Forum Promotion Forums Are Not The Answer

[Hyperion]

[16 June, 2010 Update: I've responded here to more arguments made in favor of promotion forums.]

[This may be a "negative" article in that it details what should presumably be avoided, but does not offer alternatives. I do not bother because I think such advices as the following have been covered here well enough: submit contributive content on a regular basis, participate in discussions, visit like-minded forums, and etc. That said, my article covers a very particular type of forum that I feel too many people think is a decent answer to the problem of promotion. In detailing what I see to be the flaws in that assessment, I hope that my article may be of assistance to a new generation of hobbyist message board administrators (the demographic I feel is prone to buy in to the use of forum promotion forums).]

When I say "forum promotion forum," I mean a forum set up specifically to promote other forums, and provide a number of "services" to assist in development, such as the "post exchange," reviews, and forum-related discussion. I should probably note, however, that I am most definitely not referring to webmaster or administrator resource forums (such as AdminAddict), which differentiate themselves by being for more than promotion and promotion-related services (such as post exchanges and signature ad placement), and in another important way detailed next.

Unlike a webmaster or administrator resource forum, a "forum promotion forum" often does not consist primarily of established administrators who are secure in the promotion of their forum, and are genuinely interested in assisting others and providing input without blatantly waving an advertisement. This brings me to the Catch-22 of the average "forum promotion forum": the members attracted to such forums want to promote their forum, but are not interested in joining other communities (unless it will further promote their forum). That said, when you submit your topic in the advertisement section, it falls on blind eyes because the readers are only other promoters.

Another notable promotion service is the post exchange. Post exchanges may help with activity, but they are much more likely to do so when coupled with more up-front tactics like simply submitting quality content or regularly submitting thoughtful replies to your members. However, as is known by some forum administrators, there are paid posting services out there that guarantee a certain "quality," which should be all I need to say about that to make the following point. Post exchange participants at forum promotion forums tend to be low quality, as those participants are, as I said, mostly inexperienced administrators who haven't gotten their forum off the ground, and so are not likely to have the necessity of quality content nailed down as something they should be contributing to at their forum, and therefore yours.

What about non-promotion related services like reviews and forum-related discussion? I will respond to the latter example first. Forum-related discussions should theoretically help administrators because they are engaging in, or reading, feedback with fellow administrators. The problem, again, is the demographic of the community: administrators who do not already have established communities, and are primarily around to promote their forum, rather than engaging in interesting forum-related discussions. Sure, there are jewels to be found among the rubble (in regard to content), but the prevailing demographic greatly contributes to an atmosphere where posts tend to only be good enough to count toward the attaining of services, rather than the attaining of knowledge.

As for reviews, it is hard to find quality because you are not often enough crossing paths with people who are genuinely interested in and passionate about reviewing forums. Who are the type of people there should be more of? As I alluded to earlier, people who have communities that are already established, are confident about their knowledge, and do not simply seek post count.

Certainly, reviewers should not be expected to give top-quality reviews for free, and [insert amount of posts here] may certainly not be worth a well-thought-out, several-paragraphs long review. The problem is that, at forum promotion forums, reviews are more like categorized one-liner praise for what's there (you have a favicon, you have posts, you have topics), whereas criticism is lacking and extremely generalized (you need to get more posts, you need to get a better logo). What makes reviews worthwhile is this: the people giving them have built communities that have "taken off" and that don't grow primarily from leeching off the desire countless people have to promote their own forums. Your time would be better spent seeking the people who will help you at administrator resource forums.

[Wayne]

Hm. Interesting article, and one which I'm sure I influenced in some way!

I do agree that Forum Promotion Forums are definitely not the answer; in my experience, the most avoided sections of most forums, are the ones designated as being the 'dumping ground' for fellow administrators/forum owners to promote their sites - so setting up an entire forum for this purpose would be ludicrous and nonsensical in my opinion.

The Post Exchange:

I'm in two minds about this:

1) It definitely can benefit a forum that is getting off the ground, in its first few months and needing to look active.

2) However, its very much a short-term solution unless the poster decides to stick around.

I personally only register and post at forums that I like the look of, but even then don't post that regularly at because I have my own site to get off the ground.

I feel like I'm justifying myself in this message to your community Hyperion, but I don't mean it to sound like that, so I apologise!

[Hyperion]

Wayne,

I'm not sure why you feel the need to "justify" yourself (whatever for), but I most definitely was not passive-aggressively needling you anywhere in my post. It wouldn't be my style, anyway; I prefer to be upfront if I am to express a grievance to anyone in public.

