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| Author |
How to promote new message forums?
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|
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| I want to set up a forum message board web site, but I don't know how to get
activity started once it's up and running.
What are the best ways to drive traffic and get people to register and
participate in a brand new message board?
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-27, 6:18 am |
| John wrote
> I want to set up a forum message board web site, but I don't know how
> to get activity started once it's up and running.
>
> What are the best ways to drive traffic and get people to register and
> participate in a brand new message board?
What you are asking is how to get people to know about something that
they have no idea exists.
Normally this is done through advertising. Figure out where your
prospective visitors are, then put an ad in front of them.
Get links from related sites.
Do press releases.
If your forum is good, the particpants will return.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
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| John wrote:
> I want to set up a forum message board web site, but I don't know how to get
> activity started once it's up and running.
>
> What are the best ways to drive traffic and get people to register and
> participate in a brand new message board?
Did you not factor this into the business plan when you decided to build
the site?
What's it about anyway? (You can now provide the URL).
--
Cheers
Richard.
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-27, 6:18 am |
| rf wrote
> John wrote:
>
>
> Did you not factor this into the business plan when you decided to
> build the site?
What's a "business plan"?
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
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| William Tasso 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| Writing in news:alt.www.webmaster
From the safety of the cafeteria
John <johnnyman307@hotmail.moc> said:
> I want to set up a forum message board web site, but I don't know how to
> get
> activity started once it's up and running.
Host a party in an internet cafe. Offers prizes for relevant thingies.
o first post
o post that generates most replies
o longest post
o etc .......
--
William Tasso
virtue is its own punishment
| |
|
| Charles Sweeney wrote:
> rf wrote
>
>
> What's a "business plan"?
It's a, er, it's a...
A few years ago our Accountant wanted us to provide him with a
Q: Budget?
A: We get money when somebody buys our product.
A2: We spend it when we a) eat, b) ski.
--
Cheers
Richard.
| |
| Norman L. DeForest 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
|
On Thu, 27 Oct 2005, John wrote:
> I want to set up a forum message board web site, but I don't know how to get
> activity started once it's up and running.
>
> What are the best ways to drive traffic and get people to register and
> participate in a brand new message board?
I think that would depend on the topic of the message board.
A forum for people wanting to housetrain pet wildebeests would need
completely different promotion than one with recipes for whooping crane.
OK, for more serious topics, a forum about cooking would require a
different approach for promotion than a forum for Linux users that
need multilingual support (Cyrillic, Chinese, Arabic and Cherokee
fonts for example).
What is your forum going to be about?
One idea: If there is a relevant newsgroup, you might ask permission from
some of the posters there to quote their questions and/or answers (posted
in the newsgroup) on your forum as a sort of seed to get the forum started.
--
Norman De Forest http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~af380/Profile.html
"> Is there anything Spamazon DOESN'T sell?
Clues. The market's too small to justify the effort."
-- Stuart Lamble in the scary devil monastery, Fri, 13 May 2005
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| John Bokma 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| "William Tasso" <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote:
> Writing in news:alt.www.webmaster
> From the safety of the cafeteria
> John <johnnyman307@hotmail.moc> said:
>
>
> Host a party in an internet cafe. Offers prizes for relevant
> thingies.
>
> o first post
> o post that generates most replies
> o longest post
> o etc .......
o first hack that deletes all posts and requires everbody to register again
--
John PERL SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| rf wrote
> Charles Sweeney wrote:
>
how[color=darkred]
>
> It's a, er, it's a...
>
> A few years ago our Accountant wanted us to provide him with a
>
> Q: Budget?
>
> A: We get money when somebody buys our product.
>
> A2: We spend it when we a) eat, b) ski.
Sounds about right!
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
| |
| Matt Probert 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| On 27 Oct 2005 10:00:37 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
wrote:
> Normally this is done through advertising. Figure out where your
> prospective visitors are, then put an ad in front of them.
On a board hung around the neck of a naked, nubile young woman is very
effective. So long as her assets don't detract too much from the
advertising text ! <g>
Matt
--
The Probert Encyclopaedia
Over 235,000 definitions and descriptions
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com
| |
| Matt Probert 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| On 27 Oct 2005 10:17:34 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
wrote:
> rf wrote
>
>
> What's a "business plan"?
>
It's a scheme as to how the directors can pay themselves six-figure
salaries while the company owes billions of pounds before the banks
forclose and the business is declared bankrupt, and the directors then
walk away shaking their heads and rubbing their hands!
Matt
PS
Once again, I am not joking.
--
The Probert Encyclopaedia
Over 235,000 definitions and descriptions
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com
| |
| Matt Probert 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| On 27 Oct 2005 10:45:48 GMT, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> wrote:
> "William Tasso" <SpamBlocked@tbdata.com> wrote:
>
>
> o first hack that deletes all posts and requires everbody to register again
>
How about :
First hack that produces a stable o/s based upon Windows?
