Good Way To Get More People.

[rmills 0]

Haven't had much luck on getting more people but one way that has always worked for me is using banners on SimpleRefs.com, usually offering 0.25 credits and up is the best way.Also, some great ideas on here, going to try them out.

[legend112 0]

Well here's what I did. I made a Naruto site a while back, based solely around the discussion of the recently released comics and the released Anime episodes. My goal was to create a healthy community in which my real life friends and I could discuss, debate, and have fun, with people around the world. With that in mind, me and 2 of my friends started. I needed members, of course, because there are tons of Naruto sites out there in the wide expanses of the interwebz, so I aimed for the core. Always aim for the core. What is your intended population? Naruto readers/watchers. What do I KNOW Naruto readers/watchers do? Well I KNOW that they read & watch Naruto. So I contacted a youtube user (back when youtube allowed manga to be posted up), and asked him to join the site. He was ready and willing to advertise my site with every manga that he released.
In a week, I had about a thousand members on the forum that I ran, and about 3% of them went inactive, everyone else was booming and lively. The concept behind this is that when you aim for a certain group of people, stab your advertisements right at the core of all of their similarities. In my view, their Narutardness was what made them... Naruto followers, so I took the most active youtube provider of Naruto manga at the time, and made him my advertiser. This was all when I used invisionfree, without hosting or any real flashy material, simple stuff.

Now in terms of content, like a user on the first page said, originality is key. You can't hope to give someone what they would already get on a more famous, efficient, and popular site. If you can give the users a reason to come to you, instead of to the other Narutards out there that have the candy hanging from their window, then you've got a win win situation.

Thanks very much for sharing with us your success story. Its really inspiring and educative. I happen to be starting a new site soon and I was kinda worried that there already is one popular one that I think runs the niche but with your advice, I think I'd have to target the core like you say.

I have had other ideas about advertising that are very similar to yours and once I get started on em and put them on paper, I will share with everyone how that will go but I think its one way members can join up quickly.

Wow, you got a thousand members on your forum, thats amazing..it means so much started happening hey. I have run forums before and I will tell you a thousand members on my forums and i'd be the happiest guy alive!

Thanks for the share.

[mahesh2k 0]

@Okara, that's nice story and really good to see that it worked out for you. There are many forums which are like ghost town these days. That include my own forum. I do get hits from google search engine but i don't get new members. Good to see that word of mouth and youtube promotion worked out for you.I think those who want to get more topics and members to site should check out services like forum-promotion and promotion-source sites. I'm using them and trying to kill ghost town effect of my forum. Let's see what i need to do more to get members.