06-27-2010, 02:54 AM
Edited by Eve. Credits belong to the original authors.
How to Promote your Forum by chief at Lefora Support Forum
There are many ways to promote your forum, from directly inviting friends, to using social media websites like twitter.com to reach out to new audiences. Whether you're 3 members, or 3,000, many of these techniques can help you grow your forum.
Some Promotional Techniques
Sending an email to all your friends
One of the easiest ways to get new members to your forum, is to send an email to all your contacts and friends, and ask them to join your forum. Your forum may not be of interest to all your friends, but as long as you don't bug them about it, sending one invitation email will help you get the word out quickly.
List your forum in Directories
Directories are the easiest way to build up links to your forum. Not only will people find your forum through these directory listing sites, but google will also rank your forum higher in search results when you're listed in forum directories. We recommend that EVERY ADMIN has themselves listed in at least 3 directories.
NOTE: List your forum only in appropriate directories, otherwise it may penalize you on google rankings. For example, if your forum is about baseball, it's fine to go into sports directories, put don't put it in gardening directories.
Here are some directories for you to list your forum in. Remember to navigate to the best topic, usually under a parent direct of 'forums' or 'computers' or 'internet':
If you want to find even more directories, be sure to check out these huge lists:
Using Twitter.com to reach out to new people by nickyjames at The Lifehouse Nation
Using Micro-blogging as a tool to promote your forum is a fairly new concept. Here are some useful tips to help promote your forum using twitter.
First and foremost, don’t SPAM! Tweeting the name of your site and begging Twitter users to join is a very fast way to get people to un-follow you. It’s ok to tweet every once in a while to let people know you still exist. But keep it to a minimum. Tweet your followers to let them know of status updates to your site, any updates, announcements or news and don‘t forget to post links to your forum as much as possible. I like to keep some announcements exclusive to twitter. For instance, I reveal exclusive interviews that my forum has on Twitter and not on the forum. Members who go the extra mile to check your forum’s Twitter account will be happy they did since they now know exclusive info that those who don’t use Twitter aren’t clued in on.
Be sure to put a Twitter widget in your forums sidebar. Do this by clicking your admin panel and clicking the Sidebar tab. Add a custom HTML widget. After doing this, go to Twitter and click the “Goodies” link at the bottom of your profile. Click the “Widgets” icon and select the appropriate widget for your forum. Copy the code you are given and go back to your admin panel. Paste the code in the Custom HTML widget and you’re done! This serves as a great tool to make short hand announcements that your whole forum will see.
Be sure to follow Twitter users with similar interests. This is a great way to build up a list of followers and traffic to your site. My forum has had quite a few members join who found us on Twitter. Remember that people always feel special when you target them directly in tweets. Say hello to new members and invite Twitter users with similar interests to join up with your forum. Ask members to re-tweet some of your updates. But remember, it’s a two way street. If you re-tweet other users’ updates, they will be more inclined to return the favor, thus , driving traffic to your forum.
Pay attention to your @replies. You may have Twitter users asking you questions or inquiring about your forum in some capacity. Not answering them or even ignoring them is never going to help your forum succeed. If you don’t have time to visit Twitter.com there are many third party ways to update. Firefox offers a way to update from your browsers address bar (Twitterbar) and you can always update from your cell phone via text message.
Sometimes it’s fun to search users talking about your forum’s topic and ask them to join. For example, if your forum is dedicated to action movies, Search some recent action films or even the term “action movies” on twitter. Find some members who seem interested in the topic and contact them and let them know you exist.
If you follow those guidelines, you should have a noticeable amount of traffic driven to your forum.
How to add a Twitter widget to your forum
If you would like to create a widget, head to http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets and select the 'MySpace' option (as it's the Flash version) to use in your forum.
Then click 'MySpace Widget' and copy and paste the code they provide you into a 'Custom HTML' widget on your forum's sidebar in your Admin Panel.
How to Promote your Forum by chief at Lefora Support Forum
There are many ways to promote your forum, from directly inviting friends, to using social media websites like twitter.com to reach out to new audiences. Whether you're 3 members, or 3,000, many of these techniques can help you grow your forum.
Some Promotional Techniques
- Posting updates on Facebook or Myspace
- Posting on Forums, Blogs, & Chatrooms
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Submitting articles to article directories & websites (like wikihow)
- Posting videos on Youtube
- Social Bookmarking on sites like: digg, stumbleupon, delicious, etc.
- By advertising on Google's adwords
- Using Widgets to promote your forum on your personal website and social networking profiles
Sending an email to all your friends
One of the easiest ways to get new members to your forum, is to send an email to all your contacts and friends, and ask them to join your forum. Your forum may not be of interest to all your friends, but as long as you don't bug them about it, sending one invitation email will help you get the word out quickly.