Matt
--
The Probert Encyclopaedia
Over 235,000 definitions and descriptions
http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com
| |
|
| Matt Probert wrote:
> On 27 Oct 2005 10:00:37 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> On a board hung around the neck of a naked, nubile young woman is very
> effective. So long as her assets don't detract too much from the
> advertising text ! <g>
I think the size of that board is most important.
--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
| |
| John Bokma 2005-10-27, 6:28 pm |
| comments@probertencyclopaedia.com (Matt Probert) wrote:
> First hack that produces a stable o/s based upon Windows?
Bummer, that disqualifies Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc.
--
John PERL SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/
| |
|
|
"rf" <rf@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:2nhqyjzn6jmb.1qus8l901s38d.dlg@40tude.net...
> John wrote:
>
>
> Did you not factor this into the business plan when you decided to build
> the site?
>
> What's it about anyway? (You can now provide the URL).
>
> --
> Cheers
> Richard.
The site doesn't exist yet, but it will be a community/regional message
board designed mostly for residents of the city and surrounding area to talk
about what's happening locally and maybe post classified ads and comment on
local businesses, restaurants, contractors etc. they recommend and don't
recommend. I checked and one doesn't already exist covering the area, which
I found very surprising because some smaller cities have quite active
message forums with hundreds of registered users and hundreds of posts per
day after being online for several years.
I want to make sure it gets off to a strong start or someone or some
business will see it, take the idea and make another similar site that will
kill mine before it has any major popularity.
I'm going to start on one of the free forum hosting sites, then if the board
gets active enough to attract advertisers, move it to a paid hosting site
and get ads that will pay enough to at least cover the hosting/bandwidth
costs. Later I want it to make bigger money than just covering hosting
expenses.
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-27, 10:19 pm |
| John wrote
> The site doesn't exist yet, but it will be a community/regional
> message board designed mostly for residents of the city and
> surrounding area to talk about what's happening locally and maybe post
> classified ads and comment on local businesses, restaurants,
> contractors etc. they recommend and don't recommend. I checked and
> one doesn't already exist covering the area, which I found very
> surprising because some smaller cities have quite active message
> forums with hundreds of registered users and hundreds of posts per day
> after being online for several years. I want to make sure it gets off
> to a strong start or someone or some business will see it, take the
> idea and make another similar site that will kill mine before it has
> any major popularity. I'm going to start on one of the free forum
> hosting sites, then if the board gets active enough to attract
> advertisers, move it to a paid hosting site and get ads that will pay
> enough to at least cover the hosting/bandwidth costs. Later I want it
> to make bigger money than just covering hosting expenses.
Good concept.
Seeing it's local, I would go for a press release in the local
newspaper, or an ad if you really must. I can't see a local paper
refusing to print an article about a new service like this, particularly
if nothing already exists.
I wouldn't wait for it to get busy before getting a paid host. Hosts
are as cheap as dirt today, and a free host with the inevitable ads
would stand a good chance of killing the site before it got going.
If you really are so poor, you could get a local business to pay the
minimal hosting costs in return for an ad on the site.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-27, 10:19 pm |
| John wrote
>
> "MGW" <mgw1979@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:8f32m1poqo42josnoakuh2jdr1ogscjl9v@4ax.com...
>
> One thing I'm concerned about is if it does get popular and I want to
> move it to a paid hosting site so I have control over the advertising
> and get that revenue, am I going to lose all the old posts and have to
> have all the members reregister for new accounts? That would be a
> major disruption and the new site would be of less value without all
> the old archives messages available for searches.
> I want to start it out on www.forumforfree.com and mask forward my
> domain URL there. When I want to move to a new host, I can just
> forward the URL somewhere else.
If you are halfway serious about this, get a paid host, or give up.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
| |
| robert blake 2005-10-27, 10:19 pm |
| Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote
> Good concept.
>
> Seeing it's local, I would go for a press release in the local
> newspaper, or an ad if you really must. I can't see a local paper
> refusing to print an article about a new service like this, particularly
> if nothing already exists.
>
> I wouldn't wait for it to get busy before getting a paid host. Hosts
> are as cheap as dirt today, and a free host with the inevitable ads
> would stand a good chance of killing the site before it got going.
yes, hosting is dirt cheap these days. I would not recommend free hosting
at all in this case. If you're (ie the original poster) going to go to a
lot of bother to get awareness of your communuity site built up, you don't
want people coming along to your url and never coming back.
There are plenty of good hosts out there. ipowerweb for example offer
great hosting at less than 100 dollars for the year. I have several sites
with them.
| |
| MikesBrain 2005-10-28, 6:23 am |
| On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:12:23 +0200, Els <els.aNOSPAM@tiscali.nl> wrote:
>Matt Probert wrote:
>
>
>I think the size of that board is most important.