That said, this article was actually posted at AdminAddict weeks before you registered here. All that I added (for my submission to the Articles section of vBulletin org) was the part in brackets, and the last paragraph on post exchanges. Also, the few sentences above the brackets were added only in my re-posting here.

Anyways, I enjoyed reading your points. You had me nodding in agreement at this statement:

2) However, its very much a short-term solution unless the poster decides to stick around.

[Wayne]

I didn't feel the need to justify myself - I'm not prudish! - but I felt that's how it would be perceived, and apologised if in advance if it was

I'm glad to see that's your approach to things too

[EffEmmBee]

A short-term benefit is not really a benefit at all. If a forum is trying to get off the ground a 'short-term' benefit might harm them later on. An administrator gets excited(happy) when they see more traffic coming into their sites, therefore for that 'short time' the admin might be expecting a certain level of growth. Once that 'short-term' of activity finishes, an administrator stops seeing the traffic, he/she might get discouraged, which might lead to them giving up. Keep in mind I'm talking about the administrators who are new to administrating forums.

Admins who go to 'forum-promotion' forums, in my opinion, they are admins who are insecure of themselves. Those who often think 'I don't think my website will succeed if I don't do this'. Often not keeping in mind that other admins will be in those forum promotion sites and they don't really give a sh*t about the other sites promoted there unless, as you mentioned, it benefits them.

I'm always against post exchange, I think it's a whole lot of bs and that it doesn't help a community at all. People who sell these post exchanges are the same as people who try to make easy money out of making graphics. When you pay for these post exchange services you get a person which will post on your forum until a certain post count or thread count is reached on their side, therefore if your forum was JUST getting off the ground and the user posts 500 threads/posts in 1 week and your state of mind is 'This will bring me users' then, again, the admin might see the lack of traffic and give up.

[Hyperion]

I don't like participating at forums where I know that many of the people there are only there to fulfill their role as post exchangers. There seem to be tell-tale signs that the members are post exchangers, too. For instance, I remember one stand-alone general discussion forum that relies on word-of-mouth that nonetheless had several members regularly submitting numerous topics in quick succession, most of which have very little input (in fact, most of them have opening posts that ask for members' thoughts on the subject, but don't contain any thoughts of their own).

As someone who has run a forum for several years, and has been to many stand-alone, general discussion forums, this just doesn't seem like normal behavior on these types of forums. Sure, members are going to post topics when they're interested in what other members have to say, but the administrator is always going to be, by far, at the forefront of content creation unless he is getting hired (monetary or otherwise) help.

Also, here is more of what I had to say about post exchanges at an administrator resource forum:

I have never used post exchanges, and I cannot bring myself to do it. Post quality has nothing to do with my stance; rather, it is the notion that it is not real. Sure, it may help with the real deal, but I do not like the idea of astroturfing (no matter how little) my community in order to get some real grassroots activity. Related to that, I want all my posting members to be there because they genuinely want to, not because they are obligated to.

Along these lines, by chance I came across a "service" that allows someone to purchase discussions and profiles from a company's website (I do not remember which one; maybe Yahoo?). This is sad. Yesterday, I already found what I suspect to be a forum using that service. It is a forum that has supposedly been around since 2008, and that relies on word of mouth. However, the administrator has so far garnered less than 30 posts, and he has only five forums (or sections), all of which have one or two topics, but thousands of posts, all of which are contributive. For example, in one forum, there is a several-hundred-pages-long discussion on opera music. That said, there was nobody online at the time I was there, and he was advertising at the support forum of the company that is freely hosting him.

[EffEmmBee]

That is sad, but it's usually the state of mind that many admins acquire when making a new forum (not saying ALL start in that state of mind). I know it's good for an administrator to be willing to spend money for their website, but some need to stop and think if purchasing these 'post exchanges' or engaging on these kinds of exchanges would be beneficial for them in the long run.

I, personally, would never even think about getting post exchanges! Not only because I do believe that people cannot be extremely versed with every topic, but I had a horrible experience with them. IMO an admin should be the one starting up the forum, YES it might look VERY silly at first that the admin is the only one posting, but thing is, the more interesting the articles, the more chance is that your readers will engage in discussions. For promotion, my best shot would be social networking. As stupid as some social networks might it, the more you expand your 'reach' the more likely you hit your target audience quickly. Promoting and creating content yourself as a starter admin will bring much more results than relying on services that could bring little to no traffic. Oh! and you save a couple of bucks.

