Promoting a forum to get more members

[Comspec]

I have looked at using a 'paid' advertising via StumbleUpon, but even restricting the users to UK-based I cannot be too sure if the audience is tailored enough.

I also do not want to spend too much cash on this initally - until I see if it will ever actually take off a little. Vicious circle I suppose.

[DotNetWebs]

Originally Posted by Comspec

The 'pay per post' idea - what way has this been done in the past...

There is an interesting thread on the MSE forums about companies that offer this service. This thread is looking at it from the point of view of posters who are trying to make money out of posting on forums:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=657915

As you can see they are paid less than $0.20 a post and some soon find the task very tedious.

Personally I would steer well clear of such services. My biggest fear would be that my genuine members would figure out what was going on. If that happened I would imagine they would be displeased to say the least! If your regular members loose faith in you and leave that could be the end of your forum.

I think the likelihood of getting rumbled is quite high. How many of these paid posters have a genuine interest, and a good understanding, of English football? (especially considering many people working for these services will be based in foreign countries.

[DotNetWebs]

One thing you might want to try, which I have used on my own forums with some success, is to offer free forum sections to local organisations.

If I was in you shoes I would approach local football clubs such as school and Sunday league teams. Offer them a dedicated forum section for their own team including a private section that only their club or supporters have access to. Let these teams moderate their own forums.

If you 'local' forums start to get busy you will soon pick up a good userbase of football fans who no doubt will also post in the other sections of your forum.

I would also consider going one step further. Rather than wasting your money (IMO) on online marketing why don't you offer to sponsor one of your local teams. It would probably cost you the price of a strip for the team for the season but could be great publicity. You could get the local paper to run a feature which would create more publicity.

I work almost exclusively in 'local' community websites now and find it can be very rewarding.

[Comspec]

I like that idea better - as I wouldn't necessarily be wasting money then.

I take your point about the type of posters 'paid' ones might be - and I wouldn't want to start the whole thing off by being underhand in any way.

Thanks, something more for me to think about there.

[fisicx]

I have looked at using a 'paid' advertising...

Also be aware that the search engines are getting a bit touchy about 'paid for anything' unless the site use 'nofollow' or a big notice that tells the visitor that an article, link, blog post or advert is paid for.

The argument is that the search results should be organic and paying people in order to improve ranking can skew the result.

[DotNetWebs]

Originally Posted by fisicx

Also be aware that the search engines are getting a bit touchy about 'paid for anything'...

That's a good point. You need to be very careful if you go down that road. Much better to build it up slowly and organically.

[JustOneUK]

I like the idea of offering sections ofthe site to various teams - it's a good one provided you can make it work.

RE: paid posting:
That was supposed to be along the lines of "encourage your current members to post more" as opposed to "pay an outsider to just make random posts".

I did have a golf forum myself but it didn't take long before I realised that I prefer playing golf than talking about it and staying up to speed with all the latest news. - it's now closed.

[Comspec]

I am not so bad, because I am (and my mate who Moderates is too) football mad. So actually keeping it up to date is no real problem to us.

We post the news on a daily basis, and try to stimulate conversation between the other members. Luckily enough a few of them are quite regular too, so hopefully the fresh content helps.

I think I will get the copmpetition idea going next, and see what that brings.

Thanks all for your input - much appreciated.