I am pretty new to forum creation and promotion. I created my first one about three days ago and so far I have two users besides myself and they are not particularly active. I am patient though. Mostly I am just curious about what people have tried in the past and how well it worked? Also, has anyone tried anything over the top or a little crazy? I am sure there are one or two embarrassing attempts to promote your site that would entertain us all at your expense...c'mon! Spill it! 😛
A few thing I have tried...
I created a Facebook page for my forum and posted the link on as many related groups as I could find
I started writing articles on another site (not sure if I am allowed to mention the site name so I won't) and included a link to my forum as the signature.
I created a one minute YouTube video with a simple slideshow and brief explanation of the forum.
It is still a little too soon to see if ay of this will be effective or not.
The key thing for any new start up forum is patience. You need to have endless patience. You need to spread the word about your forum as far and wide as possible. Advertise on as many other sites as you possibly can (checking that it is allowed on that site of course) and offer incentives to sign up to your forum to, that always helps.
You are definitely right about having patience. It has only been a few days and it is tempting to get discouraged. But, it helps to have good support like this place.
Incentives you say? I wonder what might be able to offer on a site like that... Maybe I could come up with some sort of currency system like they have here. I will have to think that one over. Thanks!
1st come up with a contest relating to your forum. Perhaps the person who has the best roleplay storyline, or even just a short story contest. Maybe even do a posting contest - it really just depends on exactly how your forum is laid out.
2nd, make sure your layout makes sense and is easily accessible.
3rd, make sure your design, theme/skin looks good as well as a really nice banner on top.
4th, go to forums like Forum Promotion and perhaps other Roleplay Forums, you can trade for advertisements with other roleplay forums actually. Get on their topsites list and directories. Make sure to post at other forums with your forum in your sig [a small image, or perhaps a link].
5th. Also get twitter and advertise via tweets. I heard you no longer have to use hashtags, but I'd still use the hash tag #Roleplay at least.
6th, at this point maybe create a "bring a friend" contest people who bring a person with them and joins and gets at least 10 posts will count towards the person they joined for.
7th, just have fun with it. 🙂 If you stick to it the members will eventually come!