[Hyperion]

Originally Posted by EffEmmBee

IMO an admin should be the one starting up the forum, YES it might look VERY silly at first that the admin is the only one posting, but thing is, the more interesting the articles, the more chance is that your readers will engage in discussions.

Speaking of posting interesting articles, what I've tried to do is strike a balance between posting new topics on a regular basis, and making them interesting by providing my own thoughts, and by asking questions.

I think that adding your own thoughts, in addition to asking questions, makes members more interested in the subject, especially if you are firm on (and provide support for) a position rather than taking an "all sides are right" approach. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to be an asshole (though that's one way to go about it).

I can't say that most people believe this, but it certainly irks me when someone keeps posting topics asking for my thoughts without ever bothering to add his own. It's no secret to the experienced general discussion forumer that there are countless forums with topics lists littered with such opening posts. Also, it's no surprise that the topics with such opening posts are usually very general ("Abortion," "Gay Marriage") or very specific but simple ("What color is your eyes?," "How many times do you eat?"). That said, people quickly tire unless there's some sort of "service" that is the actual reason they are there, such as download files to leech of, or means to advertise.

[WittyIntellectualite]

Interesting article and posts following it...

To say the least, forum post exchanges are the last resort for increasing activity. All they do is bring users who stay for a certain while and they never return. Unless it's a long term exchange, it's useless. However, in the beginnings of a forum, post exchanges are beneficial, at least to make it look active, as aforementioned. But the catch to that is, it's not really active, and the posts aren't organic.

Reviews are great if you get them from a mature forum such as AdminAddict or TheAdminZone. Otherwise, they're useless. All the reviewers pinpoint are post count, post count, and oh, post count. They never look deeper to examine the quality or other content. Essentially, they review the obvious factors to a forum. Graphics, participation, etc. Whilst TheAdminZone reviews that, they actually explain... I know because I am one of those reviewers.

All in all, great article, great justifications and other information here.

I'm intrigued to read further.

[WittyIntellectualite]

I do think it's also safe to say that when doing post exchanges, those exchanges have no interest in your forum's genre. Hence Hyperion's point of obligation.

Most of their thoughts are configured through Google. Because all you have to do a search, and you see the content arise in 10 pages, if not more!

[Hyperion]

Promotion Forums Are Still Not The Answer

A few more arguments in favor of promotion forums recently came to my attention, foremost among them the assertion that the promotion forum must be used as a supplemental resource for an overall advertising and content building effort.

Indeed, this is sound advice, and my problem lies instead with the average promotion forum, which is, to me, lacking in resources. Whenever there seems to be a richness of articles, in other words, they turn out to be half-assed efforts to summarize re-hashed concepts, such as the idea that you shouldn't advertise a site still under "construction," or that you should regularly post new content. Ironically, these promotion forums are often (though, of course, not always) run by administrators who are themselves inexperienced, and who can also use quite a bit of the content building and advertising advice they like to spout.

Furthermore, the membership of promotion forums are dominated by inexperienced administrators, and are, by their very nature, geared towards members who wish to capitalize on promoting their forum. In other words, although the person arguing may wish for the promotion forum to be used as a supplemental resource instead of just to advertise as much as possible, the reality is that most of the membership will, inevitably, act against this wish.

What is left, then, in regards to what the promotion forum offers, are the "services," which I've already dealt with above.

Another argument advanced in favor of promotion forums is the idea that you may obtain long term and active members there by using the promotion forum to meet, and become friends with, its long term and active members. This is done, says the one advancing the argument, by being active and contributive at the promotion forum. The problem with this argument should be apparent by now: what is said in this argument about promotion forums is equally applicable to any forum with an active membership, no matter the subject.

Finally, it is said that, if promotion forums aren't working for you, the fault probably lies with your forum. Once again, this makes sense. However, no forum, whether a promotion or Pokemon forum, will work for you if your forum has little to offer. This doesn't serve as an argument for the usefulness of promotion forums; it serves merely as an argument for the uselessness of poorly executed efforts.

[Hotspot]

Ya, I totally agree. Promotion forums don't help that much at all, what helps the most is a link in your sig and the attempt of getting someone to notice your sig. They have to go " O h look a forum about something I'm interested in! Cool!"
That's how I get most of my members, but sometimes they don't join ;~; It can be a bit disappointing, but it works very well!