The monotony of advertising

[¡Lance!]

So I know advertising a forum is the thing I absolutely HATE doing in regards to jobs that need doing. Especially when I'm doing it by myself with no help from others. It's repetitive, boring, monotonous and just generally unfun. It also doesn't help that it seems like now a days you generally see fewer direct sign ups from Advertising. All that being said we all know that Advertising is like one of those things that just need to be done to breath new life and traffic into the forum. 

So my question for other forum owners is simple; How exactly do you go about advertising in a way that isn't just boring as H.E. Double L's and not want to just quit half way through? 

Also if you don't mind sharing... ((I'm being sneaky, I know)) What are some of the ways you generate traffic and sign ups onto your forum that isn't typical advertising? And how do you format your forum ads to generate higher traffic?

[Kami]

I hate what forums consider advertising, actually. They're not really ads, per se, but rather link exchanges which at best have diminishing returns on your investment (the more time you spend exchanging links > the more your ad appears as people search through ads on forums > the less impact your ad has as people are more inclined to pass over repetitive ads).

Link exchanges are, however, good for SEO, as exchanging your link on sites that get frequently crawled and are therefore considered "legitimate" increases the legitimacy of your own forum (which, coincidently, is why spammers do what they do). So the trick is to find a way that cuts down on just effectively becoming a spammer by flooding the market, and figure out what your demographic is.

Ultimately, I prefer a much tighter, more organic way of advertising: word of mouth and affiliates with forums that specifically attract the kind of members I want to attract.

1. Word of Mouth: the best advertising is getting people to recommend it to their friends and to become advocates of your brand (so to speak). So, a bulk of my focus is cultivating an excellent user experience (whatever that may entail), and letting the members be our ambassadors. You're more likely to get genuine interest in this way, as people are social creatures and tend to be inclined to invest in communities with good atmospheres where they know at least one person.

2. Selective Affiliates: I don't affiliate with every site. Rather I affiliate with sites that a) do not compete with me and b) attract they type of audience I want to attract. So for instance, for a fandom-based RP, I affiliate with the fandom wiki site, a screencap/resource fansite, fandom news sites, and fandom social media. I also affiliate with fan sites of similar genres (so if I run, say, a LOTR site, I would affiliate with similar, but non-competing forums like GoT, Elder Scrolls, etc). Lastly, I find one site to be a "sister" site that is the same nature as my forum, but with a different premise. Going back to the example, let's say my LOTR forum is RP, strictly canon set in the events of the Fellowship of the Ring. I might sister site with a forum RP with a modern AU setting, or set in the ages before or after the main series.

For me, this cuts down on the repetitiveness and sees a higher return on investment, and gets people who are more willing to long-term engage with my forum and community.

Of course, your mileage may vary

[¡Lance!]

Feb 14, 2022 20:45:12 GMT -8 Kami said:

I hate what forums consider advertising, actually. They're not really ads, per se, but rather link exchanges which at best have diminishing returns on your investment (the more time you spend exchanging links > the more your ad appears as people search through ads on forums > the less impact your ad has as people are more inclined to pass over repetitive ads).

Link exchanges are, however, good for SEO, as exchanging your link on sites that get frequently crawled and are therefore considered "legitimate" increases the legitimacy of your own forum (which, coincidently, is why spammers do what they do). So the trick is to find a way that cuts down on just effectively becoming a spammer by flooding the market, and figure out what your demographic is.

Ultimately, I prefer a much tighter, more organic way of advertising: word of mouth and affiliates with forums that specifically attract the kind of members I want to attract.

1. Word of Mouth: the best advertising is getting people to recommend it to their friends and to become advocates of your brand (so to speak). So, a bulk of my focus is cultivating an excellent user experience (whatever that may entail), and letting the members be our ambassadors. You're more likely to get genuine interest in this way, as people are social creatures and tend to be inclined to invest in communities with good atmospheres where they know at least one person.

2. Selective Affiliates: I don't affiliate with every site. Rather I affiliate with sites that a) do not compete with me and b) attract they type of audience I want to attract. So for instance, for a fandom-based RP, I affiliate with the fandom wiki site, a screencap/resource fansite, fandom news sites, and fandom social media. I also affiliate with fan sites of similar genres (so if I run, say, a LOTR site, I would affiliate with similar, but non-competing forums like GoT, Elder Scrolls, etc). Lastly, I find one site to be a "sister" site that is the same nature as my forum, but with a different premise. Going back to the example, let's say my LOTR forum is RP, strictly canon set in the events of the Fellowship of the Ring. I might sister site with a forum RP with a modern AU setting, or set in the ages before or after the main series.

For me, this cuts down on the repetitiveness and sees a higher return on investment, and gets people who are more willing to long-term engage with my forum and community.

Of course, your mileage may vary

I've definitely been working on the word of mouth portion of the advertising. That hasn't changed since way back when, but I might definitely use that tactic for affiliates though. Like holy   that's smart as  . I don't know why I didn't think about something similar earlier on. This is definitely going to save me a lot of headaches for sure.

[Kami]

Don't worry about it, I used to be in e-commerce 😂

[bigballofyarn]

Maybe you can post more around ProBoards Support. I get the most clicks from people who click on my link in my signature and decide to visit my forum on their own. I don't advertise much anymore. I wait until my forum falls off the front page in the Advertising board before I bump it. When I visit that board, I tend to ignore the ones I see being bumped every day. This is just a personal opinion though and may not work for everyone.