Where would be the best place to advertise to get the most bang for my buck?

I am serious about this, I want my community to explode.

Depends on what the forum is about

maybe spend $1000 using 3 different paid posting companies, and spend the other $1000 on adwords.
so you have hundreds of paid posters, and then people coming from adwords going "Hey, wat an active forum, I'll register!"

least hopefully it'd work out like that :P

well right now I am planning on starting an AllTel wireless forum

I have decided I am going to sell one of my websites, so my ad budget is now $5,000.

If anyone wants to help me in the right direction in this, that would be awesome

hmm lets see:

1- Make sure your website is ready for visitors!
2- Research and find websites relating to your topic, and get advertising on those sites.
3- Adwords, YPN?
4- Get some posts going on the forum, a forum posting service isnt a bad idea, but if you have friends who are willing to come and start the posting going then that would be better.

Hope this helps

I would hire one professional writer to create some very nice initial content. For example some phone reviews, general articles, or whatever. If you have that large of a budget then I really would consider hiring some other small forum posters as well. But my experience with forum posters has been that they never ever finish on time.

And as I'm sure Lee would tell you (as I've heard him mention this on his show many times) some contests for free phones or whatever would be a great way to make a big burst of traffic stick around and register.

well get a link in some place with high pr and then get up in google
because then you wont just buy a bunch of visitiors and then it dies
then after you have good pr get link exchanges with some popular websites

fyi - do the Free T-shirt for 500 or 1000 post for your members...

That's what I did with Rap Music com back in 99 and it went bonkers.... we gave out a ton of shirts, and most of the people who got a free t-shirt 4-5 years ago still post there.

That was the only advertising we ever did for that site.

unfrotunately these days most people want more than just a T-shirt. I wouldn't waste more than like 50 bucks on paid posters and i would make then only post like a few posts a day to strecth it out.

I think one of the best things to do is find websites about your topic and advertise on those, like someone else already mentioned.

But before you do any real advertising make sure you have some posters, whether paid or not, posting away so it doesn't look inactive.

wow you people give some great advice I am seeing light bulbs light up in my head left and right now.

btw, the site is AllTelForum.com

would it be good to get moderators right away for this project?

Would you please tell me how to do that I sounds awsome ...........Thanks Liz

Ditto what Liz said.

Ray

Some people sell their signature links in other popular forums. You could find some active posters and probably get a lot ad space on a forum cheap. Plus it's advertising to forum users which is your target audience.

Originally Posted by jeremy860

wow you people give some great advice I am seeing light bulbs light up in my head left and right now.

btw, the site is AllTelForum.com

would it be good to get moderators right away for this project?

Personally, I would hold off on the moderators right now (unless you have a good friend that'll help you out). If you're at the point where you can manage the forum and its members by yourself, then don't rush to get moderators right away. Wait a while and you'll probably notice which members stick around and write quality posts. The last thing you want is to accidentally promote someone to being moderator and having them go on a powertrip locking threads and talking condescendingly to members. I've seen it happen on a few forums where the admin rushed the process too fast and didn't get to learn about the members of his community before choosing a moderator.

Couple ideas -

- Someone said T-shirts. Offer prizes for reaching 50/100/1000 posts, like T-shirt = 50 posts; Text Link Ad (6 months) = 100 posts; $25 gift card = 1000 posts.

- Get a couple moderators that know about Alltel and give them all the Adsense revenue the forum products. Set up a channel in Adsense and give them that money. Great way to keep them coming back and adding new discussions and posts.

Hello...

Great to hear you Have that much money for Advertising... But why not stsrt small and Free and go from there? Any forum picks up speed within 2 months.

thanks
Malcolm