I've always felt like advertising a forum was a waste of money - advertising does not build a great community - its members do. But looking at how activity is growing, I decided to take the forum's name out (the only thing you can really rely on when advertising), so this week we launched our first ad campaign that goes through over 10 web sites (including FreeWebHostingTalk) and will appear in PingZine! and WHIR hosting magazines' directories. We'll see how this works.

Good luck Art! I know you're trying your best to help HD grow and I hope your efforts will be repaid.

Yes, activity is growing a lot. I remember back to when I first came here, and there were fewer members and fewer posts. I remember there'd be a day or two and there would be posts in certain forums and so on - However things seem to be growing nicely now.


I hope it all works out for you.
Hope you didn't spend too much money either though; advertising can be a costly business - Especially if you go through the wrong places.

Ouch, don't even remind me Anjay... However, I spent at least a couple of weeks prior to the campaign looking around, e-mailing the sources I was most interested in, doing the budgeting for it and I think I did well. I went about only 5% over the budget. Yeah, that was definitely a big number, but as you noted correctly, advertising IS a costly business. However, it pays off if you do it right.