Hi All, I am launching a new forum, where people can submit their resumes for reviews, discuss interviews do and don'ts, resources in posting resumes. However, so far I got only 3 users. Does any one has a good way where I can start promoting for people to sign up?? Thanks!
I have started a few forums myself, some failed, some successed. I am no expert, but I can give you my little opinions. 1. Start with less forums, until it gets busy then branch out. 2. Sign up with a few names and make some posts just to make it look active. Don't do the pay per post, quality is not good. 3. Offer some services that makes people want to come back. For example, in my forum, I offer language lessons and I update them daily. It makes people want to come back and sometimes post. I am not sure what you can do with a resume forum, maybe have "daily resume tips?" 4. You can go to free article directories and look up resume/career related articles and post them on your forum just to let the members have something to read. Also it'll make your forum look a little busier. 5. Buy the resume related ebooks on ebay with resale rights, post them in a section where only registered members can get to. 6. You can also make ebooks, sell them on ebay for as cheap as possible and include a link to your site to tell people to get their resume reviewed, go to your site or something like that. I am planning to make my lessons into ebook, sell them on ebay for 99 cent and tell users if they want to learn more for free, join my site. 7. Of course, all other regular stuff, submit link to directory, signature link in other forums, seo, adwords if you have a budget, also look up the related keywords, write articles that include those keywords and submit them, site map, blah blah, ya know, all other good old website stuff. Anyways, again, those are my personal opinion, I hope you can success.
I disagree, I have used multiple Paid Posting services and have had great success with them. As to see some samples of the writers work before you hire them... very simple and effective.
I would have to agree to disagree as well. Though my site, see sig, is not really a forum I believe it needs the same techniques to get it going as one. Instead of paying for post, I just paid for quality traffic advertising with yahoo. $5 a day was getting me about 5 new members a day. At first I wasn't getting very many polls, or voters, but now I get tons of them. Did not pay for one post. Many people from here helped me out as well, and joined.
I have recently hired forumshock to post on my forum and though they've only completed 50 of 350 posts, all are well thought out and average around 40 word per post. I am very pleased! (will be writing and posting a review on DP with my thoughs when the campaign is complete)
Hey, like I said, they are my opinions. Unfortunately paid per post didn't work out too well for me. I hired like 3 companies to do it with total about 10 writers or so. Some did well, some didn't. The ones that did well makes your forum look busy, but the few that didn't do well make you forum look childish and stupid and I had to delete some of them just because the quality was too poor. I rather do post exchange with other forum owners instead, because that way both parties care about quality. Anyways, that was my first time really contribute to DP, I was always the one asking the questions and learning, hopefully my first time can help some people. A little green lights won't hurt
Offer an incentive for users to sign up - this may be in the form of an eBook or some such digital product, or perhaps a contest for the best thread/post with a cash prize? It doesn't have to be large.. mabye $50. Of course, the higher it is.. the more people will sign up!
try adwords and make your forum more appealing , also run a contest or gift ( by lucky draw) for peoples who sign up .
Great ideas *was silently taking notes myself..* I also think that you can do some forum posting exchanges. Just find someone - post an ad on dp, and ask to exchange posts, so u do 10 posts on your forum and they do 10 on yours. Can be good just to get a few interestng threads started and make it look a little busier. These paid forum posters and stuff wont work though unless you are getting r\trafic - or no-one will notice the new posts, so make sure that you have all of the usual traffic building things in place aswell. Hope all goes well
One thing I've learned about forums? Controversy creates traffic to forums and blogs. I am actually going to be bringing this into my sports forums.
Yes, I totally agree with you, that's why I added a section of funny resumes, where people can laugh and learn. http://heavenlyplace.hobby-site.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=17
Assuming your forum is the one in your signature, you need to stop everything and purchase a domain name dedicated to the forum. Many people will simply ignore your site, or forget the name with the URL the way it is. Once you've done that, try and get your site into Google. Since your forum will eventually/hopefully be content rich, you're already sitting at an advantage from other various sites. Attempt to gather as many back links as possible to help boost your chances at reaching a reasonable rank with Google. Before I converted my site into a social networking community, my website was a forum targeting ethnic teens across Australia. I remember running a competition, where for the first three people to reach 209 posts, a prepaid mobile recharge card would be given. Needless to say, this proved extremely effective, with one guy reaching 418 posts to simply claim a second recharge card. Start a competition of that nature, and attempt to adapt the prizes towards your target audience. Offer something that will appeal to them, along side the option of receiving a cash prize. Getting some paid posters to generate activity isn't such a bad idea, provided you employ a company which actually knows what they're doing. Many potential members to your forum would be reluctant to sign up if there isn't a reasonable amount of activity. Also signup on a few accounts and post some interesting and controversial articles. Remember the saying, controversy sells. Submit as many articles as possible to appropriate websites based around your niche market and be sure to include a link back to your site. Remember to also list those articles on your forum somewhere. If you've got some money to spend, run an adwords campaign. Adwards campaigns don't necessarily need to involve spending alot of money if you can target appropriate keywords which aren't too general. I'd also pay attention to every single point walaboom made. They're very valid, and potentially effective points if executed correctly. And remember, any publicity is good publicity. I had a group of verbal e-thugs bashing my forum on my competitors site for weeks and weeks. It damaged my confidence, however I noticed alot of people we're visiting to find out what the fuss was about - and guess what. Those visitors are now active members. I wish you the very best of luck!