Promotion ideas that backfired

[Beverly]

Did you ever try a promotion idea that backfired? Or, maybe one of your ideas didn't bring the results you wanted? I have used contests with some good results but for me, the results are not lasting as in they don't inspire members to post beyond the end of the contest. So you have to keep doing contests to keep those people active. I would just prefer that people be busy on forum when they want to rather than based on a contest. So for me, that would be a fail for promotion.

 

[R44]

Everything that happens on a normal forum has failed for me. People - especially here - take no interest in my site.

I will continue to update the promotion thread but other than that, nothing I can do.

 

[C1REX]

Promoting my events forum by organising events for a club. Spent lots of time and energy and at the end people who wanted to join my events left my forum and moved to the club.

The time best spent seems to focus on your own forum and adding content.

 

[Lamont]

I tried to promote some events and it ended in a failure, nobody seemed interested...

 

[Cosmic]

I've never really had success with a contest. Maybe I need to promote them more, I don't know.

Also, I've tried Google Adwords without too much success.

 

[SquatEquilibrium]

E-book promotion site didn't work out to well for me so far!

 

[htb24]

I have only just started my forum and everything has gone smoothly so far!

 

[Agent_Zero]

I'm not sure how successful FB advert was. It claims to have brought so many people to my site and charged me for it but I think I got one person to sign up and she didn't post. IDK

 

[Forces of Steel]

Social media didn't help us out too much. We've even had issues with getting people from Facebook to consider joining us or contributing more, and that was our best best.

I guess you just got to keep trying.

 

[pandaa]

I've also had problems with contests in the past. You get an influx of users and topics, but then it's a little discouraging when they leave and you're unable to keep that kind of activity. I don't really know how you would go about fixing that problem, I guess you just need to make sure that your site offers something for everyone.

 

[Cierra]

Staff signature link advertising hasn't really worked for me. I've had 50/50 results with contests, some members will stay and the others leave.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I haven't had much success in signature advertising, in relation to retaining new members. I tend to find new users through signature advertising, but somehow they never stay active in those places that they sign up in.

 

[Scorpio]

I've never really had success with a contest. Maybe I need to promote them more, I don't know.

Also, I've tried Google Adwords without too much success.

Yes it's the same here also, I haven't really had any success with forum contents, the users seem to hold back. I had a design your own software one once and only two people out of 50+ Active users submitted anything and technology and software design was the niche of the forum...

 

[Yoda]

I tried a big giveaway with a cash prize at the end! It wasn't the worlds biggest prize ($100) but was what I could afford and all I heard from people was how they weren't going to participate for such a rubbish prize!

 

[Thomasss]

I had a forum and I attempted to promote a contest we were doing, and that pretty much backfired on me because our server could not handle it. (lol)

Other than that however it's been pretty good so far.

 

[Cierra]

I tried promoting via blog comments and that didn't work out so well, because the comments either didn't get published or the post wasn't really popular that I was commenting on.