Best places to advertise a forum?

Nice idea.

One of the local websites already does this which, when I found it, thought "Dang. Wish I'd thought of it first".

Maybe there's another approach which might appeal to businesses?

You start a local deals section and invite the merchants to list their specials.. which may in turn mean they'd email you the specials/deals and you'd have to post them if they're not real technical or aren't real excited about the site yet.
 
I think that before you start asking where to advertise you need to define your target audience. Maybe you've already done that, but you didn't mention in your post what your forum is about. Several people mention Facebook, and that's something that might work well for you, but in order for it to work well you need to know how to use targeting. You wouldn't want to just advertise to everyone.
 
You start a local deals section and invite the merchants to list their specials.. which may in turn mean they'd email you the specials/deals and you'd have to post them if they're not real technical or aren't real excited about the site yet.
We do that already. No takers yet. I should offer to set it up for them though.
 
I think that before you start asking where to advertise you need to define your target audience. Maybe you've already done that, but you didn't mention in your post what your forum is about. Several people mention Facebook, and that's something that might work well for you, but in order for it to work well you need to know how to use targeting. You wouldn't want to just advertise to everyone.
It's a site for my hometown. It has areas to discuss upcoming events and local issues. It also has a business directory, ratings area and classifieds. The goal was to appeal to adults 30-70 from the town in which the site was designed. So far, the majority of those who has signed up are 45-55.
 
There should be some great offline potential to advertise too, for a site so geographically targeted as that. See if you can get your url on the local Little League team jerseys and stuff like that. And, I'd absolutely do a blog for that too, doing local interest stuff that the mainstream media doesn't cover. You might be able to do stuff like make trades with local businesses to do a write up about them on your site if they hang a poster about your site in their window, and stuff like that. Hand out flyers and bumper stickers. Go to local events and take photos and post the photos on your site, then try to get people who are in the photos to share them on Facebook.
 
I have been running forums for years now and had some good success in building some large communities. It was hard work initially but then I realised there was an easy way of getting conversations going :)
The most effective way of doing this is by forming a group of forum owners who are willing to help each other by visiting every forum in the group and posting. Over the years I have found this to be the quickest way to making my forums a success. If some of us can get together and form an alliance and launch a new forum each and start helping each other we would never need to advertise any where and that advertising is counter productive when you could be spending that time producing quality content. Good content will rank sooner or later and will pull in fresh members.

I see plenty of members in this thread itself. Hint hint :)
 
What about some business cards? It's not free (some do have 100 free to try them out. Check out overnight Prints and Vista prints. I have used both) but its inexpensive. Maybe some local shops will let you pit some cards on the counter. Might help you get some traffic. The. You have more to offer them.

So a fun raiser for a local charity. Great way to help the community and get noticed.

Do a charity car wash.

Keep asking shops for your original offer. Someone might bite.

Do you have a twitter page for you site? If not get one. Start following local radio stations, papers and so on. Local people will be following them. This is a way for you get these people. Reply to their tweets. Build a following and you have another thing to bring to the table when you talk to stores.

James
 
Hey @JayX ,

Before we discuss strategy, what the theme/niche/concept of your community? Heck, what's the URL?

There is also a concept that no one has touched upon yet. It's called Critical Mass. It's a a physics term for the minimum amount of fissionable material needed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. From a community management perspective, it's also called the Tipping Point. It's the point at which your community will become self-sustaining, when the community continues to grow without your direct involvement. More communities fail because their owners quit before hitting this point than for any other reason. It's not something that can be defined easily (i.e. it's not a specific number of members, or pageviews, posts or threads), but it's roughly about when over 50% of the conversation is happening without your direct involvement.

There are a LOT of ways you can help encourage the conversation and also a lot of techniques for asking people to join your community that can help you reach your tipping point sooner.

I've run ControlBooth.com, for 10 years and I've made a lot of good decisions and a lot of bone-headed decisions because I was flying by the seat of my pants. Thankfully, I have a good team of moderators who help me keep from doing anything too drastic. BUT, I have been reading a lot about community management science from places like http://www.feverbee.com/ and http://www.communityspark.com/ for the past year and it's changed the way I run my community for the better. I wish I had stumbled onto these resources years ago. I have no affiliation with these sites, I make nothing from linking to them, I just want to elevate the conversation about community management, literally, to a science. :)
 
use postloop.com

You build up points by posting on other forums and your points are then redeemable by other users on your forum. Good for getting lots of users and building content... many of the posters will not continue to post if you stop accumulating points but it is a good way of getting that initial content going and creating a busy forum. I am able to get 100+ posts a day this way and have had an extra 100+ sign ups.
 
Twitter is harder work but I get more sign-ups per follower than I do with facebook.

Right now I'm experimenting with facebook advertising... it appears I'm getting 1 sign-up per 50-100 likes :\ I need to change the conversion rate somehow. Though I do get a lot of traffic from it :) Nearly every like gains me a few unique hits on the website. It's really nice, but sad because I need to work on something make them WANT to sign-up.

