How to promote to college students?

**Soliloquy** · 09-20-2008, 12:31 PM

What's the best way of promoting your forum to college students? Obviously I can't offer them free food

**Cerberus** · 09-20-2008, 03:16 PM

School newspapers..or sponsoring a frat party

**Caddyman** · 09-20-2008, 04:45 PM

i would use facebook to its full potential, it is mostly college kids, it would be easy...

**Soliloquy** · 09-20-2008, 08:27 PM

lol I'd have to see if there are any science fraternities Blake

now that would be an interesting party!

**Caddyman** · 09-21-2008, 07:31 PM

i bet you could find just about anything on facebook. make a couple apps that related to college students, you would probably see a good return

**Soliloquy** · 09-21-2008, 07:38 PM

I don't know much about FaceBook (actually I've made a point of avoiding it 'cuz I'm afraid of seeing what my friends list would look like!) but I really should go sign up... it's on the to-do list...

**FlyersFan** · 09-21-2008, 07:39 PM

See if you can get a plug in the College News Letter, maybe have someone interview you so you can explain the site. Do a search for the Publications run by the students and find a lower classman that writes for them, they might be hungry for a gravy piece that falls in their lap ...

Business Cards and/or Flyers dropped around Campus might be helpful too.

**Soliloquy** · 09-21-2008, 07:43 PM

Flyers (eponysterical!) around campus, that sounds like a really good idea. We have lots of colleges/universities here in the city...

**Noodles** · 09-21-2008, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caddyman

i would use facebook to its full potential, it is mostly college kids, it would be easy...

Or even facebook advertising, which can be highly targeted towards college kids including their major/minors etc.

**Soliloquy** · 09-21-2008, 08:22 PM

You can target majors/minors? I didn't know that. But you're talking paying FaceBook for this advertising as opposed to the "add as many friends you can and send their friends mail" method right?

**Caddyman** · 09-22-2008, 04:08 AM

you can make free apges on facebook that are lke ads for peope to checkout, sign up and take a gander, i have a page for a few of my sites.

**Soliloquy** · 09-22-2008, 06:58 AM

oh, I didn't know that you could make entire pages for your projects... pretty neat (and forward-thinking)

**Caddyman** · 09-22-2008, 08:21 AM

yeah, i havent really got the hang of it yet, the way you make them, save them, publish them, seemed a little foreign to me...

**Soliloquy** · 09-22-2008, 08:58 AM

still you know I'll be coming to you for advice when I try to make mine

**Caddyman** · 09-22-2008, 11:28 AM

no rpoblem, just let me know when you want to get it started. should be a snap to create on their, i like facebooks easy interfaces....better then myspace

**Soliloquy** · 09-22-2008, 11:54 AM

any thing is better than myspace, I can't even look at their pages without wondering "what were they thinking?"

**Caddyman** · 09-22-2008, 05:36 PM

and still millions get a huge kick out of it, i mean my wife and her friend either text or msg each other on myspace constantly. for some i guess it is a hub for communications almost only.

**Soliloquy** · 09-22-2008, 07:25 PM

I'm curious, does she ever get enticements to join forums over MySpace?

**Caddyman** · 09-23-2008, 02:37 AM

no not really, she just has her circle of friends that we hang out with offline and they all stay up to date on the latest gossip on myspace...

**Soliloquy** · 09-23-2008, 07:25 AM

would an invitation to join a forum be unusual on MySpace or do people get "visit my web site!" messages all the time?

**Caddyman** · 09-23-2008, 12:23 PM

i think if worded well and not too spammy a invitation would be ok, and maybe even effective...idk...anyone else have any ideas?

**Noodles** · 09-24-2008, 11:20 PM

Problem with creating a page on facebook is every man and his dog have created a page on facebook, whereas when you're running ads you only pay for clicks, so if no one clicks, you don't pay.

I have a few pages on facebook, I can't say they're huge traffic drivers and I have promoted them.

**Caddyman** · 09-25-2008, 03:16 AM

good info noodle, similar to trying to spam myspace anymore, it is so saturated with advertising the people are blind to it.

**Soliloquy** · 09-25-2008, 06:34 AM

you have a point Noodles. Where do you think I should run ads? (Hoping to target the geeks!)

**Caddyman** · 09-25-2008, 08:36 AM

on geek forums, look for geek forums that offer advertising and ask them to see if you can advertise there.

**Bruwizzle** · 02-28-2009, 08:26 AM

When I set up my first forum (link in sig), it too was aimed at college students. As I was still a student at the time, it made things easier, but I plastered campus with posters and flyers which really created a buzz.

Second big thing, was creating video (Brunel University Video), mini series such as "What's Your Flava?" which involved interviewing quite a few students, gave them a flyer, they would check it in a few days, see themselves on video and pass it around to their friends..nice viral effect.