Forum promotion

[Willdex]

I couldn't find much in other threads, so I decided to start a new one. Here's the question: what methods would you use in order to promote your forum? And, if you don't mind, what's the topic of your forum?

[Willdex]

Guys, anybody? Any idea would make my day. Seriously.

[TheDPQ]

Plenty you could do. What i've actually done is pretty limited since i'm not the owner. I've sent out emails before for big announcements. I've purchased ad space on website's before. Sometimes i help people on another forums with the website's url in my sig. The forum is a graphics community.

Things you could do:
1) Purchase ad space on another site (Includes banners, textlinks, or sponsor area)
2) Send out Newsletter to your community (Letting users know about new updates and making it easy for them to forward to a friend
3) Promotions (Making signing up seem more attractive
4) Contests
5) Asking users to use the linkback button on their website
6) Asking users to blog about your website
7) Paid Forum posts to start interesting topics that might make people want to sign up to reply (dunno if this really works. People have varied results with paid posting)

[Willdex]

Purchase ad space on another siteTight budget.
Send out Newsletter to your communityA paper or an e-newsletter?
Promotions (Making signing up seem more attractive)How could you do that? A special code?
Asking users to use the linkback button on their website
Asking users to blog about your websiteThat's a good idea.
Paid Forum postsI don't really get it...Is it where I'd have to pay someone to start a certain thread/make a post?

[Joc Ular]

How could you do that? A special code?Vbulletin allows you to add "promotions" depending on join date and/or posts. So you can have those with fewer points or less length of membership needing to post more or stay longer to gain benefits.

Is it where I'd have to pay someone to start a certain thread/make a post?There are services availble whereby you pay someone to post on your forum so that it looks more attractive to visitors.

[Willdex]

Vbulletin allows you to add "promotions"...I've recently switched to phpBB, but that's good to know...
...needing to post more or stay longer to gain benefits.I'm sorry, but what kind of benefits?
There are services available whereby you pay someone to post on your forum so that it looks more attractive to visitors.Aha, I'll check it out. Thanks.

[TheDPQ]

You can pay people to post on your forum making it seem more active and giving people something to reply to.

Promotions could be like 'post 50 posts and get a free something'. But most advertising cost money. Vbulletin does have a nice usergroup management and you could say anyone with 50 posts get into a special forum... but there has to be added value in that forum, people have to WANT to post there.

[Willdex]

Promotions could be like 'post 50 posts and get a free something'.It seems like a normal idea, but I've never thought of it. Might want to do something like that.
...people have to WANT to post there.I didn't get this part.

[TheDPQ]

I didn't get this part.
If you offer a forum topic that only users with 50+ posts can use... and its just a general chat forum then no one is going to care.

The underlining point of everything usually is making it worth people's wild. They have to want to post.

[Willdex]

Ok, I think I start to understand it now...a little bit...

[Webmaster7]

I just create lots of good content, and wait for engines to pick it up. You can also create a blog, and link to some of those posts, with a review about each of them. Search engines love blogs, and crawl them a lot.