Slicks Forum Promotion Guide


1. My forum is lame no one visits - Some basics

2. What your board needs - the essentials

3. Promotion - the how to for board promotion

4. Tips - Some useful tips and tricks

5. Who is the board for - Talks about who your board is targeting



1. "My forum is lame no one visits"

Have patience you first start out with your self and a small amout of people you know as members. Time allows people to talk about the board in a week you may have 5 members if those 5 members each tell a friend you got another five and so once in a while word gets out and you have a massive increase in members!

2. What your board needs

I find it helpful visiting sucessful boards to see what they did and how its worked for them.

Some crutial things :

Style - If your forum is about Harry Potter you dont want to have a Pokemon style. Have the style of your board fit what its about.

Management - Make sure everything is in order before you let the members in. Also make sure not to have to many forums or the members will get confused. Start with about 2 Categories and 2 or 3 forums for each.

3. Promotion

If you want your forum to be active you have to promote

Some ways of promoting -

Trade links with other sites

submit your site to serch engines

tell your friends to come and join and spread the word

Submit to sites like Top Sites

Submit your site to other sites that hold votes and let people rate your site

Do not miss the opportunity to post a link on other boards in show off topics

Use links everywhere you can for example make your signiture picture link to your site

4. Tips

I find it helpful to register about 10 or 15 members with about 5 posts each to make your forum seem active then in a while once you get more members you can delete them.

Hold contests and have polls for members to participate in.

Make sure to have something that only registerd members can see this will make guests want to register and see what it is.

Have a gimmic something the other guy dosent have. If its a pokemon board hold pokemon batteles using some type of hack. If your board is about rpg games make it one using the rpg hack.

5. Who is the board for?

Make sure you attract members that are intrested in what your board is about. For an example if a friend is into gaming and you have a film makers forum do not tell him to join and post often chances are he will only post when you tell him too and probably not enjoy it. When subbmiting a link to a site make sure its a site make sure its about what your forum is about! If you have a gaming forum and submit your link to a show off topic in a film makers forum you think any one is going to join?

*Note this is not a place to advertise your forum*

Feel free to pm me if you would like anything added or just reply in this thread.

I agree with what you have said. Just make sure to get friends and family post first, so the community looks active. Try to get some posts in every board that you have.

Heh...
Good job guys. Thanks.

No prob Ive written this article a long time ago though it might help someone so I posted it.

Hey, can I post a link to my board? Just kidding...

I quoted that one above because I adamantly despise SPAM tactics such as posting your link in another board. Or guestbook. Or email. Or whatever. I firmly believe in word of mouth as the sole and TRUE factor in getting people to come to your site or message board. If people don't come, then maybe you're not cut out for it. Nothing worse than a board with 500 members, 497 of which just said "Hi, I saw your link. Cool board. Visit mine!"

Other than that, I think this is an outstanding guide. Thanks, Slick!

Some boards have catagories for showing off your board. I dont mean spam I hate that too .