Guerrilla Marketing for Forums?

Hi!

I have two forums that have recently started from scratch. The first is the new Consulting Freelance Forum on the About.com network. The second is a new forum I set up on an indie music webzine that I run, AudioXposure.com.

I'm having a devil of a time trying to kick-start them. I've been participating actively in other forums throughout the Web. I've included links to the forums on the bottom of every article, review or anything else that I've had written for either site. I run a lot of sites, and can't really afford to spend money on advertising just for forums right now.

Does anyone have any ideas for some real guerrilla promotion tactics for forums? Please share them with me if you do! Much appreciated!

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Jenn Mattern

About.com Consulting / Freelance Guide - www.consulting.about.com
Owner of J.H. Mattern Communications - www.jhmattern.com
Editor of AudioXposure.com - www.audioxposure.com

Hey there Jenn,

I join nearly every forum I find related to design/hosting/marketing/business in general, however I wouldn't join either of your forums. If I wouldn't join it, chances are..no one else will! The reason I wouldn't join the first one is because you can't browse the forums until you're a registered member, big put off.

The second one, it's a poor skin....unattractive and phpbb (totally hate it) plus it doesn't excite me, it doesn't look as though you've put much effort into it and thus I wouldn't bother wasting my time.

If you want members, you should make the first forum open to guests and change the skin on the second to something more attractive.

Thanks for the input. Actually both forums can be browsed by guests, you just can't post. I'm not sure why you had a problem with that. With the first one specifically, when you're at the forum log-in page, you just have to click where is says "Just looking? Click here for Guest Access."

The second one is brand new, and I've only spent two days posting anything at all. My top priority is content, not look, and I'll eventually get around to creating a new skin when I'm not running a business and managing 3 sites and designing a minimum of 5 more. Unfortunately, it's not the highest priority right now, because we're still deciding whether to move the whole site over to a cms, so a new design would be pointless until that decision's made. The whole point of the second forum is to provide content to musicians, so I wouldn't expect anyone not a musician to have any real interest in the content anyway. You can't please everyone.

Thanks again for the input though.

Find some friends and get them to post some topics each. Then don't be the first one to answer on every topic. And then find some other indie music site to link trade with. There is no such thing as kickstarting a forum. At least not without money for campaigns etc.

Ok, with the first one....I just assumed it was guests only and clicked "x" within about 3 seconds....if i'm doing it believe me others will. The second one, you're thinking like alot of people do...."quality content is what will bring visitors" this is not the case with forums i've found.

In order to actually get members you need to create an attractive/friendly enviroment for them, people have a very large choice of forums to join and post on, why would they bother joining a forum with no members when they could easily join another one, like talkfreelance?

If your skin looks really good, people will think you've spent alot of money/time and join, if it looks rubbish and like a 5 minute job, they won't bother.

Unfortunately, in the first forum, I don't get any control on the look or entry points. I only get to control users and content. They want to keep the sites on the network streamlined, which I can understand. A lot of the forums seems to be pretty empty. Maybe I'll make a suggestion to the support team and see if they can do anything to help all of the forums in that regard.

That's a good idea. I know a lot of the artists personally, so I'll put the word out and try to convince them to help get the discussions started. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Robson Ok, with the first one....I just assumed it was guests only and clicked "x" within about 3 seconds....if i'm doing it believe me others will. The second one, you're thinking like alot of people do...."quality content is what will bring visitors" this is not the case with forums i've found.

Most people coming to the site seem to hit the index page, which is good. So, I made sure that the links I've included at the top to the forums goes directly into the forum, and not to the log-in screen ... so guests can instantly browse. Hopefully that will help to clear up some of that confusion for people coming into the main page. Unfortunately, I can't change the destination of the regular Forum link in the left navigation, so from other pages it still goes to the sign-in screen. At least it should help a little bit! So, thanks so much for all of the feedback!

Yeah, agree ^^