One of the best things is knowing you played a part in making the forum big and successful. Helping other members out and giving support and advice about their forums is also good. ”

(Q) Whats the worse part of running forum promotion

*Fowler*
“The crappy hosts and all the problems we have had with the site because of our bad luck with hosts and servers.  That is one of the worst things for me as as you had put a lot of work into something and constantly seeing it down and people leaving the site because of problems it is quite upsetting as the problems are out of your control.”

*EFC2008*
“We went through a patch where we had lots of problems with hosting. We where having lots of problems at  lunarpages and then we moved to another host only to find out the server we was on has been suspended. We then moved to Cirtex and we had a bad start but we moved server and everything is fine now. Another bad thing would be when you log on in the morning only to find out the forum has been spammed. It is also annoying when you gets members who constantly break rules and think they have done nothing wrong But there is hardly anything bad about running FP.”

(Q) What advice would you give someone thinking about starting an advertising forum, would you Evan recommend it?

*Fowler*
“Personally i wouldn’t recommend it as there is so many about now and it is hard to make a new advertising forum and make it a big success.  Any advice i would give to people who want to make one is try to make your forum have something unique about it,  If it has nothing that no other ad forum offers then why would people join  forum with 5 members when they can join a forum which offer the same which has over 2000 members.  Thinking of something unique is hard to do and when you do think of something it usually gets stolen by another bigger forum so you lose that unique feature and again people will join them rather then yours as it is bigger.  That is why i would say it is best to not start another ad forum as it is hard to get your forum established and active.”

(Q)”What plans do you have for forum promotion for the next couple of weeks?”

*EFC2008*
“Well we are soon going to start thinking about a new service but that will take some time as we won’t something unique and that most forums do not have. We have just had the Referral contest and I think it went really bad, I was dissapointed the way it turned out. We did spend quite a  lot of time in promoting it and I expected it to be more successful than it turned out.

We may have another big contest later but we don’t want to reveal to much.”

This is the end of this interview, I’m willing to do a part 2 interview, but the part to interview will have your questions, so if there’s something you want to ask fowler and EFC2008, then please pm me, if I get enough things to ask, there will be another interview.

Introduction

Well, by reading the title, you can pretty much assume what this article is about: Me teaching you how to promote a forum. (The blind leading the blind, right?) I can tell you that every forum owner wants more members and posts, but barely any of them are trying! If you are interested in starting a forum, you have to look at where you want to be, find another forum owner that has met this goal, and ask yourself, “Can I do what this person has done to make their forum ‘great’?” If your answer is “no”, you should definitely reconsider opening your own forum.

Building the Castle

So, you decided that you wanted to start your forum, eh? Well, to start off, don’t ever make the forum in two-and-a-half minutes, go and advertise it, and then say you’ll do all the “minor stuff” later. I’m very sorrry to say that it just doesn’t work like that, because, the minor stuff matters more than a lot of new forum administrators think it does. Here are some things you may want to look over before getting your forum out to the public;

A Good Logo/Banner - Nobody likes to click on a link to a forum and see a banner made in MS Paint with Times New Roman as the font. >_> If you get to the point where you think you should open MS Paint to make your logo, you might as well not make one at all. There are many forums where you can request a good logo for your forum, and it normally just takes 2-3 days to get a result in.

A Decent Style - Nobody wants to visit a forum and see a style they have seen a million times in other places. First, never use the default style, as it makes you look really lazy if you can’t even change the style. Second, choose a unique style. My suggestion is to go to some less-known styling sites and choose a nice style that barely anyone uses! And if you still can’t find a good-looking unique style, it’d probably be worth the money to get a custom one made.

Awesome Grammar - Whether you like it or not, some people get really mad when they see a simple grammar mistake. If a member spots one, they will instantly dash to the Feedback forum and write an 8,000-word essay on why that mistake shouldn’t be there. (I hate it when they point out the problem in the middle of their post, so you have to read through the 4,000 unnecessary words to find out what the problem was.) So, why not get a spell check (*pokes Firefox*), or maybe even take the time to copy what you write into Microsoft Word? If that isn’t available, why not pull out some of your kids’ ol’ “School House Rock” videos and watch those?

The Layout of Greatness - Build a nice attractive layout where guests and new members can easily find what they are looking for, and navigate around the forum. Also, when starting off, remember to keep the amount of discussion forums to a minimum, probably ten forums at most. This makes navigation easier, and it makes your post count look bigger since a lot of topics belong in one area. If you start to see some type of topic become popular, you should then create another board for it.

Uniqueness - You don’t know how many times I have visited two forums that look exactly alike, and their forums are exactly alike. I’d suggest not looking at your competition until after you have made the layout of your forum, and you have applied your ideas. After you’ve done this, you can look at your competition, see what they have, and try to improve upon your own forum to make it better. Also, be creative, and create some unique titles and descriptions that users haven’t seen before. If another forum already has it, guests will most likely choose to join the one that has more posts and isn’t just starting off.

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After you have looked over these and made sure everything is in tip-top shape, you should invite some of your friends in to post a little bit on your forum, and give it a little boost before it opens up. You can also choose one or two of these users to be your starting Moderators, which will also keep them active to show you have some activity.

Open The Gates…Loudly

There are a lot of ways to start advertising, and when you start, I’d suggest getting your forum known everywhere, by registering to a bunch of forums, adding the link in your signature, and making a bunch of posts. This is probably the best way to start promoting a forum, as it shows you are willing to be apart of the community, which makes people more comfortable with joining your site.