Which probably means I need more content.

From all the methods I read on gaining members, giving up is not one of them! Some forums hit the big boards in months while others take years. It depends on your niche/service and I think the passion your staff has.

No matter how active I am, I heavily depend on my staff to make me look less crazy. I need them to help engage members in conversation as well as carry on my topic ideas.
 
Facebook. I hate to admit it, but they are the best. Though, don't do it directly. Set up a page or group for your forum on facebook and try to get "likes". Try and narrow down your targeting as good as possible. Then promote your forum content on your facebook page. This seems to be a great way of promoting forums.
 
Yeah I got more success aiming for the older crowd rather than the younger crowd XD

When I advertised to everyone, I was getting terrible conversion! lol
 
I've had my forum for over 8 years. I tried many things.

1. Signing up to other forums and keeping a link to my forum in my signature. But often most forum moderators would get mad and think i am spamming.
2. Going on exchange forums and meeting up with other forum administrators and 1 for 1 exchange. This worked good. I kept it up for a year but i could only exchange max of 5 forums. Not good after the exchange stopped.
3. Paying a company to post on your forum. This works great until the money runs out and it is expensive!!
4. Exchanging Links. This works great! But only forums of the same traffic would do an exchange.
5. Google Adsense. One of the best ways to advertise. I worked awesome for me. As long as you are willing to spend a certain amount every month.
6. Facebook. It's pretty much the same thing as Google Adsense does. I got tons of clicks. If you got the money.
7. Big-Boards.com(Great Place but no longer working) TheBiggestBoards.com(Great Place but no longer working) TheBiggestForums.com (Great Place still working)

If only i had a lot of money...
 
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I don't bother starting a forum unless I know where I can find 2000 visitors and 30-50 trusted members. Please keep in mind, 2,000 visitors is not a lot.
 
I've had my forum for over 8 years. I tried many things.

1. Signing up to other forums and keeping a link to my forum in my signature. But often most forum moderators would get mad and think i am spamming.
2. Going on exchange forums and meeting up with other forum administrators and 1 for 1 exchange. This worked good. I kept it up for a year but i could only exchange max of 5 forums. Not good after the exchange stopped.
3. Paying a company to post on your forum. This works great until the money runs out and it is expensive!!
4. Exchanging Links. This works great! But only forums of the same traffic would do an exchange.
5. Google Adsense. One of the best ways to advertise. I worked awesome for me. As long as you are willing to spend a certain amount every month.
6. Facebook. It's pretty much the same thing as Google Adsense does. I got tons of clicks. If you got the money.
7. Big-Boards.com(Great Place but no longer working) TheBiggestBoards.com(Great Place but no longer working) TheBiggestForums.com (Great Place still working)

If only i had a lot of money...
The problem with points 3, 5, and 6 are if you don't make your money back imo it is pointless.
It is easier to run a sports forum if you run a sports club, it is easier to run a gaming forum if you run a gaming server. In my opinion, the closer your are to the activity you talk about, the more likely you can create a forum from it.
 
I'm having a tough time getting new members.

There's no easy way to get new members, as most of the posts in this thread make clear. It's work, lots and lots of hard work.

Now, most people who read the words "hard work" don't really know what this means. Think relationship-sacrificing, day-and-night slavery, insane obsession type of hard work. In other words, think "the kind of hard work that most sane people would never put forth." Even then, you need to be working with a good idea in an area in which there's room for another contender.

I started photocamel with the kind of hard work I'm talking about, and when people ask me whether they should start a forum, I say, simply, "no." It's not worth it. Devote that kind of energy to almost anything else--college, a job search, computer programming, selling drugs--and you'll come out *way ahead* of where you would have been if you went the "forum building" route.

These days, in my opinion, starting a forum is a fool's game for the vast majority--especially today in the Facebook age. There was a time when "build it and they will come" worked. Those days are long gone. Today, unless you're playing with building out a forum strictly for fun, education, or out of some kind of passion (or pathology, perhaps), you will be far better off financially and personally by finding something else to do with your time. Working at McDonalds for all of the hours you will spend trying to get a forum off the ground would net you a huge pile of cash in comparison--and heck, maybe even a "real life" friend or two to boot.
 
These days, in my opinion, starting a forum is a fool's game for the vast majority--especially today in the Facebook age. There was a time when "build it and they will come" worked. Those days are long gone. Today, unless you're playing with building out a forum strictly for fun, education, or out of some kind of passion (or pathology, perhaps), you will be far better off financially and personally by finding something else to do with your time. Working at McDonalds for all of the hours you will spend trying to get a forum off the ground would net you a huge pile of cash in comparison--and heck, maybe even a "real life" friend or two to boot.
I have actually agree with this. I see so many communities which have no marketing plan. Without one IMO your chances are very slim.

I am very happy to say my most recent one worked out. However, I have a marketing plan in which I make more for users that come in then it costs to get them in.
 
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