How to promote a website/Forum

[Reverie]

What would you recommend to a new webmaster on how to promote their forum?

- How do you find forums/forums to advertise at?
- Do you use social media to help promote your forum?
- Do you necessarily need to spend money in order to also advertise more?

 

[Ravenfreak]

I always post on many different forums that allow promotional topics or have a directory. I've created a few pages for my communities in the past on Facebook, but I feel like you don't get much traction there. I've never spent money on ads, but I can see it being beneficial to help get your site out there.

 

[Cory]

I usually find forums based on word of mouth or signature/directory viewing, and those are also my primary ways of promoting my own forum it seems.

I've never been a big fan of most social media, so I've never really utilized it to promote my site.

I tried using Google AdWords at one point to promote my site, but it didn't really work in my favor. Otherwise, I don't believe I've ever spent a penny to promote my forum.

 

[Cedric]

A few months ago I’ve sent an email to phpBB to advertise at their footer. They never replied. Maybe it’s got to do with the fact that we’re running XF though. I’d really like us to expand to more directed developers advertising.

 

[Reverie]

I was always curious if Facebook Groups would be helpful, especially since the discussions there can be so good but would be better if organized on a forum! Like the book groups I'm in - I'm like geez, this could have been a lot of fun on forums... but bleh D:

@Cedric I can kinda understand because they want to advertise their software forums... just frustrating because we could be a forum for all forum software! Would be cool to be able to somehow get connected to all these different softwares somehow, but it is hard to find the semi active forums in the mix of the dead forums as well. Wish the directories were a bit more cleaned out/organized.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I was always curious if Facebook Groups would be helpful, especially since the discussions there can be so good but would be better if organized on a forum! Like the book groups I'm in - I'm like geez, this could have been a lot of fun on forums... but bleh D:

Honestly I have a very active fan group that's based around a Youtuber. I tried making a forum and having it co-exist with the group, but only 20 out of the thousands of members who are in my group joined the forum. This was before Discord was as big as it is, but we do have a Discord server that one of my members in the group made. I just don't know if promoting your forum in a group will do much to bring in more members. You'll probably get some guests to flock over to the forum, but most of them will probably be just Facebook bots.

 

[MassageMan]

I was always curious if Facebook Groups would be helpful, especially since the discussions there can be so good but would be better if organized on a forum! Like the book groups I'm in - I'm like geez, this could have been a lot of fun on forums... but bleh D:

@Cedric I can kinda understand because they want to advertise their software forums... just frustrating because we could be a forum for all forum software! Would be cool to be able to somehow get connected to all these different softwares somehow, but it is hard to find the semi active forums in the mix of the dead forums as well. Wish the directories were a bit more cleaned out/organized.

It's next to impossible to get members of a Facebook group to leave the group/groups and join your forum. People on Facebook groups have a very short attention span and I think most of all like the immediate feedback Facebook offers. No other way around it. Far as advertising your forum using Facebook ads have never once brought me any kind of gain. Simply a waste of money.

 

[Shortie]

Being an active member and also a staff member in the forum world again, I find I am active on a lot of forums and if I am able to I will advertise in my signature and in my profile the sites that I wish to promote.

I also use social media as much as I can but at the moment, I do need to build up my social media account so that it works a little better but when I have shared links to my site on my video game content creation Twitter with over 800 followers, I see the difference it makes.

I have never paid for any kind of advertising and would refuse to do so unless I am making something back on the forum, then it would more than likely be an investment.