Depends if you let her out of doors or not.
| |
| MikesBrain 2005-10-28, 6:23 am |
| On 27 Oct 2005 22:36:25 GMT, Charles Sweeney <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote:
[snip]
>
>If you are halfway serious about this, get a paid host, or give up.
You can get paid hosting for 5 USD a month. If you can't afford even that,
you're in the wrong area, m'friend.
| |
|
|
"Charles Sweeney" <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96FCF0131AE10mecharlessweeneycom@130.133.1.4...
> John wrote
>
>
> If you are halfway serious about this, get a paid host, or give up.
>
> --
> Charles Sweeney
> http://CharlesSweeney.com
OK, I got a paid host and vBulletin 3.5 annual lease. The forum software
lease fees, domain registration and hosting fees combined is about $250 per
year so $21 per month plus my time spent on it. $12 per month of that is the
hosting fee of 5GB disk space and 200GB per month of data transfer. I
figure that if I ever need to upgrade from that, it would mean I had enough
traffic on the site for it to be ad sponsored and making money.
I guess I would want some ads from local businesses on the site from the
beginning so everyone will be used to seeing ads from the start, but who
wants to buy ads on a site with little traffic or history?
Here are a couple sites that have content similar to what I want to have.
They are both pretty busy sites despite being cities with smaller
populations, so there is no reason mine cannot eventually get bigger than
these two.
These are not my sites:
http://www.elk-grove.com/forums/
http://www.tomatopages.com/folsomforum/
Any tips on things they've done with their sites that I should avoid on my
site?
I have installed the vBulletin software on and set up the initial forums on
my site today, but I want to customize the look, get rid of thevBulletin
logos on the page and get some content, articles and photos to post so the
site doesn't look empty before I start trying to publicize it.
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-28, 6:42 pm |
| John wrote
> OK, I got a paid host and vBulletin 3.5 annual lease. The forum
> software lease fees, domain registration and hosting fees combined is
> about $250 per year so $21 per month plus my time spent on it. $12 per
> month of that is the hosting fee of 5GB disk space and 200GB per month
> of data transfer. I figure that if I ever need to upgrade from that,
> it would mean I had enough traffic on the site for it to be ad
> sponsored and making money. I guess I would want some ads from local
> businesses on the site from the beginning so everyone will be used to
> seeing ads from the start, but who wants to buy ads on a site with
> little traffic or history?
>
> Here are a couple sites that have content similar to what I want to
> have. They are both pretty busy sites despite being cities with
> smaller populations, so there is no reason mine cannot eventually get
> bigger than these two.
>
> These are not my sites:
>
> http://www.elk-grove.com/forums/
> http://www.tomatopages.com/folsomforum/
>
> Any tips on things they've done with their sites that I should avoid
> on my site?
>
> I have installed the vBulletin software on and set up the initial
> forums on my site today, but I want to customize the look, get rid of
> thevBulletin logos on the page and get some content, articles and
> photos to post so the site doesn't look empty before I start trying to
> publicize it.
Good stuff. My advice would be not to ask for advice! It's YOUR idea,
it's YOUR concept, it's YOUR venture. You alone know where you are coming
from. You alone know the driving force behind the venture. You alone know
the vision of what you want the site to become.
What's the point of heading something if you don't have all these things
clear in your mind?? Someone asks you why you have done something a
certain way..."because someone told me to do it that way".
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
| |
|
| "Charles Sweeney" wrote:
> Good stuff. My advice would be not to ask for advice!
My advice is to ignore Charles' advice. ;)
No, not really. It's good to get different points of view. Personally,
I've gotten some good ideas from this thread. You need to decide which
ones may work for you, of course, but IMO it's good to ask for advice
and then listen.
Lois
--
www.wordsweave.com
| |
| William Tasso 2005-10-29, 6:26 am |
| Writing in news:alt.www.webmaster
From the safety of the wordsweave.com cafeteria
Lois <auto-newsgroups@wordsweave.com> said:
> "Charles Sweeney" wrote:
>
> My advice is to ignore Charles' advice. ;)
>
> No, not really. It's good to get different points of view. Personally,
> I've gotten some good ideas from this thread. You need to decide which
> ones may work for you, of course, but IMO it's good to ask for advice
> and then listen.
and then make up your own mind :)
--
William Tasso
virtue is its own punishment
| |
|
|
"MGW" <mgw1979@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8f32m1poqo42josnoakuh2jdr1ogscjl9v@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 09:22:09 -0700, "John" <johnnyman307@hotmail.moc>
> scrawled:
>
> Word of mouth (seriously). Photocopied notices at the library, stores
> (especially those who might want to be mentioned there), schools,
> stapled to phone poles. Write a press release for all the local
> papers (daily and weekly). Write letters to the editors of same. Ask
> local PTAs to mention it in school bulletins as a way for parents to
> share info.
