Social Media Success

I want to try and branch into social media as a form of promotion for our board. Has anyone found success in campaigns like that? And, how did you do it?

 

I've never seen social media as something that worked. A site I'm an Admin on used to use it and we got rid of it because it just didn't help.

 

I've seen it work on tumblr. But other then that... no.

 

The site I run has a facebook account, but I don't think it really helps with anything as far an increasing membership. We basically just post writing-related memes that get a few likes.

 

Reddit and Tumblr seem to be the best avenues, though if you can (like with Tumblr) utilise hashtags well, you might find some success in Twitter. Facebook and Twitter in general seem to be more for in-site updates rather than advertising though.

 

he mix of all is effective. Having your name up there. And none gives immediate results. All are long term working. Marketing says that a person should see the same advertisement 20+ times until deciding to do something about it (buy the product, visit the place).

Tumblr and tumblr directories, twitter and twitter "pimps", Facebook are to be added to the mix you already put. And also, if the site theme allows, fandom discussion sites as well.

 

It's a bit time consuming but rather rewarding. When I first heard that people rp on Facebook I looked into it and found it was busier then I suspected. It was fairly simple to make a place for my forum and advertise. As I said, upkeep can take some effort. Twitter especially, you need a lot of funny or intresting one-liners.

 

I know Tumblr seems to be the place to be right now. So many sites I've come across recently have started organizing things on Tumblr and then moved everything to a forum. There is something called 'Buzz sites' or something to that effect to start raising hype for your projects. It's a whole new world from when I started roleplaying 17 or so years ago XD

 

I don't feel like our tumblr has been particularly effective at least in regards to our own site tumblr, however, I do think posting tumblr ads on tumblrs specifically for rp advertising probably have a little bit of an effect. I've just recently started trying out reddit advertising. I don't know if it will prove effective or not.

 

My experience is that the people you find on facebook, twitter, etc. are people who like quick, small, rapid-response posts. If that suits your site's style then it's a great idea to increase visibility and certainly can't hurt membership. However if that's not within your site's style, it could be detrimental. So I advise you use caution and you make sure that you are very clear about what your site expectations are when you advertise. :3

 

I used twitter and Instagram for a while which seemed to get a lot of attention on likes, and would bring a lot of guests on posting links but no actual gain of membership for the site. Majority of people didn't seem to understand that it was advertising for Forum RP so they would ask to join and expect to be one lining in DMs/Tweets. Tumblr and Reddit are probably the best bet because there are already consistent advertising communities on there.

 

So far I haven’t seen any success. People mostly like posts and move on without actually viewing the webpage itself.

During my second time being an admin on a rp forum, it’s still not proving any better. I’m not sure hastags and tags themselves benefit member activity

 

Has anyone had any negatives with any Social Media listings / links? I think for us it increases traffic, but not retention of players - but if it kept just one, I wonder if it then becomes worth it, you know? Any thoughts for - and what are the down sides?

 

The most common social media success I've seen has been Tumblr, but there have been a few sites that have used Instagram as well, and those have been quite successful. It turns out there's some secret RP community on there? Aside from those, I have seen and used Facebook myself in the past, although less for promotional purposes and more to have a tightknit group where information can be shared, although with fewer people have 'RP Facebooks' and more people using Discord, it's becoming kind of useless now.

 

Facebook has been the go-to social media for my site. I'd say more than half of my user found the site through Facebook. All of our announcements and other good things are cross-posted there.

 

Social media it really depends on what your userbase is going to be, and where you advert that will overall impact if you bring in a lot of users. Also, of course, what you are posting.

Almost all our site's users were garnered through Tumblr and word of mouth. We're a pretty heavy scifi/fantasy genre with a helpful dose of political intrigue though, and that's something that did real well on tumblr. To get the ball rolling I pretty much exclusively posted worldbuilding and art teasers. I don't worry too much about traditional "come join our site!" type ads as I do agree that those have limited interest. Most RP sites have many of the same overarching features that each one advertises-- that's not what draws people in.

Your worldspace, users, characters and the theme/aesthetic of your site overall are going to be what really reels people in! Post stuff that when people click to your social media profile/page/what have you, the posts there give them a really good look at what all that is.

And tbh this gets into the general psychology of why we advertise; most corporations today advertise knowing full well their media is not going to get you to get of your couch RIGHT THEN and buy their product. Similarly the first few times people see your site's advert it's not going to necessarily make them join. The idea is to plant the seeds of familiarity in folks so when they are hankering for a new site they can a) access yours and b) already have a positive connotation with your site.

That sounds pretty contradictory BUT think about this: You go into a gas station when it's a hot summer day, you're tired, you're cranky, and you want something cool and refreshing to drink that will help pick you up a bit. Got an image in your head? Know what you're going to reach for?

That's that company's branding and advertising at work-- and that's what you want for your site, too!

 

My co-admin is pretty confident it will work, so we have our promotions across most social media. We'll see how it does.