Ideas for new members?

Billgar · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:10 pm Post subject: Ideas for new members?

So does anyone have any ideas in particular to get new members, i mean i guess its fun with just us here.....but then it becomes more jsut like an RP group where us four meet up to RP and stuff....so its good, but some new members would be nice as well...

I can make some print flyers but from the sounds of it you dont think that that would aid much? So let me know.

Schmall · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:23 pm Post subject:

the flyers may work. The ratio of time spent to the gain of memeber will be sad keep in mind. we will have litte control of who we invite. Be sure to get these up in the game shops, card shops, and any place that sells RPG books and supplies who will allow you to put up a flyer. Many public places will let you post flyers. Good old fashion stapler to telephone poles is a thought.... okay, just kidding on that last one.

Taking the time to spam other forums is an option.

I still need to get the myspace site up and running. Someone else can do a facebook one. I just havent had the time to sit down and start one on myspace. I wish it wasnt block here at work or i'd spend hours on it and hours more on recruiting.

Word of mouth is the good old fashion way. The problem we have dried that resource up fairly well. I can tap into a few more people once classes start though.

A thought. Does anyone know about search engine optimizaton? (SEO) Its where you get the search engines (esp google) to pull your site up closer to the top of the list of hits. Perferably the first one. I know the concept behind it and thats all. Something worth looking into for sure.

We can move some of our RPs and duals into some blogs. This way our history is spread out more across the website and attract more attention. Make a few blogs with different sites (blogger with google for example) or even search for blogs that want short stories or even RPG blogs. Post samples of our RPs and arena duals so that people see them. Always leave our link and banner of course.

I will see what I can google for marketing online. Intro to E-commernce was good for this, but I withdrew from the course. I will see what I can muster up from my college lessons in marketing too.
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Toxic Torch, A blinding mix of tatus and ortch. 1 GC, Rec 5 HP
Blessed tea,Cost: 5 GC, -1 malice
Demon Cider: 5GC, +1 malice
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Billgar · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:35 pm Post subject:

archaicmessiah · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:41 pm Post subject:

A few comments on Schmalls suggestions. The first being that I thought of many of the same ideas, but unfortunately found flaws in all of them.

1. Spamming forums is NOT the way to be, trust me. I am a mod on a couple other forums and we HATED(!) when people advertised their forum on ours. So don't do it. It would be equivalent of people doing that here, and it would just be obnoxious and rude.

2. Facebook is alright, but aside from one headline that your friends may or may not have seen, than its rather hard to advertise there.

3. Word of mouth only goes so far, and as you said, that resource is almost tapped out.

4. SEO is extremely hard to do, and sometimes near impossible. Heck we don't even know google's algorithms to manipulate, and even if we did what key words would we try to claim? Aside from putting in a town of catch words such as battle forum and junk, it just wont work until our traffic increases as well.

5. Nobody reads blogs these much these days, and unless you know an author, it could be hard to get one to write about the site. :\

Sorry to shot holes in all the plans, but I am not a blind optimist, but rather a realistic pessimist. However, I also thought about putting this site on dig but that too had some problems. The first being that if you're not a big shot there, your article probably wont be noticed. Second, digg is being over ran by idiots these days and thus the forum would just get flooded with spam.

Schmall · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject:

Some more food for thoughts. By the way, I have been thinking over marketing strategies for you billgar. I actually plan on using this as a pet come time to draw up a marketing plan for college. I am suppose to use a business, but I can try to argue otherwise. It would be fun.

Anyways, I have done some quick searching and some more thoughts to mull on...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization --> for those that no nothing about SEO

http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/marketing-tips/ --> the guy has some valid point and suggestions. Worth looking over.

Yahoo answers --> People are asking questions there all the time. People use it to advetise thier own businesses, websites, games (WoW is all over this already), and other self interests. we can tap into that with our spare time.

Gaming indexes --> I used to use sites like these when searching for online games here at work when the net was allowed. They can be useful. They dont host any actual games. They only provide thier opinions and links to the actual site and/or game. There are hundreds out there. If we can tap into this, we can get our banner and link out for nothing except a little digging and some good emails.

Spambots --> I dont like them personally. If we have someone hear who knows how to run them, its a thought. I think it is a low dirty method of advertising really.

The overall goal with everything posted above is to get our name and link out into the rest of the web. The more viewers that see our links on other sites, the more we will have coming to our site. We want people coming to us and checking it out. We wont get all of them who check us out, but its a start. Even if we only nab a few a week that trickle in, they themselves will spread the word by mouth. All we need to do is getting people coming in and seeing how great we are.

Another thought, online gaming newspapers. Someone with good writing and tpying skills can type up a few good emails and send them to these guys. If they publish the letter online, that will be thousands to even millions of viewers right there. They will think that if we are able to get a letter publish by thier newspaper people, we must be worthy to check out. Its worth the try.

I will continue to mull this over and see what I can come up with.

~EDIT~
Archaic, I dont mind the hole punching. I am merely brainstorming and throwing ideas out. Thats all. I know of most of the holes you mentioned. Besides, someone needs to play optimistic while another plays the pessimistic. Balances things out. So dont worry about it ;)
_________________
When I visit reality, I go as a tourist

Toxic Torch, A blinding mix of tatus and ortch. 1 GC, Rec 5 HP
Blessed tea,Cost: 5 GC, -1 malice
Demon Cider: 5GC, +1 malice
Immortal Nectar,Cost: 50 GC, Grants Resilience Stock: 4

Billgar · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:55 pm Post subject:

Indeed all is good. To archaic even if people dont read blogs simply getting a link to our site moves us up in the eyes of google and increases our rating, furthermore

LE- Online Role Play

join it on facebook.

Koku · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject:

I suppose I can join it but none of my friends are really into this type of thing so it will not help too much. Most of my friends have much different likes then me. I guess I will still join though.
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archaicmessiah · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:14 pm Post subject:

Yeah I am in the same position as Koku. While some of my friends are secretly into anime and stuff, they don't necessarily have time to post in a forum let alone have battles. I also asked a couple of my friends who would be into this, but they are working too much to post. Darn jobs!

Koku · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:16 pm Post subject:

I think for those who still do play games, maybe creating guilds that are named LowestExistance of somethign might not hurt. It would attract some people's attention at least.
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Billgar · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:18 pm Post subject:

Yeah w ould but im secretly the head of "The Silver Wheel" On minions of mirth....yeah we are pretty powerful....not gunna lie.