Promoting a forum

I am keen to start a contest for my forum, (in sig), but I have no clue where to start.
I want to run monthly contest for about 6 months, but where do I start? (Where do I announce it, what contest and so on)?

I have a fairly flexible budget, but I am worried that nothing will be very effective, (apart for a short term burst of interest).

So how would you suggest I advertise my forum?

I need some images designed for another website, (5 or 6 smallish 200x200), should I make it part of the contest?

FFMG

 

Contests and promotions certainly help build forums, but you could also try doing something that is newsworthy and submitting press releases. We generate a good chunk of traffic from our PR's when the various news places pick them up.

 

Funny you should say that, I might have something news worthy about the forum coming up in the next week or so.
Where should I do a PR?

FFMG

 

The best place would be PRWeb. PR's there seem to get the most exposure provided you choose the paid option, and not the free one.

Also post it on Digg.com if it's tech related.

 

Thanks, I will have a look at it once I need to make the announcement.

But what about the contests? Any hints about what I should do to maximize the results?

Thanks

FFMG

 

Just save up some money and buy one.

 

buy one what?

FFMG

 

A forum. Forums startups fail more than restaurant startups.

 

As I said, I already have a forum, http://www.httppoint.com, and it has been around for a while.

I just want to promote it with a regular contest, (for a while).

But I have never done a contest before, so I don’t know where to get started.

FFMG

 

*bump*

Any body knows where I can promote a contest?

I will do a PR when the contest is ready but what else can I do?

Any good examples around?

Thanks

FFMG

 

Great, I will use the skills to promote my forum later.

 

I started my forum with a 100$ Free Gift every month and its still going on.
Iam Giving away 100$ worth Domain and Hosting and also giving away money for posting replies,
This means what ever the members do they earn some thing and hence they are happy to post more
My forum Link is Get Paid to post
Always do these type of things to get members and Also posts
And i would recommend you to also get some active paid forum posters.
One more thing is be always active on your own forums

 

What Skills?

FFMG

 

May be he talks about PRweb & Digg

 

I can see a few mentions of it on your site, but where are the rules for deciding who gets what?
How do you advertise it to outsiders, (to get new members)?

I am happy to do $100.00 per month to paypal account or something.
But how would I promote it, (apart from the PWeb and so on).

I could always sign-up to many forums and advertise it, but I am curious to see what other solutions there might be.

FFMG

 

I have a VB based forun that has a plugin that allows me to monitor "referrals" to the site from each member. I am sure there is a plugin for whatever type of software you run that can monitor that. I use this to start a referral contest.

Also I have hired a pro writer to write some good articles that are deep enough to start conversations that go beyond the daily nonsense posting that doesnt keep attention.

hope these ideas help

good luck

 

For the referral thing you can install a referral MOD and pay the members
0.10$ - 0.50$ based on budget for every new member who joins and posts minimum 10 posts (this saves Double registrations)

Regarding the 100$ Contest in my forum i myself decide the Best poster personally and give the prize.

 

I think I will join that forum, Looking good. Very Good.

 

I find it best to keep your contest announcements in one specific place, and where they can be seen by all your visitors. Set the rules for the contest and explain how you want it to work as best you can, this will help avoid confusion and people complaining that they did what they thought they had to do to get into the contest when they didn't.

For advertising your contest, you could hand pick a website or two with a similar category interest and request an ad, either text or graphic, promoting your contest.

SVZ: Most new forums fail because somebody gets the idea that they can just slap together any old forum and voila, people will come. Forums that actually have work put into them, and have a purpose behind them and some marketing put into them do have a chance. I haven't even got started on my new forum really, and it's already predicting a PR 4 and getting regular traffic. If anything I'm trying to slow it down so I can get rid of the ugly skin that is on it right now! I'm waiting on somebody to make something good.

 

You are more than welcome to join, we also do revenue sharing .

FFMG