No, have never tried, know the outcome before I try. We cannot bring social media users to our forums because people using forums and social media are different sets of people.
I have, in fact, always gotten it posted on social media anyway regards doing it the free. If new content gets posted on the site it gets an automatic tweet and posts feed to all social media platforms 😉 Does it work, well your account needs allot of followers and benefits. Most of the time it doesn't make any difference.
It may help for others but doesn't for me. End of the day you do need social media
I advertised on Social Media when I first started, but while I had a few people come over, their reactions were that they were intimidated by how big a forum is. People are either Team Forum or Team Social Media. Like @nomad said, they are different sets of people & prefer one or the other.
I have done some. It used to be better before iOS changed the rules of advertising.
Of course I understand the changes for privacy but since those changes have been made, ads cost more and have less features. IMO, that is unethical but we all have opinions don't we.
I think you can do better to buy ads on a forum rather than social media. Here's the thing: People on social media stay on social media. They don't want to leave. People on forums like forums, you have a better chance of getting a new member on a platform that is your own. With that, you should buy forum ads of forums that use the same platform so that potential new members already know how to join and use the forum.
I have in the past advertised my forum on social media and as much as I did get some interest, it was never a lot. I feel because I was an off-topic/general discussion forum most people checked us out but never really wanted to partake in the forum which was a shame. It goes to show though that most people would rather stay on social media for certain things than venture to a forum unless they are interested in being part of forums.