List your forum in Directories
Directories are the easiest way to build up links to your forum. Not only will people find your forum through these directory listing sites, but google will also rank your forum higher in search results when you're listed in forum directories. We recommend that EVERY ADMIN has themselves listed in at least 3 directories.
NOTE: List your forum only in appropriate directories, otherwise it may penalize you on google rankings. For example, if your forum is about baseball, it's fine to go into sports directories, put don't put it in gardening directories.
Here are some directories for you to list your forum in. Remember to navigate to the best topic, usually under a parent direct of 'forums' or 'computers' or 'internet':
- dmoz.org - The #1 directory to have your site listed in, but it can take a long time after submitting.
- The Admin Zone Directory of Forums - The Admin Zone is not only a terrific forum for admins learning how to grow their forum, but it has a directory as well. PR4, 67 inbound links
- bizseo.com - PR5, 80 inbound links
- Rate It All - PR4, Additionally, allows your members to write reviews about your forum.
- netinsert.com - PR4, 61 links, requires a text tag be placed on your site.
- pegasusdirectory.com - near the top of google, PR5, 345 inbound links, 1000 hits/day
- turnpike.net - PR5, 30 inbounds links
- wikidweb.com - PR4, 13 inbound links, to add a site, enter your site's address in the 'search' box and hit <enter>
- tsection.com - PR5, 174 inbound links
- roask.com - PR4, 29 inbound links
- skoobe.biz - PR5
- dmegs.com - PR3, 1,570 inbound links, requires reciprocal link
- easy-seek.com - PR4, 61 inbound links, requires reciprocal link
- fpld.net - PR3, 8 inbound links, 15,000 listings, requires reciprocal link
If you want to find even more directories, be sure to check out these huge lists:
- ISEdb - A listing of speciality directories, some free, some paid. Just navigate to your topic and see what directories come up.
- directoryarchives.com - Search for keywords about your forum and you'll get a listing of directories to submit your site to.
- directorycritic.com - has another free directory list
- Admin Zone Forums - Increasing Traffic Resources (alphabetized list w/ PageRanks)
- And finally, you can head to google.com and do a search for " 'your keywords' directory" (without quotes) and see what comes up.
Using Twitter.com to reach out to new people by nickyjames at The Lifehouse Nation
Using Micro-blogging as a tool to promote your forum is a fairly new concept. Here are some useful tips to help promote your forum using twitter.
First and foremost, don’t SPAM! Tweeting the name of your site and begging Twitter users to join is a very fast way to get people to un-follow you. It’s ok to tweet every once in a while to let people know you still exist. But keep it to a minimum. Tweet your followers to let them know of status updates to your site, any updates, announcements or news and don‘t forget to post links to your forum as much as possible. I like to keep some announcements exclusive to twitter. For instance, I reveal exclusive interviews that my forum has on Twitter and not on the forum. Members who go the extra mile to check your forum’s Twitter account will be happy they did since they now know exclusive info that those who don’t use Twitter aren’t clued in on.
Be sure to put a Twitter widget in your forums sidebar. Do this by clicking your admin panel and clicking the Sidebar tab. Add a custom HTML widget. After doing this, go to Twitter and click the “Goodies” link at the bottom of your profile. Click the “Widgets” icon and select the appropriate widget for your forum. Copy the code you are given and go back to your admin panel. Paste the code in the Custom HTML widget and you’re done! This serves as a great tool to make short hand announcements that your whole forum will see.
Be sure to follow Twitter users with similar interests. This is a great way to build up a list of followers and traffic to your site. My forum has had quite a few members join who found us on Twitter. Remember that people always feel special when you target them directly in tweets. Say hello to new members and invite Twitter users with similar interests to join up with your forum. Ask members to re-tweet some of your updates. But remember, it’s a two way street. If you re-tweet other users’ updates, they will be more inclined to return the favor, thus , driving traffic to your forum.
Pay attention to your @replies. You may have Twitter users asking you questions or inquiring about your forum in some capacity. Not answering them or even ignoring them is never going to help your forum succeed. If you don’t have time to visit Twitter.com there are many third party ways to update. Firefox offers a way to update from your browsers address bar (Twitterbar) and you can always update from your cell phone via text message.
Sometimes it’s fun to search users talking about your forum’s topic and ask them to join. For example, if your forum is dedicated to action movies, Search some recent action films or even the term “action movies” on twitter. Find some members who seem interested in the topic and contact them and let them know you exist.
If you follow those guidelines, you should have a noticeable amount of traffic driven to your forum.
How to add a Twitter widget to your forum
If you would like to create a widget, head to http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets and select the 'MySpace' option (as it's the Flash version) to use in your forum.
Then click 'MySpace Widget' and copy and paste the code they provide you into a 'Custom HTML' widget on your forum's sidebar in your Admin Panel.
