New Advertising Services?

[Migi]

Hello, members of FP!

I'm helping a friend running an advertising forum, and we are trying to think of new advertising services to offer to members. What kind of new advertising services would you want to see? Or if you can give me ideas of effective advertising ways to offer to members when visiting the forum, I would really appreciate it.

Who knows I may send you some cash as a thank-you gift!

Thanks for the help! 😀

 

[VirusZero]

I've been contemplating opening my own advertising site too... (for RPs) and although that means some differences in target audience, I do still have some ideas that might be possible to translate over.

1- A directory.
This is so site owners can list their sites and make updates to their ad. This naturally would require a registration before it could be used. I would also probably ask that if members want to be listed in the directory they would have to have our button up in return. (This way we might get some traffic back from their site/others so their ad would potentially be more visible to more people.)

2- A "Looking for" section.
This is a section where members can come to find the right forum for them. Instead of having to scour through the directory. Ideally this would be made so people would tell other members why their forum is a good fit rather than just dropping links/ads. But I'd be ok with ads being dropped so long as the individual member didn't request no ads.

3- Twitter re/tweeting.
For a small price (maybe 20 points?), you'd tweet whatever they wanted or retweet what they've stated to help gain them some more activity.

4- Elite/special member featuring.
So if you had a group of members that had donated or otherwise done something extremely helpful for the site (like maybe they had promoted the site ) then you could have a special section to feature their sites. (Either a set forum or a table at the top or something like that.)

5- Guest friendly ad section
Admittedly I am not fond of these... but people do like them. They're quick and easy to set up and guests can drop their ad and go. Then you can go drop your ad on their site in return. (Plus you can maybe offer bonuses on your site if they pin your ad or something.)

Those are a few ideas I've come up with.

 

[Migi]

Thanks so much for the reply, VZ! 😀

1- A directory.
This is so site owners can list their sites and make updates to their ad. This naturally would require a registration before it could be used. I would also probably ask that if members want to be listed in the directory they would have to have our button up in return. (This way we might get some traffic back from their site/others so their ad would potentially be more visible to more people.)

Honestly speaking as a personal I don't know if directory really helps. Your explanation sounds good, though. I for one rarely visit directories, not really interested. Perhaps other people still like it though, haha~ I will think more of it.

2- A "Looking for" section.
This is a section where members can come to find the right forum for them. Instead of having to scour through the directory. Ideally this would be made so people would tell other members why their forum is a good fit rather than just dropping links/ads. But I'd be ok with ads being dropped so long as the individual member didn't request no ads.

To me this idea sounds rather.. vague? With directories or posting your websites' thread in forums, not only our own forums will get exposure, other websites too, even those which are not within our field of interest. I think that's what exposure is actually about. The question is actually about how we can make our websites stands out enough for visitors to click on it.

3- Twitter re/tweeting.
For a small price (maybe 20 points?), you'd tweet whatever they wanted or retweet what they've stated to help gain them some more activity.

Using the forum's Twitter account, I suppose? If the account has many followers, it may be effective. But if not..? But I guess it is worth trying. Not only Twitter but maybe Facebook too, or Google+, etc.?

4- Elite/special member featuring.
So if you had a group of members that had donated or otherwise done something extremely helpful for the site (like maybe they had promoted the site ) then you could have a special section to feature their sites. (Either a set forum or a table at the top or something like that.)

I guess like what we have here at FP, with their websites' thread made sticky? That is quite a good idea to offer. I can't really think much of privileges for contributors or donators except doing something like that, or give them discounts on services, or such.

5- Guest friendly ad section
Admittedly I am not fond of these... but people do like them. They're quick and easy to set up and guests can drop their ad and go. Then you can go drop your ad on their site in return. (Plus you can maybe offer bonuses on your site if they pin your ad or something.)

My first impression of this part was a section where guests can post too? That would invite tons of spam? XDD

 

[VirusZero]

1- You might not visit directories, but having one can be useful since then people who know roughly what types of sites they're looking for can easily look at similar types of sites.

2- My description for the looking for section wasn't explained that well, my apologies. Here's what it is...
You have a section on the forum so that people can post topics saying: "Hey, I'm looking for <this type of site>, it has to have <x members> or <x posts>". Site owners (or other members) then can go into the topic and reply with "Hey, I know of a site you might like... it fits all your criteria, it's located <here>."
Though I'm not sure how effective this would be for a basic promotion site. (This idea is probably better for roleplays rather than all sites.)


3- Yes, you would want a forum twitter account for this. So you could also use it to post updates about the site, use it to help advertise other's sites and etc...
You might consider options like if people follow your site's account they get a reduced cost for using the services. (EX- instead of 20 points for a retweet, it might be 15. Not a huge drop, but it'd add up so like every 4th retweet is free basically. This way it'd also give you an audience to tweet to.)
You could also make it so that multiple staff members have access to this/these account(s). Or maybe one staff for each type of account like one for facebook, twitter, googleplus etc...

4- Yes, something like that.

5- Guest sections can have a bit of spam, though that's why your site's captcha or anti-bot measures have to be top of the line. If they are then you probably won't get too much spam. (And you'd want a moderator or two for that section anyway just to make sure. Plus if you have a guest advertising section then you can make use of other forum's guest advertising section to help draw more members to your site.)

Personally, I think a lot of problems with promotion sites is that for the most part, the audience is not what it should be. Most of the members of promotion sites are admins looking only to promote their own sites. They aren't really looking to be members on someone else's site. So to counter that it, should perhaps shift focus onto the members and helping them find the right site for them. Or at least that's my ideal... I'm not sure how well it'd work though.

 

[Migi]

You tackled your no. 2 with last paragraph of your post, wahaha~ I have to agree with you, though, especially in the last paragraph. I for one am not really looking for forums to join and post on anymore, which may have impact in how visitors (or administrators in places I advertise my site at) are not interested to join my forum in return. Won't guest advertisements only make it worse? Since you don't even have to register to advertise. XD

 

[VirusZero]

I mean FP is a great example of what I mentioned in my last post. We're mostly admins here looking to promote our sites... But who are we promoting to? Other admins who don't even want to join another site.

Guest advertisements are quick and easy to post, but you also maybe delete them at the end of the month. Or prune topics that are older than thirty days. And really the amount of exposure they're going to get from a guest ad will be fairly limited. (Even more limited than a directory spot. Directory spots don't go away, they can be bumped or updated at set intervals. Which is good because search engines like that so they're more likely to increase their page ranks and whatnot.)
Though they can be used in conjunction with directories to allow guests to advertise their sites and maybe if they like what they see while they're here... they're more likely to become a member so they can use the directory too and maybe some more of the other great features.
Naturally though it's not like this idea needs to be used. If you don't feel it'd work or be beneficial for you then perhaps it's best not to use it.

 

[avguste]

Interesting topic.
I am myself thinking about doing forum/website promotion site