phantom of the black parade
3,010 posts
bits
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silver and gold won't save my rotting soul
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Post by Kuroya on Apr 25, 2020 14:17:08 GMT
okay so. i've been quietly working on an animanga site in the background of everything and i'd originally been planning on actually getting rid of traditional site-to-site advertising (aka first links and linkbacks) since it's become a real trend in the rl community (or at least for not allowing first links) and i can completely understand why (rl is a lot more consolidated on resource sites so many sites instead prefer to list on them rather than do site-to-site since it maximizes their traffic). but then i started thinking about it and i realized that animanga really still relies heavily on site-to-site ads and affiliates (partially because the community is very decentralized, partially because we really only have two and a half genuine resource communities between iconic + p2 + animangads, and partially because the community is a lot slower to change).
i guess what i'm getting at is just.... fellow admins, what are your feelings about traditional site-to-site advertising? do you think it works to bring in members or do you think it's largely just busy work that generates uninterested traffic? do you feel like it's something a little more in between? would you ever really consider going to a linkback-only or resource-site-only model for posted ads? do you like those models or do you think that they're largely a mistake?
i'd also be honestly curious about just how many people browse the ad boards of other rp sites (or the recent posts on proboards sites) looking for other sites to join (or just generally how often you actually pay attention to ads posted on other rp sites with the thought of potentially joining them) since just. oops i have become a rl rper in that the ad boards largely no longer exist for me and i'm curious for if this is just me or if it's actually a larger behavior that's worth taking note of as an advertiser oops-
basically just. can i get some thoughts and opinions about traditional site-to-site advertisement posts and how effective they are please?
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Post by 707 on Apr 25, 2020 14:32:15 GMT
Tbh, I'd be on board with getting rid of first-links and even link-backs as the rl community has done. If anything I think maybe just having resource sites like pixel/animanga ads in that type of area could maybe help people find things better? Rather than having to site hop around people are all herded into resource sites that list 'em.
That said, I typically only really browse affiliates unless I'm absolutely desperate then I'll actually start looking inside the FL/LB boards. I think those tbh are more prevalent for proboards anyway since you can easily view the recent posts and see the actual image/ad compared to jcink which you really only see recent thread titles.
Edit: If anything, thinking back on it, I feel like on site advertising can actually hurt a site just as much as it can help. Especially again with proboards, a lot of people look at the most recent posts and if it's just spammed with link backs from advertising then most people tend to make assumptions that it's not active when in reality it's probably just new and trying to get traffic. Perhaps sites would have a longer life-span if we all adopted the trend of getting rid of it and herding people to resource sites/listings.
Not only that but resource sites generally check for activity so if we adopted this then you'd know sites listed were semi/active even if they don't seem it at first.
TL;DR I'm on board with scrapping FL/LB and feel the benefits of it outweigh the cons if done right (only housed resource sites in that area/go out of your way to list on a bunch of resource sites)
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344 posts
bits
he/him
Nothing is true, everything is permitted...We work in the dark to serve the light
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Post by desmondmiles on Apr 25, 2020 19:25:00 GMT
Hmm...It'd be interesting for sure!
Mainly because I'm from an era where rp sites didn't advertise, we'd just drop affiliate buttons and be on our merry ways. In fact, all the sites I've ever joined wasn't because I saw an ad on another rp site- It was usually either an ad, a signature, or a request on a resource board. And I've discovered over the years that uh...A lot less people find your site through a site ad, and more from literally everything else. Google at a certain point becomes more effective in attracting members if your site gets big enough!
Getting rid of site-to-site advertising would be...Really nice actually lmao. But that's also hoping that more resource sites or sites/tumblrs dedicated to advertising would come around. I think it would also help take the pressure off making advertisements for a lot of people, especially those who aren't adept with an art program. I feel like it would kinda make things more...Even? Not that I think that advertising is inherently a competition, but it would still be one less thing for future admins to worry about?
Cause you know- We all know- That the site making process is a pain in the ass lmao. So one less thing to have ready to go would be nice, I'd just need to drop a few ads on a few resources and be done with it. As opposed to like, blasting as many forums as possible to drop one image.
But idk, that's just my thoughts on it!
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amorphous blob
915 posts
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crush me til i die
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Post by ulla on Apr 25, 2020 21:21:18 GMT
i've not done any in depth analysis on advertising and what it does or does not contribute to the animanaga community, so your observations could very well be correct. i will say, however, that i, personally, have noticed that i will get spikes in members and traffic when i advertise regularly in comparison to when i don't.
again, i don't know if it truly makes a difference or if i am experiencing confirmation bias (which i acknowledge is a possibility), but from my personal experience and observation, advertising has had a positive impact on sites that i have run.
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Post by Sharp Dressed Man on Apr 25, 2020 22:54:57 GMT
Pizza Hovel can put an advertisement on social media or TV and get the attention of most of their customers. Yet, they still spend money to print and fill up your mailbox with junk fliers. Why do they do this? Diversifying the customer base and repetition.
Marketing and plugging isn't really very different, unlike in other areas, more is usually more.
Keep in mind the animated community is like a drop in the bucket compared to RL sites. Hiding on resource sites means less exposure to the community at large. We don't have the luxury of being the norm. I made animangads as a supplement for people that already know that they like to represent their characters with animation/art/etc, but discovery outside of the base is still important.
