Forum Promotion Sites

[Clarkie]

Hey,

All of the websites I run are communities or websites powered by forum software. I've recently registered on a website called SimPromote and found myself registering on multiple forum promotion websites. All these sites seem to have sections where you can either post a certain number of times in exchange for some posts on your forum and you can also have your forum reviewed for posting.

I was wondering if anyone else uses these sorts of websites and recommends any that have helped you in the past? I've decided that if I post on such sites with links to my sites in my sig then it will help create backlinks. I'll also get the opportunity to have users posting on my forums at no cost whether the forum is brand new or old.

I'm registered on SimPromote and PromotionStadium which are new communities.

Thanks for any replies,
Clarkie

[Clinton]

Sounds interesting, Clarkie, but I'd be worried about quality. I wouldn't want people coming and posting in here just to be nice to me. Their posts would probably not pass our anti-fluff rules.

What's your experience of these "guest" posts on your forums?

[Clarkie]

I've never actually requested them but considering the posts are free and there's not more than 20 posts per request it shouldn't be hard to fix if they are spam. I'm not suggesting this forum needs it but I'm sure new forums that need to look like they have activity and content would find them very useful.

[Clinton]

This forum needs it just like any other forum does.

I suspect that any such activity and content here may pass the spam test, but members here would hit the triangle to send a fluff complaint to the mods.

If these free posts are largely fluff do they actually help a new forum starting out? Wouldn't they hurt it? Let's put it differently - if people are landing at your forum and had to read a lot of posts before finding any "meat" would they hang around and register?

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully in support of posting elsewhere to attract attention. Here's one example of me posting elsewhere that has attracted people to this forum. If you make a quality post that explains a problem, raises very interesting questions or displays an in-depth understanding of the subject people are likely to follow your link to check you out. This approach takes a lot more time obviously, and does work, but different approaches work for different forums.

What type of forums does the approach in the OP work best on in your opinion?

[Clarkie]

I think General Discussions forums are most likely to benefit from such posts. This is because they are there for people to post about anything and the users who are posting packages will be able to post about whatever they want. This would include general discussion on any forum. I don't think forums that are specific to a topic would benefit from this however as if the poster wasn't interested in the topic they'd either be making uninformed posts or as you call it, "fluff".

Therefore if you're using these systems on a forum that is not General Discussion but has a gd section then you'd need users who were actually posting in the main sections as well.

Would you say the same about paid-to-post sites such as postloop?

Obviously if you make posts elsewhere to try to bring traffic to your forum you're choosing the best places to do so. This is far less likely to bring fluff and would be useful for topic specific forums or sections of forums.

[Fergal]

I actually own this Forum Promotion site. The services we provide are free and are very helpful for people who are launching or growing a new forum. In addition to free forum posts our members receive free forum reviews, promotion on the forum itself and even free domain names for their own forum.

We have a strong reputation and the quality that participating members receive from Forum Promotion is good, at least in part because the people delivering the services are generally forum owners themselves and they like to to provide a standard of service that they would appreciate on their own sites.

[Clarkie]

It looks like a very well setup site and I know how reviews can help users see issues with their site that they wouldn't notice themselves. However what do you think about posting packages, where do they help people and where do they do the opposite?