Do you like to have a social media presence for your websites?

 

When you create a new project, whether it be a forum, blog, game or just general website, do you tend to create social media accounts for the website alongside it?

 

I used to be quite hot on creating Facebook pages and Twitter profiles for my website projects, but I generally found at the time that absolutely everybody and their dog was doing the same thing and it actually did quite little in terms of bringing further engagement or new users to the website/forum, unless I spent some money experimenting with the social media networks' advertising features.

 

Has anybody had any success using social media to help promote or just have more of a presence online for their sites, and if so, do you have any tips to share with the Administrata community? :)

I think all the social media I will be doing, at least for now, will be limited to having the share buttons on the site. No accounts linked to it.

I don't have an ounce of social media presence for my forum and I gain 30+ members a month on average. I feel a forum of my type is better promoted across the forum software. I'm sure I could gain a lot of visitors on social media if I were to use it, but I can't grow fond of any social media these days.

I don't have an ounce of social media presence for my forum and I gain 30+ members a month on average. I feel a forum of my type is better promoted across the forum software. I'm sure I could gain a lot of visitors on social media if I were to use it, but I can't grow fond of any social media these days.

You’d think that. But actually when you really give it a thought: how many users are on social media that would be your target audience, for skins and codes? I don’t think you’ll gain much visitors by social media that’s genuinely interested in what you offer.

You’d think that. But actually when you really give it a thought: how many users are on social media that would be your target audience, for skins and codes? I don’t think you’ll gain much visitors by social media that’s genuinely interested in what you offer.

It just depends on where I would promote my site on social media. If I were to find pages related to Jcink I think I could find a target audience interested enough to at least peek at my board. But I digress, promoting my board on the forum software itself is probably the best way to gain traffic.

Going where your customers are is where to advertise. In jCodes' case this is going to be advertising on Jcink's main community, plus where the Jcink folks hang around (so, places like rpg-directory) rather than places like here.

on Jcink's main community

Well, I am a post whore in that community where I am the third top poster on the board within 6 years.

 

places like rpg-directory

My advertisement topic there is edging up to 10,000 views.

Well, I am a post whore in that community where I am the third top poster on the board within 6 years.

I can relate to that experience.

 

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My advertisement topic there is edging up to 10,000 views.

I suspect one route for further advertising would be to look at the RP scene and maybe hit up some of the advertising Tumblrs and/or Discords where such things also get advertised. I sadly don't have any links to hand but that would be one place to investigate.

I do have Facebook pages set up for some of my forums, but I honestly only promoted them once and mainly got bot traffic and no interaction. Again, I didn't really look into using ads to boost the content on my page though. I'm not sure if that would help. I think the only forum that might benefit from social media posts that I currently own is Gex forums. Maybe Free To Be Us can too, but it depends on which social media platform I post the link on. (Plus right now I'm still in the process of moving it over to vBulletin.)

I can relate to that experience.

 

 

Every time.

 

I suspect one route for further advertising would be to look at the RP scene and maybe hit up some of the advertising Tumblrs and/or Discords where such things also get advertised. I sadly don't have any links to hand but that would be one place to investigate.

I never thought much about using Discord as an advertising outlet. I think I've tried using Tumblr to advertise once and have a hard time navigating my way around endless pages on social media networks, almost as if it feels too overwhelming. But yeah, the RP scene is the most massive on Jcink out of all niches, so it could help lead to more traffic and engagement on my board.

 

My most popular code for Jcink is a code I created to change the avatar on a per-post-basis, a lot of people started requesting to modify it to a greater extent to change the username, character details, and other relevant information that can retain to a specific character. That proves how popular the RP scene is on Jcink.

RP used to have resource hubs - more places like RPG Directory - but many of these have closed now in favour of Discord which is practically a given requirement now. I will agree navigating Tumblr is a nightmare but it’s only a few Tumblrs you’d want to reply on (often anonymously)

 

A list of Discords that might be useful:

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The avatar switcher is an interesting case - I remember having fun supporting this myself though I made it harder for myself by including a resize/crop widget during the setup (I let people set up 5 avatars per sub account)

Do you like to have a social media presence for your websites?

Some of the, yes. Some of them, no.

 

When you create a new project, whether it be a forum, blog, game or just general website, do you tend to create social media accounts for the website alongside it?

Typically I do for my blogs, not so much my forums.

 

I used to be quite hot on creating Facebook pages and Twitter profiles for my website projects, but I generally found at the time that absolutely everybody and their dog was doing the same thing and it actually did quite little in terms of bringing further engagement or new users to the website/forum, unless I spent some money experimenting with the social media networks' advertising features.

You have to go where your audience is, as others have mentioned. It helps if you research first and look around to see how active your audience is on various popular social media platforms.

 

All my Hiking with Shawn audience (mainly local, regional, and Chicago) are mainly on Facebook and Instagram.

 

All my blogging audience for Serious Bloggers are on X and LinkedIn.

 

You also want to look at the benefits of the social platform based on what you want from it. I want to convert my social audience into subscribers of my newsletter and readers of my blog, so Facebook and IG are good for that. TikTok is designed to keep people on the platform, constantly swiping from video to video. I stay away from it because that's for brands that want to exclusively work from TikTok as their main product.

 

Has anybody had any success using social media to help promote or just have more of a presence online for their sites, and if so, do you have any tips to share with the Administrata community? :)

I've had a lot of good experiences with YT and FB.

 

Content scaling and engagement are my recommendations.

 

Post at least once a day, more a day, if you can. Make sure it's interesting and value-packed high quality content.

 

Engage more than you post. Engage as much as you can. Engage with people you want to follow you and engage with their followers. Be seen as being value-packed and helpful.

 

My Facebook page is about to hit 22,000 followers. I engage so much that FB pays me a bonus check every month. It's usually around $500, but sometimes it's right under $2,000.

 

My Facebook group has around 47,000 members.

RP used to have resource hubs - more places like RPG Directory - but many of these have closed now in favour of Discord which is practically a given requirement now. I will agree navigating Tumblr is a nightmare but it’s only a few Tumblrs you’d want to reply on (often anonymously)

 

A list of Discords that might be useful:

I know what you mean, most of the "mega" RPGs on Jcink have closed down over the past years.

 

That does indeed look like a useful list, thanks for sharing!

I have Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Bluesky pages set up for my forum. I also run a subreddit on Reddit where I share topics from my forum.

 

 

 

Currently, my forum’s Facebook page has 311 likes, I have 146 followers on Tumblr, and 330 followers on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve had more success gaining traffic and users through Tumblr. I try to post as often as I can across all of my social media pages.