Advertising Techniques and Donations

[Sparrow]

I am the Leader of a new gaming forum community called GameWire Games.

I am having trouble figuring out good techniques and such for advertising my community since this is my first community... Anyone have any good efficient advertising techniques?

Also, we run multiple gaming servers, each costing $20-$50 a month 🙁 This can add up as you might guess 😛

Anyone have any ideas on how to bring in donations?

Thanks!
-Sparrow-

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Ps: This is my first post here, just found this community through crazypromotions.net, hope I didn't post this in the wrong section.

 

[The Elite]

Don't purchase so many servers, that should fix your problem.

 

[Darthmaul]

Don't purchase so many servers, that should fix your problem.

Yep 😉

To get more people on your website, just promote and do exchanges and crap.
Honestly I am getting a bit tired of every new forum owner coming in and asking the same thing. Maybe we should have a topic that highlights it all...

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I am the Leader of a new gaming forum community called GameWire Games.

I am having trouble figuring out good techniques and such for advertising my community since this is my first community... Anyone have any good efficient advertising techniques?

Also, we run multiple gaming servers, each costing $20-$50 a month 🙁 This can add up as you might guess 😛

Anyone have any ideas on how to bring in donations?

Thanks!
-Sparrow-

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Ps: This is my first post here, just found this community through crazypromotions.net, hope I didn't post this in the wrong section.

What do you offer to those who donate? Anything? You could consider doing what RuneScape does, create a member area on the game servers where only paid members can go. Make it really cheap each month and then if enough users purchase each month, your bills can get paid 🙂

 

[[BL] Briggers810]

For Advertising methods, I would suggest doing the following:

• Signing up to a large number off Promotion Forums and promoting your site in your signature, and using that Promotion Forum's services such as Packages to increase activity on your own forum
• Doing post exchanges with other forums, of either a similar genre or a different genre that interests you (helps to give you something to write about) would mean that your community is getting more members, and would also mean that you're getting your Community's name out there more, by promoting it on those sites (with the exchanger's permission).
• Visiting Directory sites to boost the amount of visitors
• Affiliate with sites of a similar genre, so that you can get activity from them
• Setup a Facebook Like page and a Twitter profile for your Community so that updates from the forum can go on Twitter and Facebook, to reach a wider audience.

If the Game Server is one such as Minecraft or WoW, then I would suggest using that Shaun suggests of offering a member/Donator area.
Also, while this may be considered cheating, if the game is something that allows you to spawn items (ie: on Minecraft admins can spawn items) then allow the donators (using a plugin like /kit) to have special items by entering a command/or a special item which replenishes every hour - preferably something which normal members can get but would take a lot of time to get, as otherwise it would put normal members off due to the unfair advantage.

If the Game is a game like Counter Strike: Source, then you could offer reserved/VIP slots to donators only ("Pay £1 and get a reserved slot on the server for a month"), allow donators to use a special skin, or make it so the donators can start with some free items eg: On CS:S donators could start with Helmet + Kevlar, flashbangs, hand grenade and a smoke grenade).