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Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 12,048
Reputation: 
Solved Threads: 129
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Originally Posted by JTroopSoldier
I would have to say I wouldnt agree. Word of mouth works wonders when you are selling something. But when you want people to join your site? Advertising is better. Yes.. I mean spend a little money buying some advertising from Dani (Hey dani.. Im soon to buy some from you once i get the site completely up.
I started off just doing free word of mouth advertising. Once the site became successful enough that it was earning some revenue, I started to invest a bit in PPC. It's been working quite good for us for some time now, but I think I've used AdWords and Overture to their limits - and feel it's time to take the plunge and expand. Therefore, this month I did some leaderboard banner campaigns as a test. The next step - which is a couple of months away - is to do some print advertising in a B2B tech magazine.
Dani the Computer Science Gal 
Follow my Twitter feed! twitter.com/DaniWeb
And if you're interested in Internet marketing there is twitter.com/DaniWebAds
Follow my Twitter feed! twitter.com/DaniWeb
And if you're interested in Internet marketing there is twitter.com/DaniWebAds
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Originally Posted by nathanaus
I can't even get my moderators to post let alone my members. How hard is this!! Surely with over 90 members someone would feel the urge to post? But nope they all just sit there silently.
Pfft this is hard.
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 78
Reputation:
Solved Threads: 1
Junior Poster in Training
Dani,
see your last post confuses me; you say you think word of mouth for a community web site and I agree, or you will just get a bunch of single click visitors that just clicked on your banner or text ad and never bothered staying.
Now in your next paragraph you say you did do ppc and other forms of advertising and some leaderboard advertising recently.
I have a forum (Talk Shack) which will feature cross posting from my Ranking sites, every product review on the ranking sites will have a forum thread dedicated to it for visitors to discuss their thoughts and questions about that particular item - theres 4 Ranking sites and 1 forum - if I were to advertise one of them, should i advertise a ranking site or the forum?
Also - what would you say beside a forum signature would be the best kind of word of mouth advertising?
Thanks for your insight - it is clear that most of us are envious (in a good way) and look up to you for your success and I know we all appreciate you sharing your thoughts so freely.
--Tone
see your last post confuses me; you say you think word of mouth for a community web site and I agree, or you will just get a bunch of single click visitors that just clicked on your banner or text ad and never bothered staying.
Now in your next paragraph you say you did do ppc and other forms of advertising and some leaderboard advertising recently.
I have a forum (Talk Shack) which will feature cross posting from my Ranking sites, every product review on the ranking sites will have a forum thread dedicated to it for visitors to discuss their thoughts and questions about that particular item - theres 4 Ranking sites and 1 forum - if I were to advertise one of them, should i advertise a ranking site or the forum?
Also - what would you say beside a forum signature would be the best kind of word of mouth advertising?
Thanks for your insight - it is clear that most of us are envious (in a good way) and look up to you for your success and I know we all appreciate you sharing your thoughts so freely.
--Tone
For Joomla articles and reviews and tutorials check out Joomla Views.
My forum has only about 1000 posts with about 50 members in 5 months.
This is a slow progress, but I am quite happy because the content contributed has been of excellent quality (we are a book reviews and discussion community) and not a single user has flamed or trolled in the whole period of its existence. We are peculiar in the sense that we're not a discussion oriented community but rather a content-driven site with a forum serving as a tool to post book reviews. We also have discussion forums, but the focus is on exchanging book reviews with other members.
Never mind quantity. It's quality I'm after and I don't mind the forum building up slowly as long as I can have quality content.
This is a slow progress, but I am quite happy because the content contributed has been of excellent quality (we are a book reviews and discussion community) and not a single user has flamed or trolled in the whole period of its existence. We are peculiar in the sense that we're not a discussion oriented community but rather a content-driven site with a forum serving as a tool to post book reviews. We also have discussion forums, but the focus is on exchanging book reviews with other members.
Never mind quantity. It's quality I'm after and I don't mind the forum building up slowly as long as I can have quality content.
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 78
Reputation:
Solved Threads: 1
Junior Poster in Training
I'd have to agree with duffy (err.. Harishankar) - quality over quantity.
Ofourse as your membership grows, so will your posts exponentially.
--Tone
Ofourse as your membership grows, so will your posts exponentially.
--Tone
For Joomla articles and reviews and tutorials check out Joomla Views.
You guys are funny...
I had ... 12 new members last year. That was a good year. normally I get about 6 a year. This community has been up since 2001. My current member count is at 491. (I got lucky in the begining by acquiring an existing pool of members.)
You have to take it into consideration what the site is about, and what are your requirements to be a member from your point of view, and from the prospective member's view. In this particular community's case, the requirements are "extreme".
So, the content will narrow your audiance, the requirements from your side will narrow it again, and finally the prospective member's requirements further narrow the pool of potential members.
It is all a game of statistics.
Therefore - advertise every way, shape and form, thereby increasing the initial pool of potential members.
Of course, if you do the advertising right, you will be able to get a clear picture what is your advertising dollar/new member ratio is. The more members you get for the less money the better, right?
I had ... 12 new members last year. That was a good year. normally I get about 6 a year. This community has been up since 2001. My current member count is at 491. (I got lucky in the begining by acquiring an existing pool of members.)
You have to take it into consideration what the site is about, and what are your requirements to be a member from your point of view, and from the prospective member's view. In this particular community's case, the requirements are "extreme".
So, the content will narrow your audiance, the requirements from your side will narrow it again, and finally the prospective member's requirements further narrow the pool of potential members.
It is all a game of statistics.
Therefore - advertise every way, shape and form, thereby increasing the initial pool of potential members.
Of course, if you do the advertising right, you will be able to get a clear picture what is your advertising dollar/new member ratio is. The more members you get for the less money the better, right?
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Originally Posted by Libertate
You guys are funny...
I had ... 12 new members last year. That was a good year. normally I get about 6 a year. This community has been up since 2001. My current member count is at 491. (I got lucky in the begining by acquiring an existing pool of members.)
I thought that I was doing badly having an average of 10 members per month signing up.
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Originally Posted by harishankar
Hey. Thanks for posting that info. I feel a lot better :mrgreen:
I thought that I was doing badly having an average of 10 members per month signing up.
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Originally Posted by cscgal
I got off to a ridiculously slow start. The second month we were open, no new threads were posted and only one new post was contributed over the entire month! Just goes to show ya ...
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