Comments on: How I Increased Page Views on My Forum by 66.7% in a Month

By: Martin Reed

Martin Reed — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:07:06 +0000

Robby – Your forum has no content. Visitors will not register at a forum that has no members and no content. You need to go out and actively seek out your first members. Cut back on the categories – at the moment, you have too many.

Don’t worry about external marketing just yet – concentrate on getting some content in your forum. Any promotion you do right now will be wasted; people simply will not register at your forum right now.

- Martin

By: Robby G

Robby G — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:44:22 +0000

I’ve started a new forum but I don’t know where to start marketing. I put a banner up on my blog but it’s just not enough. I don’t want to run a contest just yet because I don’t have initial traffic to have a successful one, but it’s definetely a good idea for the future. Any advice would be helpful.

shiteilike.com

By: Prospere Webitor

Prospere Webitor — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:06:50 +0000

I’ve tried a contest once, but I was not all that lucky. I only managed to get three people write in to me! Is it better to do a draw?

By: Online Communities

Online Communities — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:04:15 +0000

Darren – Thanks for a great little case study. Personally, I have always been against forum competitions that reward people for post quantity. I am surprised you only found a problem with low quality posts from a small number of members – traditionally such competitions attract a lot of new ‘members’ who will post any old rubbish in order to boost their entries and chance of winning.

Retaining them for the long term is often the best way to determine whether your competition was successful. Perhaps in a month’s time you could report back letting us know how many of the new members that joined during the competition period are still active?

In any case, it seems as though you met your own goals and for that reason alone, this competition was a success for you.

- Martin Reed

By: moserw

moserw — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:58:05 +0000

Good idea. Dont run a forum myself, just a personal blog, but running a competition is something to consider. How many visitors do I need to average daily to even consider putting up a competition?

By: Niklas

Niklas — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:39:09 +0000

This was a really good post. I enjoyed it very much.
Thanks for sharing it with us.

By: Beth Norman

Beth Norman — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:55:18 +0000

Great article. I’m new to your blog, and love all your tips.

By: Roberto Alamos

Roberto Alamos — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:36:12 +0000

Great post about managing forums instead of blogs.

You have written so much good material about blogging that sometimes it becomes very repetitive, but forums are a totally different thing and would love to see more posts about them here (articles about managing, promoting, and administering forums).

Posts like those will be very valuable since internet it’s plenty of blogging tips, but not of forum(ing?) tips (or they are not so visible as blogging tips are).

By: Ryan McLean

Ryan McLean — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:34:26 +0000

Great idea
Fantastic to see that you made your money back plus extra. I will definately think about running something like this on my blog (possibly every comment can be an entry)…
I run a finances blog but it is still in its beginning stages (less than 1000 views per month) but I have great content and as it grows I will definately implement this strategy…

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:58:17 +0000

How did you select the winner of the competition? Did you use software to select a post at random?

By: Matt Wardman

Matt Wardman — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:45:22 +0000

One thought Darren – since DPS is about learning photography, could you use this to aim to contact the “lower” end of camera companies targetting cameras at new photographers.

Since cameras come with software and drivers could you persuade them to put a free promotional E-Book in the package? You’d need a relationship first, but it would be a no cost win-win.

Just a thought.

By: Jeremy Winter

Jeremy Winter — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:04:38 +0000

Very insightful article. I agree that in the future it’s best to award quality over quantity with projects like this. This is how we all learn though!

CR – StateofAffairs.info

By: Debo Hobo

Debo Hobo — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:05:36 +0000

Good article and excellent idea for a promotion. So what was the source of the increased revenue was it camera sales, ad sales what was it?

By: Miguel Wickert (Pineiro)

Miguel Wickert (Pineiro) — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:01:51 +0000

Awesome, congrats on your success. By the way, thanks for your help some time back for helping me determine the camera I should consider. Thanks for sharing!

By: Sandy Naidu

Sandy Naidu — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:42:58 +0000

I wonder if the companies understand the importance and marketability of good blogs..Very soon when they do, imagine all the giveaways the blogs will showcase…Nice thought…

By: David

David — Thu, 08 May 2008 18:21:17 +0000

This is a very interesting post. I watch the DPS blog (RSS feed) even though I am not a member of the site. I saw the competition and it did make me consider joining the forum but I did not.

I’m still trying to get some of my blogs to average over 100 consistant visitors per day, so over a million in one month is great numbers to me. At the rate of my sites perhaps I can give away a free pack of gum!

By: Luis Gross

Luis Gross — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:58:22 +0000

Great post Darren, you really got into detail on this one, and it’s highly appreciated. I never thought of this before, and it seems running a competition has great outcome’s according to your data. I’m looking forward to using this sort of marketing tactic myself. Thanks Darren.

By: Make Money Talks

Make Money Talks — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:43:52 +0000

Great info about forum competition, thanks!
I am thinking to start one forum and to offer prize’s every month, maybe i can grab extra signups that way.

By: James - DigitalKeyToInfo

James - DigitalKeyToInfo — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:19:19 +0000

I’ve always wondered if a forum was profitable. That is a lot of posts and hits.
I never really thought about the need for moderators. Do you pay them?

By: Duhh

Duhh — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:48:02 +0000

How exactly did you see how many posts everyone got that month and how did you enter them all and randomly select one, I’d really appreciate it if you’d share that secret with us.