Some of the other ways that you can promote your site when you are first starting:

Advertising Forums - This is probably one of the most-known ways to advertise. Go to a resource forum, order a couple of services, and it is really a great way to get a boost for your forum. Also, advertising forums are probably some of the best places to become active and get members through your sig. Becoming a staff member at one of these places can get you a lot of attention.

Make Friends - A lot of people that are going to join your forum are the people that already know you, just because they are more comfortable with it. You should bring your site up in normal conversation, without directly telling them to join. Maybe share one of the experiences you have had while building the site, and what has been fun about it. You never know, they may become interested.

Post Exchanges - When I say Post Exchanges, a lot of people think of a 5 for 5 post deal, which is what most Post Exchanges are. But what I am suggesting is long-term post-exchanges. This is a way to get you a guaranteed post increase, even if it is just 20 posts each week for each other. Something like this could lead to 1000 posts a year if you exchange a decent amount, and if you don’t like it, you can always stop it any time you want.

Any of the ideas above could help you start out your forum, and I highly suggest that you use all of them to start off.

Don’t Let Them Escape!

Once you’ve gotten a couple of members, you will then realize it is very difficult to get a lot of them to stay. A good way to keep new members active is to send them a PM asking a little bit about them, and maybe referring to a couple of the posts they have made. Ask for their IM address, E-Mail Address, and try to start a discussion about something. If you keep the discussion going, they will come back to continue to respond.

Another great way to keep members active is to start a non-promotional contest (which means referral contests or posting contests should not be made at this time), something like a “Most Creative Contest” or “Wallpaper Contest”, it really all depends on what the topic of your forum is. If they have an area for it, always remember to go and post about this contest on a couple of ad/promotion forums. Members will always read and reply to these to get their post count up, and they can actually get you more attention than a general advertisement topic would.

Keeping Things Awesome

Once you are getting a decent amount of posts per day, it’s time to continue to keep your forum going by doing everything you can to increase your member count, using some of the following suggestions:

Continue Advertising - Continue to put your link in as many places as possible. The more places you put your links, the easier it is for a search engine to find you, and your link is still being displayed for someone to click it!

Get Your Forum Reviewed - Get a Review to tell you how your forum is doing every once in a while. This can be a great way to get some good advice on your forum, and what you are doing wrong. When you do decide to reveiw, you should get a review from three to four different places rather than one, that way you are getting lots of feedback from different users, who have different views on your forum. If two or more of the reviewers all point out a problem, it definitely needs to be fixed.

Submit to Topsites - Submit your site to a topsite, and encourage your members to vote for it every day. If you can get enough votes to put you on the top, you can get a lot of incoming traffic.

Hire Some Staff - You shouldn’t hire staff members too often, but once you get some need for it, you should open an announcement stating that you will be selecting some new staff members, and will be accepting applications. Have the application process last for about two weeks and you’d be amazed at how much the user’s activity will increase.

Affiliates - You should affiliate with as many sites as possible that fit the same style as you, and if you get the chance, why not affiliate with some larger forums? Becoming an affiliate with someone is completely free, and it only takes a little bit of time to set up an affiliate with someone.

Closing Notes

Well, that is pretty much all I have to write for this article. If you think this article should be improved, please send me a PM on the forums and I may edit in your idea, along with leaving you credit in the article! Thanks for reading!

~ Carsonk, Packages Team Leader

One of the worst things you can do when promoting a new forum is promote it when it is not completed.  This is something that i have seen here alot on Forum Promotion aswell as other promotion forums alot where people advertise unfinished forums and wonder why they aren’t getting members.

Before promoting you new forum always check the following things…

1) Have i set up all the forums i want on the forum.  Do i have a wide range of forums covering different subjects about your forums topic and also forums where you are able to discuss off topic subjects such as a sports forum, media forum and an anything goes area.

2) Have i set up the rules for the forum.  When members sign up will the know what they can and can’t post.

3) Have i configured all the settings and permissions correctly.  Set up a test account to check the members can see what you want them to see and can’t see what you don’t want them to see.  Additionally have you set up all the settings like the avatar, registration and signature settings.

4) Have i chosen a good style to match my forum and do i have a matching logo?  One of the biggest mistakes people make is sticking with the default style.  I think it is better not to use the default styles of any forum software as they are overused alot and are quite plain.  Additionally it doesn’t show that you care alot and it makes your forum look “new” and unfinished.  Same goes for a logo.  Always have a decent logo for when you start promoting.  Ensure it matches the style, is not fuzzy, is not too big or too small.

5)  Have i started any topics to get some discussion going?  This is another mistake a large number of people do.  Never promote a forum with no posts and topics as no one will join.  Go around your forum a start a few topics to encourage people to sign up and post and if you can get a friend to sign up to help get some posts on the forum.  The less empty it looks when it comes to the time you promote the more chance there will be more members signing up.

6) Lastly and most importantly have something unique.  You need to give people a reason to join your forum over other more established ones.  If you have something that is really different from all the other forums you will stand out and it will help you get more members when you start promoting.

7)  Ensure that guests can see most if not all the forums… Don’t hide all the forums thinking it will encourage people to sign up as it doesn’t work like that.  Most people will just move on to another forum.

If you follow the above points it should help your forum when promoting and it will make it alot more interesting and there will be more chance of people signing up.  They are all simple small things but the do make the world of difference.

Hope this helps and feel free to comment.