Has word of mouth been powerful for your community?

I know that I've never paid for any advertising in my life to advertise my community. I strictly get links on related sites, and link to my community on signatures - on forums that I'm on active on, and I send my forum threads to Twitter.

So, in your opinion, do you think word of mouth has been pretty powerful for your community? If it hasn't been, what's been your strongest method of promotion?

 

Word of mouth has been my only form of advertising; well WOM and Search Engine referrals. It worked out well the first year or two but has tapered off. I am considering running some FB ads though once I get us moved back to vBulletin.

 

Word of Mouth is one the the MOST powerful forms of marketing / advertising, however it can also tend to be the slowest unless you go viral, which is about the same odds as winning the lottery. My strongest leads are word of mouth based and they tend to retain the highest conversion percentages. On a side note, Most the communities I've managed have had a majority of their visitor volume stemming from organic search engines and direct backlink referrals. Search engines being the number one source in most cases. Taking the time to optimize content, web pages, supporting images, etc. can go a long way in the assistance of your overall promotional campaigns. Naturally, keeping in mind that the pages should also be legible, informative, targeted, authoritative, easy to navigate, and laid out well (always optimize for the reader before you optimize for search engines).

The beauty of word of mouth though is that it truly is a potential viral resource and will keep on growing the more people start to trust your site as an authoritative reference. Organic backlinks (those you didn't make yourself and others chose to link to you on their own without being asked to) qualifies as a form of word of mouth on the internet. Unlimited potential!

Eric Lyon

 

I make sure to optimize a lot of the content that I write - whether its the thread titles, or the content inside. It's been a good method of growth for us and I see it continuing as time goes on. I love it when a user tells us that they found us because they stumbled upon a thread of ours that's listed on search. It really feels good, and I understand the quality of backlinks and the power they harness as well.

@Dan Hutter What's the budget you're going to drop on a Facebook campaign though?

 

I was going to start out with $100 and see where it takes me.

 

Good luck, let us know how that works out for you. Have you heard of project wonderful? You bid to advertise on certain sites, have you banner, and it stays on the site until someone outbids your ad price. I know a lot of people that have used it to drive traffic and they only told me good things about the service. Just an idea.

 

Kind of, not that much really. For my last site, there were a few people that signed up just because someone else had told them about us, especially family members. There were a few active members that invited their siblings or even their parents over.

I couldn't only rely on WOM though, even if it is the best kind of marketing you can get (it's free and it's effective), it doesn't happen too often in forums.

 

I have never really paid for advertising either...

What is "WOM" ?


I could use some pointers on how and where to advertise, spent quite a lot of money on my forum I'd like it to eventually fill up though at the moment it doesn't seem to doing well at all.

 

Many of my blogs visitors get referred by others. Word of mouth is an extremely important aspect of marketing as people recommending their friends something have already put a stamp of approval on it. Think of how much an approval of a friend means to you .

 

"Word of Mouth"....which is what this thread is about, hehe.

And yes, it does wonders for me. My favorite method is going to the BlogHer conference every year and talking to tons of people over the course of the weekend.

 

Ah right! It doesn't seem to work wonders for me xD

 

Every piece of independent source research I've done has indicated advertising via Google Ads, Facebook, etc. is a waste of money. Let's be honest. There is only so much one can do with a forum and the chances that someone is going to see your ad among the thousands of others, click on it because the ad itself intrigues, register, be enthralled with the content, layout, membership, etc. to the point of becoming an active member, and either donate or click on ads to the point of offering a return on your advertising investment are nil. Word of mouth is the only form of advertising I use. It saves me the time and expense of other methods and it draws far more quality members. Forums with a million members, 5% of whom are active aren't impressive. What is impressive is a forum with 1,000 or more members who login daily. You won't achieve that from advertising.

 

I'm quite curious has to how many forum owners haven't exactly paid for advertising and rely on signature advertising and article marketing to promote their community. I'll admit, I've yet to spend a time on advertising my community and it has grown strictly through word of month and getting new links on blogs as well.