>
> As other people may have suggested, seed it with a few starter posts
> before announcing it, so people don't just show up, see that it's
> empty and leave.
>
> Ask local stores if they would like free advertising for the first
> month if it includes a coupon for your site and they put up a notice
> saying "get a 10% off coupon for Storename if you visit forumname."
>
> You get the idea.
>
> --
> MGW
> If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've
> always got.
So now I have the basics of the site set up, but no content yet.
I want to get local business people and merchants to buy banner ads, but I
suppose I will need to give the ads away for free to get started since it
will take time for the site to have enough visitors for businesses to be
willing to pay. I can also fill space with self-promotional banner ads and
"Your Ad Here" type banners that can be replaced with paid ads later.
Before I start trying to find customers for banner ads, I need to learn how
to make banner ads and how to make the ads rotate either every few seconds
or every page refresh.
Are there highly recommended tools that automate creation of banner ads for
people with little knowlege of html or other programming?
The ads will need to inserted into a vBulletin 3.5 message forum.
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-29, 10:21 pm |
| John wrote
>
> "MGW" <mgw1979@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:8f32m1poqo42josnoakuh2jdr1ogscjl9v@4ax.com...
>
> So now I have the basics of the site set up, but no content yet.
> I want to get local business people and merchants to buy banner ads,
> but I suppose I will need to give the ads away for free to get started
> since it will take time for the site to have enough visitors for
> businesses to be willing to pay. I can also fill space with
> self-promotional banner ads and "Your Ad Here" type banners that can
> be replaced with paid ads later. Before I start trying to find
> customers for banner ads, I need to learn how to make banner ads and
> how to make the ads rotate either every few seconds or every page
> refresh. Are there highly recommended tools that automate creation of
> banner ads for people with little knowlege of html or other
> programming? The ads will need to inserted into a vBulletin 3.5
> message forum.
I think you should concentrate on your core idea, the forum, before
worrying about how to make ads.
If the site gets popular/busy, that's the time to start advertising.
Do you have a burning desire to carry ads, or a burning desire to create
a killer resource for your neighbourhood?
To my mind, if you don't have the core desire to produce something
useful, if your motivation lies elsewhere, then it will show.
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
| |
|
|
"Charles Sweeney" <me@charlessweeney.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96FF41121556mecharlessweeneycom@130.133.1.4...
> John wrote
>
>
> I think you should concentrate on your core idea, the forum, before
> worrying about how to make ads.
>
> If the site gets popular/busy, that's the time to start advertising.
>
> Do you have a burning desire to carry ads, or a burning desire to create
> a killer resource for your neighbourhood?
>
> To my mind, if you don't have the core desire to produce something
> useful, if your motivation lies elsewhere, then it will show.
>
> --
> Charles Sweeney
> http://CharlesSweeney.com
It takes both. If it can bring money in as soon as possible, I can devote
more time to it and ensure it doesn't get dropped in a year as a financial
drain and a time-waster moderating the boards.
I think people will be more annoyed with ads suddenly appearing 6 months
later than if they saw them from the beginning.
Ideally I would eventually get big enough to be a full time job and I could
then spend time going out and interviewing people for original content,
taking photos of the city for the site, going out on the town and blogging
my experiences etc., but the majority of the site will just be members
posting back and forth on the message board about mostly local issues.
Part of the forum will be devoted to people discussing complaints or
experiences they have had with local merchants.
It will also be a resource for local businesses to use to advertise to
people in the area besides the local newspaper, phone book and PennySaver.
| |
|
| Lois wrote:
"William Tasso" added:[color=darkred]
> and then make up your own mind :)
Oh yeah. Forgot that part. ;)
Lois
--
www.wordsweave.com
| |
| Charles Sweeney 2005-10-30, 6:27 pm |
| John wrote
> It takes both. If it can bring money in as soon as possible, I can
> devote more time to it and ensure it doesn't get dropped in a year as
> a financial drain and a time-waster moderating the boards.
> I think people will be more annoyed with ads suddenly appearing 6
> months later than if they saw them from the beginning.
> Ideally I would eventually get big enough to be a full time job and I
> could then spend time going out and interviewing people for original
> content, taking photos of the city for the site, going out on the town
> and blogging my experiences etc., but the majority of the site will
> just be members posting back and forth on the message board about
> mostly local issues. Part of the forum will be devoted to people
> discussing complaints or experiences they have had with local
> merchants. It will also be a resource for local businesses to use to
> advertise to people in the area besides the local newspaper, phone
> book and PennySaver.
A local forum isn't, and never can be, a "financial drain".
--
Charles Sweeney
http://CharlesSweeney.com
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