Why are you sick of new promotion forums ?
- Thread starter Dylan
- Start date
netsavy006
Seasoned Veteran
5 pages of talking about why not to have a new promotion forum, and you know what I've seen. New promotion forums... (not kidding)...
CyberFreak
Legendary Typer
People will always make new promotion forums. No matter what you say and what tips you give, people will always keep making the same mistakes over and over :roll:
I'm not sick of new promotion forums really. The main problem is that the new promotion forums lack any ideas. What annoyed me was that I actually said this in advertising topics on FP and I got a ''unique features will be added later''. They're in a competitive niche and not having unique features from the off is a failure waiting to happen. If you offer nothing different at the start... chances are you aren't going to offer the forum world anything unique in the future.
Sbfc said:
It's not really competitive. It's just a dense niche at FP. There are tonnes of forum owners that have not seen FP and so you've got to target them, not others at another forum promotion community. That's why people tend to fail.
But that is just on this forum. This forum doesn't have many members in contrast to many other forums with similar age and other stats, so it shows a limited range of members. Plus, its usually the same members being skeptical; a large portion of the community never says anything.
rottenforums
Familiar Face
I think 99% of these forum promotion sites are just copycat crap. Huge portion are run half assed and just promoting their other sites, friends sites, etc which really in the end doesn't provide a service to anyone. Nothing is ever original on the vast majority of them, the styles are usually moderate at best, and the needed amount of posts to get promo only go up up up while their sites value is lower lower lower.
It's a catch-22. People see it and want to duplicate it so they can have their own. Problem is, nobody advances the genre and makes it better. So we just have to look at 1,000 copycat sites that don't hold a candle to the originals in the genre.
It's a catch-22. People see it and want to duplicate it so they can have their own. Problem is, nobody advances the genre and makes it better. So we just have to look at 1,000 copycat sites that don't hold a candle to the originals in the genre.
D
Deleted member 4320
Well it depends really, free hosted forums are pointless because limited effort is needed and it's hard to make them better then the paid ones. Also with free hosted ones they can die at any time but the paid ones will tend to stay for long periods of time.
I don't join any promotion forums though, the only one I need to be on is here at FP because it's helped the most. If you want to make a promotion forum though, do it but don't copy FP, because it wont bring success.
I don't join any promotion forums though, the only one I need to be on is here at FP because it's helped the most. If you want to make a promotion forum though, do it but don't copy FP, because it wont bring success.
Black Angel
Resident
What ticks me off about them is when you have the staff allowing requests to back up in the package, and advertisement service areas only for them to close the forum when they've been open for only a month or so.. and then end up starting a new forum a week or two later.
That, and incompetent staff. I have had so many run ins with incompetent staff on other promotion forums that I don't even think it is worth it to request anything from them. I should not have to tell the staff members to read the forum descriptions, on my forum so that they know what each section is for.
I should not have to use screenshots to point out a general talk area on my forum, when, if they had read the descriptions, they would have seen it themselves. Neither should I have to spell it out for them that my forum is not about Twilight, especially to those who have accounts there already, and I had already specified as such in my request thread.
Thankfully, I have not encountered people like this here, or on Theezy's FA.
So, here is the advice for anyone willing to start this type of forum.
1. Be dedicated. Don't just throw in the towel because your site isn't as big as others. The big site that you are comparing yourself to, had to start somewhere.. and I am sure that they had a lot of the same doubts that you did. The only difference between your site and theirs, is that they stuck with it, and never gave up.
2. Hire competent staff whom are willing to do their jobs and preferably without forums of their own. If they have sites of their own, then it could be a distraction and a conflict of interest. With their attention divided, you may not get as good a quality of work out of them as opposed to someone who doesn't have their own forum, and is solely focused on your forum and helping you succeed.
Your members should not have to babysit a topic in case someone comes along locks the topic when they didn't bother reading the topic, or looking over a forum throughly to see if it did follow the guidelines. Do not allow the topics to create a backlog. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a back log of requests dating back at least 2 months, with the package staff not doing anything, and yet, when one of those staff members makes a request for their forum, then that request will be taken care of immediately.
If someone isn't doing their job, then hire new staff outside of the place you hired the others from. And take care of the requests yourself until you can find someone new. Don't make the mistake of only hiring a set number, because if you do, then should you have to fire someone, or someone quits, then you will have a person to replace them. You could always make a separate group for those you intend to hire as replacements.
2a. Don't hire staff because they promised to be active, or because they hired you on other forums or because they are your friends. Hire staff because you are confident that they will do their job, and to your standards. Hire those who you know will be dedicated to your forum and their job.
If it helps, treat it as though your forum, is your company, and do your research as though, you would be paying them to work for your company. Ask for references from the other admins (or former bosses) who hired them, and check out the requests they filled on the forums they used to work at and look at the quality of posts these people have made on other peoples' (clients) forums.
Ask the owners (former clients) of these forums if they were happy with the content and quality of their posts, (services received) and ask about how that person behaved on the forum, and if they (former client) would hire that person as a mod on their forum. If you would do your homework before paying them to do something, then you should also do the same when it comes to your forum because in either situation, your reputation is on the line.
