Advertised Too Early, too aggressively?

[seedian]

Basically this is my situation. My sites been open for a week now, I have 5 active members as in I know they are working on their characters and log in once a day. About 3 other members separate from those 5 kind of have just been popping in the cbox. I believe I have one inactive already that I don't here from or see since they joined. The rest are alternate characters of myself and the other 5 I know are active. So things are coming together but until the characters are finished there isn't any actual rping going on and I think I made a mistake by advertising so aggressively before this. My mindset was to spread the word of my site far and wide, however I feel like I missed a huge first impression opportunity. I feel like despite a decent amount of members and my ad noting and anyone who shows up will see that we are new, that people show up on my site, saw no rping and left despite cbox chat and members logging in because at the end of the day thats why they are going to the site, to rp and not just talk and hang out. I am starting to think that I should have stopped after I got that core 5 people, waited for them to make their characters, and had a few active threads going, then my advertising would have been much more effective. Thing is, just about every proboards site here has my ad on it and most jcink rpg's linked to those. I hit facebook, twitter, tumblr, reddit, and even put it up on my twitch and I think it was effective in getting people to the site, but they didn't like what they saw activity wise and left. Now I can never get that opportunity back. When my site picks up which I know for a fact it will, I cannot go back to those key locations and put up a 2nd ad and its bumming me out.

Anyone else have any experience with this? Advertising too much, too early? I just feel like allot of traffic that hit my site would have stayed had I just waited a smidgen longer. Anyone recover from this situation before?

[Kami]

Honestly the only answer now is to keep being aggressive with your advertising. You didn't make the best first impression (not uncommon, really, most people advertise before their site is completed, it's kind of surprising just how frequently this happens) but it's not going to be the death of your forum.

If anything, even if you aren't getting members right now, you've gotten a head start on what you're going to need to do anyway, so just continue to do what you did before.

Advertising isn't a one and done deal. You don't put up an ad on xyz social media and expect that to be it; reblog, reshare, over and over again.

[Tumbleweed]

I have to agree with Kami. What is done is done and besides, there is no guarantee, had you waited, it would of changed things much. And you never know, some of those previous visitor might venture back at a later time, hopefully, when you do have some role playing going on so they can get a better feel for things. Best of luck and don't get discouraged or kick yourself too much.  

[Mandoli]

Feb 20, 2017 16:45:17 GMT -8 Kami said:

Advertising isn't a one and done deal. You don't put up an ad on xyz social media and expect that to be it; reblog, reshare, over and over again.

Exactly. If you want to attract people, you have to advertise. Don't just post in one place and expect people to come. Post it everywhere, no matter what kind of RP forum it is.

I also find that social media is a great idea. It may not work for you, but Twitter is a wonderful place. Also, post the link on your Facebook page. I still don't get how "nobody reads the bump posts in the advertising thread", but if you feel like you can get members to join your board, you have to bump up a thread.