Promotion Forums...trends?

[agentmanningctu]

I have noticed everyone makes a big deal when a new promotion forum comes out. They tend to do pretty well at first, racking up posts and new members. But the honeymoon phase wears off pretty quickly. Inexperienced leaders begin to slack off, staff go away, then members don't come back. Eventually the forum dies. I cannot count the times I have seen this. What makes you think your promotion forum is better than the rest? (I don't mean that in a mean way). Just pointing out that forums with services like packages, reviews, sig ads, etc. are a dime a dozen. And if someone could make a unique forum, I am sure it would be a success.

 

[Murder he Wrote]

And if someone could make a unique forum, I am sure it would be a success.

You've answered your own question there.

It's pretty safe to say new promotion forums don't stand much of a chance these days. Reason being, most people set them up with the standard format:

- Basic Promotion section
- Exchanges
- Packages
- Reviews
- Banner Rotation
- Sig Ads
- Graphics (Maybe)
- Off Topic Areas

But the problem is, people won't leave a big promotion forum like FP to be an active member at a brand new promotion forum with no members, no posts and exactly the same layout. You see, here at FP we have the facility and technical experience to offer completely unique services like our Featured Forum service. Although some others may have advanced hosting, they might not have the ability to think up / code unique services.

The problem gets even bigger on free hosts, when there's a huge lack of room to expand. There aren't any free hosts that offer any template editing that could be considered as "good", so normally you find they have to plant their services such as banner rotation in forum descriptions etc...

They tend to do pretty well at first, racking up posts and new members. But the honeymoon phase wears off pretty quickly. Inexperienced leaders begin to slack off, staff go away, then members don't come back.

Reason for that is because members don't have a reason to go back. Once you go to a new promotion forum, post your advert and maybe request a few services...chances are your advert will stay on the first page for a good week or two. So the promoter thinks "ah well, no need to go back there for a few weeks". Staff leave because there's no activity to moderate and the Admin slacks off because they haven't got 1000 posts and 20 members on the first night like they thought they would.

What makes you think your promotion forum is better than the rest?

Huge amounts of activity, large active member base, unique services, constantly increasing traffic to the site and of course been running strong for well over 2 years. 😉

 

[agentmanningctu]

And if someone could make a unique forum, I am sure it would be a success.

You've answered your own question there.

It's pretty safe to say new promotion forums don't stand much of a chance these days. Reason being, most people set them up with the standard format:

- Basic Promotion section
- Exchanges
- Packages
- Reviews
- Banner Rotation
- Sig Ads
- Graphics (Maybe)
- Off Topic Areas

But the problem is, people won't leave a big promotion forum like FP to be an active member at a brand new promotion forum with no members, no posts and exactly the same layout. You see, here at FP we have the facility and technical experience to offer completely unique services like our Featured Forum service. Although some others may have advanced hosting, they might not have the ability to think up / code unique services.

The problem gets even bigger on free hosts, when there's a huge lack of room to expand. There aren't any free hosts that offer any template editing that could be considered as "good", so normally you find they have to plant their services such as banner rotation in forum descriptions etc...

They tend to do pretty well at first, racking up posts and new members. But the honeymoon phase wears off pretty quickly. Inexperienced leaders begin to slack off, staff go away, then members don't come back.

Reason for that is because members don't have a reason to go back. Once you go to a new promotion forum, post your advert and maybe request a few services...chances are your advert will stay on the first page for a good week or two. So the promoter thinks "ah well, no need to go back there for a few weeks". Staff leave because there's no activity to moderate and the Admin slacks off because they haven't got 1000 posts and 20 members on the first night like they thought they would.

What makes you think your promotion forum is better than the rest?

Huge amounts of activity, large active member base, unique services, constantly increasing traffic to the site and of course been running strong for well over 2 years. 😉

I was trying to set those up as all rhetorical, but yeah. I'm serious. If your forum is not COMPLETELY different from the others, it is going to fail. Just don't bother. You will waste a lot of time and money.

 

[Ascent]

Most people usually just open up a promotion forum for a day or two, possibly even a week, and then give up almost immediately after not meeting their expectations.

It's pathetic, tbh.

 

[golfbunny]

We need to move away from the trends of promotion forums and into a genre less superficial and more substantive. As I've said in previous posts, it's the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him how to fish. At the moment I'm developing a site that will help administrators not only promote their forums, but also create, manage, and improve them. We will achieve this by introducing many new attractions, including a huge fund of knowledge including user blogs, exclusive interviews, and articles written by prominent members. We are launching on Wednesday. I believe this is the direction promotion forums must take.

 

[Ascent]

At the moment I'm developing a site that will help administrators not only promote their forums, but also create, manage, and improve them. We will achieve this by introducing many new attractions, including a huge fund of knowledge including user blogs, exclusive interviews, and articles written by prominent members. We are launching on Wednesday. I believe this is the direction promotion forums must take.

Sorry to sink your boat, but that's already been done multiple times.

 

[Misty]

At the moment I'm developing a site that will help administrators not only promote their forums, but also create, manage, and improve them. We will achieve this by introducing many new attractions, including a huge fund of knowledge including user blogs, exclusive interviews, and articles written by prominent members. We are launching on Wednesday. I believe this is the direction promotion forums must take.

Sorry to sink your boat, but that's already been done multiple times.

Where?

 

[Jonathan]

http://www.adminaddict.net/forum/
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/index.php
Both of which I am a member of.

http://www.forumbuff.com/forums/ was a pretty easy find on your site, maybe you should password protect it?

 

[golfbunny]

I am aware of both TAZ and AdminAddict. We hope to bring this genre to the next level via features not present on either of these sites. 🙂