What you could try is having an ad board and just only post to resource sites. You will get a first links every once and a while, and then strategically link back when your forum is most active. You generally aren't going to get a spam avalanche if you aren't posting first links.
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Post by cyan on Apr 25, 2020 23:08:50 GMT
Honestly, I am awful with advertising and totally get why some sites disable first links. I apologize to all the sites where I dropped a lb like months later. especially if it makes it harder to verify on your end or something. orz
I wouldn't mind a trend of disabled first links on sites since I feel like most of the exposure a site gets is from resource sites or members dragging others into the party or affiliates. This is from my own experience. Though like what Ulla said, I don't have the analytics to prove it and could be my own confirmation bias.
Because from a member's side, this is where I personally go to find sites. I don't like browsing advertising boards of sites because they're not as organized as resource sites. On PP, I can just go to the board for the genre I am interested in and browse the ads there, but on most rp sites, I would have to sift through pages of animal, rl, etc. ads to try and see if I could spot what I want in the title/description.
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Post by Ginger on Apr 26, 2020 0:22:43 GMT
- posting here to stalk conversation-
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Post by von on Apr 26, 2020 7:33:33 GMT
i also dont like browsing first links and link backs mostly because they're very hard to use and messy. It's so hard to find a specific site you want. myanimangalist.jcink.net/i also am willing to continue skinning this project if there will be some people who can manage it. I have no background over advertising and i go online/offline based on my rl schedule, so im in no fit to run this TT |
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phantom of the black parade
3,010 posts
bits
she / her pronouns
silver and gold won't save my rotting soul
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Post by Kuroya on Apr 26, 2020 14:23:49 GMT
i was gonna just let this be and see what the consensus is but oops i feel like i should come in and clear something up real fast-
which is that i honestly don't think site-to-site advertising is entirely 100% useless (nor was i necessarily trying to say that oops). my own google analytics for my sites would almost always show a noticeable uptick in traffic any time i did an ad blast (more with first links than linkbacks and more with targeted advertising than general spamming) and i might see a few new members afterwards even in the real life circuit. rather what i'm more trying to get at is figuring out just how effective site-to-site advertising actually is at bringing in interested traffic (since imo traffic from checking the linkback / linking back is largely unproductive towards the goal of actual recruitment) and, essentially, whether or not it's really genuinely worth the time/effort to bother with when both are finite resources i could be using for other things (like site events or just generally posting with my members since imo even when you have a dedicated ad mod, dealing with the ads is something redirecting their time and effort that might be better spent elsewhere).
(which, y'know, yeah imo i'd be losing a certain amount of "brand recognition" so to speak if i did away with site-to-site advertising, but on the flip side of that, i'm honestly not so sure that's something rp sites should necessarily strive for because of........ many reasons that i won't get into just because that's not the point of the thread.)
tl;dr to that is basically "yes i know site-to-site advertising isn't entirely 100% pointless and has some merit, but the thing is, are those merits really worth the time/effort it takes to do it (and, by extension, would the downsides of doing away with it outweigh the positives) though." (which is. honestly the core of the question i'm trying to ask here, when you cut out all the auxiliary stuff.) and also bless all of y'all who are giving answers on whether or not they actually look at ads on rp sites since that's really helpful.
i'll..... chip in with my personal take on it later if people actually want it but. i just. wanted to really quickly clarify this. since a few people seemed to be missing that oops-
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Post by Sharp Dressed Man on Apr 26, 2020 18:53:19 GMT
Mm, most certainly don't want to come off as assuming your opinion was black and white. Five or six years ago I did collect analytics data on a site while using resource forums and site linking, and got more traffic from site to site linking. While there is some merit to a lot of that traffic being link backs, I will be the first to admit that when I am doing link backs if I see a really interesting site i'm sometimes tempted to join. I've had sites not work out and i've gone on to join sites i've linked back to later. I get time and effort. I do think sometimes folks make it harder than it needs to be. Years ago the JCINK guy added center tags in as an alias but people still have two different ads for proboards and jcink because no one seems to be aware of this. If you use the format below it will work on both hosts. Combo this with an extension like "paste it" to hotkey your ad to your keyboard and it takes out any real prep work. Spending any time on sorting the ads is a waste of time, too. With autofill and the easier captchas these days I can get in ad posted in less than thirty seconds if I really try. [center][url=link here][img]imagelink[/img][/url][/center]I think really the best way to test if a site will work without on site adverts is to just give it a try. There are things to consider like the popularity of the person making it which could skew the results of the average person making a site. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. |
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Post by von on Apr 26, 2020 19:18:47 GMT
i think the problem as a whole is that this type of advertisement is archaic now and is only being done because there's no avenue for other ways. I, myself, feel like this method is a compromise for the lack of immediate database for sites unlike other communities that took enough time to build a site that introduces more functionality to site searching.
The PP database is the closest to having the most efficient system, but it still has one big limitation. In the end, the system is still forum-based and site searching isn't as immediate and intuitive. There's also a clear divide between PB & JC vs all the other animanga forum hosts. If we can somehow make a site that caters to all animanga advertising needs; something with efficient system while minimizing the clicks and page loading while also providing full site informations and, lastly, friendly towards other hosts, then it's also possible to have community exchange not just between PB and JC users.
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