3. While it may not be possible to be original, especially since, your originality will last about as long as it takes someone else to rip it, the one thing you can give people that the ripper can't, is hard work and dedication. If some schmuck is willing to rip off of your forum, in order to start theirs, then that person is just lazy, and looking to do as little work as possible and would not be putting in as much effort into their forum that you have yours. Which is all the more reason you should keep at it and not give up.
Otherwise, someone who is truly passionate about what they do would not stoop so low as to rip off another admin. They would work hard and do what they could to make their forum stand out.
That, and incompetent staff. I have had so many run ins with incompetent staff on other promotion forums that I don't even think it is worth it to request anything from them. I should not have to tell the staff members to read the forum descriptions, on my forum so that they know what each section is for.
I should not have to use screenshots to point out a general talk area on my forum, when, if they had read the descriptions, they would have seen it themselves. Neither should I have to spell it out for them that my forum is not about Twilight, especially to those who have accounts there already, and I had already specified as such in my request thread.
Thankfully, I have not encountered people like this here, or on Theezy's FA.
So, here is the advice for anyone willing to start this type of forum.
1. Be dedicated. Don't just throw in the towel because your site isn't as big as others. The big site that you are comparing yourself to, had to start somewhere.. and I am sure that they had a lot of the same doubts that you did. The only difference between your site and theirs, is that they stuck with it, and never gave up.
2. Hire competent staff whom are willing to do their jobs and preferably without forums of their own. If they have sites of their own, then it could be a distraction and a conflict of interest. With their attention divided, you may not get as good a quality of work out of them as opposed to someone who doesn't have their own forum, and is solely focused on your forum and helping you succeed.
Your members should not have to babysit a topic in case someone comes along locks the topic when they didn't bother reading the topic, or looking over a forum throughly to see if it did follow the guidelines. Do not allow the topics to create a backlog. I can't tell you how many times I have seen a back log of requests dating back at least 2 months, with the package staff not doing anything, and yet, when one of those staff members makes a request for their forum, then that request will be taken care of immediately.
If someone isn't doing their job, then hire new staff outside of the place you hired the others from. And take care of the requests yourself until you can find someone new. Don't make the mistake of only hiring a set number, because if you do, then should you have to fire someone, or someone quits, then you will have a person to replace them. You could always make a separate group for those you intend to hire as replacements.
2a. Don't hire staff because they promised to be active, or because they hired you on other forums or because they are your friends. Hire staff because you are confident that they will do their job, and to your standards. Hire those who you know will be dedicated to your forum and their job.
If it helps, treat it as though your forum, is your company, and do your research as though, you would be paying them to work for your company. Ask for references from the other admins (or former bosses) who hired them, and check out the requests they filled on the forums they used to work at and look at the quality of posts these people have made on other peoples' (clients) forums.
Ask the owners (former clients) of these forums if they were happy with the content and quality of their posts, (services received) and ask about how that person behaved on the forum, and if they (former client) would hire that person as a mod on their forum. If you would do your homework before paying them to do something, then you should also do the same when it comes to your forum because in either situation, your reputation is on the line.
3. While it may not be possible to be original, especially since, your originality will last about as long as it takes someone else to rip it, the one thing you can give people that the ripper can't, is hard work and dedication. If some schmuck is willing to rip off of your forum, in order to start theirs, then that person is just lazy, and looking to do as little work as possible and would not be putting in as much effort into their forum that you have yours. Which is all the more reason you should keep at it and not give up.
Otherwise, someone who is truly passionate about what they do would not stoop so low as to rip off another admin. They would work hard and do what they could to make their forum stand out.
Sbfc said:
The question in itself is unjustified as I could ask you "name one successful promotion forum owner who owns a promotion forum that hadn't seen or heard about Forum Promotion". Your question is something which I cannot answer (and probably the same as mine) as I have not seen every website on the Internet, and I do not intend to.
The definition of "succeeded" is a term that can only be used in relation to something else. To me, a successful forum could mean something qualitative, whereas to you, it could mean something quantitative.
The definition of "unique" is in relation to what someone has seen. Someone may have never heard on "packages" and thus making this unique to them. Someone like you and I have seen packages for quite a while now on many promotion forums (who advertise on FP) and so it may not seem to be unique anymore.
In my opinion, you should decide to go professional and get advanced hosting and install a real copy of what ever software you prefer. Free hosts won't get you long term, experienced members as they know the real deal when it comes to which forums will last and which will die.2787cmt said:
I have been using free hosted forums for almost 2 years. I have 2 forums, one which is around 11 months old, and 1, that is 8 days old. I am used ro free hosted forums. They don't all die.dotDavid said:
dotDavid said:
Obviously not. 😛
I didn't make a forum to get a million posts though. I made a forum to make friends. I am broke anyways, I am not really interested in buying a domain. My forum only has 35,000 posts in 2 times the amount of time of what took Wober to get 130,000.
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