Promoting Your Site

Recently I've been considering site promotion and how to get my site out there and boost our community. It always seems that I fall back on the same old things when it comes to promotion, however; advertising, directories, affiliates, social media. These things are great, but without an RP following anymore, they're not as useful as they once were. So I pose these questions to you and I'm interested to see what your opinions are.

01. What methods of site promotion do you use? Why do you choose those?
02. What is your most successful method of promotion in your opinion?
03. What methods do you utilise to regain RP friends and a following to assist with site activity?

 

01. What methods of site promotion do you use? Why do you choose those?

I advertise everywhere. On all kind of sites, on Facebook, Tumblr, twitter, directories, topsites... Getting your name there is important.

02. What is your most successful method of promotion in your opinion?

I don't think there is one successful method. All of them together are successful.

03. What methods do you utilise to regain RP friends and a following to assist with site activity?

I don't use any method to regain RP friends. If they left, they left for a reason. If they want to return, they know where to find me.

 

01. What methods of site promotion do you use? Why do you choose those?

I have never really promoted my site much, until now. I really like RPGfix and I think it's clearly got the right target audience. It's very difficult to find people who enjoy creative writing and text-based role-play. I'd like to find some more affiliates to share links with.

02. What is your most successful method of promotion in your opinion?

Affiliate links have always been my biggest source of new players, and word of mouth. The one time I did use Google to advertise my site I got nothing but low quality registrations from people who couldn't even be bothered to read the rules. I'm really hoping RPGfix will help me draw in some new writers/players. This site looks very promising and it gives me hope that I'll be able to draw some new blood in.

03. What methods do you utilise to regain RP friends and a following to assist with site activity?

Every now and again I'll put out a bulk email to all my members and some will return. I'll occasionally post on social media to draw back in some old veteran players as well.

 

01. What methods of site promotion do you use? Why do you choose those?

RPG community sites (like rpgfix, shine, caution, etc), advertising on other boards, word of mouth, affiliation, and I'm trying to get into using tumblr to advertise. I chose community sites and advertising on other boards because I knew both were good places to reach out to other roleplayers. Word of mouth just sort of happens organically and originally I wasn't going to bother with affiliation but a player on my board asked if she could affiliate so I figured, why not? Couldn't hurt. As for tumblr, a site I was on as a player recently used it and it seemed to get some traffic so i figured I'd try it.

02. What is your most successful method of promotion in your opinion?

RPG community sites, like rpgfix, shine, etc. seem to be more successful to me. They have more traffic, Advertising on other games is great but ads get buried so at least with community sites there's either a directory set up or you can bump your ad.

03. What methods do you utilise to regain RP friends and a following to assist with site activity?

If someone chooses to leave and they're a player I'd like to see come back, I'd make sure they know that they are welcomed back but other than that, not much. Most people leave because their lives get busy or they lose interest. I can try to regain their interest by suggesting plots but I don't really do too much to pull back people who leave. I feel like that's the nature of rp. Leaving happens and folks who really want to come back usually don't need much prodding.

 

I think it depends on your target audience. My site's niche is pretty small, so word-of-mouth will play a much larger role in getting new members than any social networking site will.

If members (once I get some) decide to leave, I won't try to "win" them back. They left for a reason, and I'll respect that. If they find their way back, then fine, if not, that's fine as well.

 

What seems to work for me is targeting my audience. Sure, I get people when I ad blast loads of sites, but I get the most people when I join on already adult communities and advertise there with admin permissions.

I've *never* used social media, though. Probably since I don't understand most types of it... I really only use facebook to keep up with old friends. x___x;

 

01. What methods of site promotion do you use? Why do you choose those?:

Social media for the most part. I've found that far more successful than other options including resource sites. As a comparison, I have added perhaps 90% of my member base from social media. The other method I use is joining sites (non RP) that cater to the genre we have in our Role Play. As ours is mostly Stargate, there are tons of places I can go to. My third and very useful option is to create Youtube videos. That works a charm.

02. What is your most successful method of promotion in your opinion?:

Joining FB groups aimed at Stargate

03. What methods do you utilise to regain RP friends and a following to assist with site activity?: Emails for the most part and keeping in contact with past friends as much as possible.

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