Staffing Advertising

[SoulsRPG 15]

44 minutes ago, Samantha said:

And I think part of the issue with this on my site, is that I don't think many of my members really talk about the fact that they roleplay. I think for people who haven't actually heard about our little corner of the internet really don't understand what it is and trying to explain it to those people is kind of hard. lmao

 

Most people who say "word of mouth" is good are talking about people on other roleplay sites.  For example, I got into 'Souls because a friend I roleplayed with seven years ago introduced me to it.  If people are on multiple roleplays, they might suggest roleplays they like and are a part of to their other roleplay partners.

[Gothic 307]

With ads/directories when it comes to a potential site, I won't join right away. I will lurk on and off for months before I finally join. Or I if I'm talking to an rp buddy and they will say they're after a certain site. I will point them in the direction of sites that I remember, usually those are sites that belong to friends or from sites I see all the time. 

 

If I post a rpg request I am more likely to join because I will say what I'm looking for, what I'm not, and the admin has taken the time to respond to it. 

 

I've had people join from all sorts of places. 

 

 

[Icewolf 258]

I think the best way is passive advertising, by being around directory and resource forums, taking part in discussions, etc. They give you a chance to make friends or at least get to know people. The reason I say that is because advertising on individual forums, plus going on to twitter, facebook, tumblr, etc is very time consuming and the only thing that you get out of posting in the ads boards of another site is your ad there. I think people are more likely to be interested in joining a site if you're active on directory and resource sites because you're contributing to the community by sharing your thoughts and ideas. Twitter, facebook and tumblr are alright if you have the time to devote to them, but trying to take advantage of every adverting opportunity that you come across will mean less time to work on the site. It has to be a balance.

 

I don't know if top sites work these days as I don't browse them very often. They can be full of dead links if they are old and the creator doesn't update it any more, so unless your site is always on the first page, I don't think it's that beneficial. Live journal is another way to advertise, but (and this applies to tumblr, as well) if you submit your site too often it gets a bit spammy on the site and there is the danger that people could get tired of seeing the ad. Posting in forums like this also allows people to see what updates you've made to your site, and your site is 'live' as opposed to being one link in a list of many (possibly dead ones) like you see in the top sites lists.

[omgwes 18]

So I've seen a lot of comments on this thread that say something like, "I don't know where people find us from." I have started using Google Analytics to monitor this. I don't yet have enough data to really give an opinion, but just sayin' it's out there if anyone wants to try to actually see what works!

[Morrigan 1,826]

5 hours ago, Icewolf said:

Posting in forums like this also allows people to see what updates you've made to your site, and your site is 'live' as opposed to being one link in a list of many (possibly dead ones) like you see in the top sites lists.

 This here is the exact reason the Initiative has the “member active” flag to promote active, posting members in our directory. 

 

@omgwes google analytics is great but can be daunting. It’s also not a catch all as some users have analytics disabled as they don’t want to be tracked. 

[Death Kitten 200]

As a person who makes use of multiple extensions in Firefox to avoid tracking, I don't want to subject my members to what I myself go out of my way to avoid. I just have a field in my app that asks people where they come from. While I wouldn't mind knowing why people choose not to join, ultimately knowing what brought me the people who did join is more useful. Also allows me to track the quality of players it brings me by source, knowing where to continue to put my effort in. And honestly? It keeps coming back to word of mouth, but there really isn't anything to do to encourage that, other than just make players happy.

[Archivist 26]

My site has 2 Facebook sites- one strictly a fan-page meant for interacting with curious lurkers - and one just for the members when we need fast notices- as opposed to posting in the Bulletin Board on the forum. 

 

Out side of this- strictly word of mouth.

Sure, it keeps our numbers small BUT - the members we do have are usually already acquainted with one or another member.

[Suzi 20]

Against The Odds started almost due to the death (RIP) of an older Hunger Games site. We still had members looking to write and so myself and my friend Issy created ATO. This meant we already began with a few consistent members. This helped tremendously as it made our site active from the get-go, since they are all great and dedicated writers! I have found that *most* of our new members have come from directory sites: especially RPG-D and Caution To The Wind. These members sometimes come and go, and others have certainly stuck around and are still here to this day! With HG sites, we do get members that come back between games, we often see members that have been on other sites that have now died or are taking a break. Many in our genre seem to stick around within the HG "umbrella", and since there aren't *many* of us around, that seems to work pretty well. You see members who realise they've written together before, and this often works well. 

I make sure to keep up with weekly/monthly bumping on these directory sites as a priority. 

As for advertising, I have a master list... which you are welcome to come and have a look at. Whether this works or not... I'm not sure? It does bring traffic/guests to our site, which is great, and I find more guests do pop by when I go on an "advertising spree". I love my sheet because I can easily go through the list and first link sites I haven't advertised on for a long time (and then sift through and delete closed sites). It is a lot of effort, I get that, but it's something I don't really mind doing either way! 

 

Lastly, I haven't found that affiliates really work in bringing in new members? But I do feel it is nice to connect with fellow RP sites that I think are creative, inventive and relative to our own.