It’s time to think outside the box. Most of the promotion we do to our forum is purely online. But, how do you know that you don’t share the same interests with people who live in your own home town/city? I have devised a small list to help you promote your forum with out with the internet.

Mouth to Mouth

The easiest method of promoting is actually telling people that you have a forum. If you owned a football forum most likely you may go and watch and support your local team. Tell your fellow supporters that you own a forum that is related to football and ask if they would be interested in joining and talking about football. You could gain a few extra members.

Local Newspaper Ad

Try advertising in your local newspaper. Getting advertisement spots is really easy but sometimes can be a bit expensive. In the end I think it is worth it because if you can get that extra member it will create that extra bit of activity and could be the decider if the next visitor will want to join as a member or not.

On a Local Radio Show

Not a popular method of marketing simply because of the amount of people who have abandoned the radio but if you can get your ad called out in rush hour traffic then you could receive a fair bit of traffic. This method will really depend in what niche your forum is set up in.  For exmaple I don’t think this method would work in role playing forums.

Business Cards

Create a few hundred business cards and ask for them to be put up in related shops. For example, if you own a music forum why don’t you head down to your local music store and ask the shop keep if he can put your business card up on the till or somewhere else visible to the customer.

Clothing and Merchandise

Create your own branded T-shirts and hats and wear them about. Have your URL clearly visible on the front and back. You may not blend into the crowd but is that really a bad thing ;) You could get a bit of traffic from this method.

What’s Your Say?

Do you have any more methods of promoting you forum out with the internet? Do you think it’s possible to promote effectively without the internet? Post below I would love to hear your thoughts.

Twitter has become a great source of traffic for quite a few websites, especially forums. In order to receive the maximum benefits from twitter you need as many natural followers as you can.

Natural followers are followers that follow you at will and are not following you just because you followed them, paid them or have used some black hat trick ect. Natural followers are more inclined to read your tweets and click your links and that’s why we want them.

I have included some tips below on how to twitterise your forum to the max and gain more natural followers.

Add a Twitter “Follow Me” Image to Your Forum

Having a little twitter icon somewhere in your forum layout is a great way of attracting new twitter followers. It’s shows your members and visitors that you have twitter and most likely most if not all of your followers will come from this button.  The main idea behind this is advertising that you use twitter.

Make Your Twitter Image Web 2.0

Make your Twitter image interactive. When hovering over it make it move, dance or hide ect. Be creative. Everyone loves a forum that is unique and creative.

Create an Announcement in Your Forum

If you have an announcement forum, create a thread in there and announce that you have twitter for your forum. You could even create a forum announcement via the ModCP and have it appear in all your board’s forums. Again, the main point is to give your twitter link exposure and show your members that you have twitter.

Be Active in Twitter

Being active is another great way to attract followers. Nobody likes an inactive twitter account. In order to get traffic from Twitter you have to create it. That means post regular tweets on updates on the forum and posting threads from your forum ect

What’s Your Say?

Twitter is all about showing a personal side while promoting your forum. Once you find the balance you are set for a steady stream of traffic.

Do you use twitter to promote your forum? How do you advertise you use twitter? Post below I would love to hear.

Be sure to add @successfulForum