Marketing campaign : What is your preferred method of getting the " word out" ?

Social media has become one of the leading ways to reach an enormous crowd of consumers while presenting an opportunity to attract an audience that can leverage an idea .... to an iconic business. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram seem like the standard " staples" of social media marketing when you are creating a new brand, the question that presents itself is: What is your preferred method of marketing?

Do you:

• Email Subscription Options: Do you provide an infinite amount of information and updates via email subscription option?

• Paid Campaigns : Do you utilize paid campaigns with companies like Ad.fly or Weloveforums?

• Outsourced Assistance: Do you crawl other forums or create a project through outsourcing outlets like Freelancer.com ?

• The Power of the signature: Do you simply sign up for as many forums related to your forum's niche as possible, provide relevant information and place your forum link in your signature hoping to get noticed?

What is your process?

 

Word of mouth, social media, link exchanges.
I've never found paying for marketing to be an effective solution.

 

You are such a well versed internet guru, do you possibly recruit others to assist with marketing in exchange for free advertising? Has your traffic slowly built itself from the sheer professionalism and information provided or do you find yourself from time to time mentioning your forum during a discuss on a forum that may cover the same niche your forum may be involved? I know there are great ways to get your site out there, recognized and presented where the methods I mentioned would be pointless but do you offer rewards for your members to bring in additional members or do you have a referral program?

 

What I do is to use social media to contact the biggest names in my niche. I try to engage them in conversations to which they reply, which gives my brand exposure.
I work in the very overly crowded niche of sports. Having the respect of major media journalists, professional bloggers, current and former players, player agents, sports lawyers, people in sports medicine, general managers, coaching staff, etc. has gone farther than anything else has in gaining members.

When someone with the credentials and notoriety of a John Elway, for example, engages me in conversation it gets people's attention.

 

Word of mouth, forum promotion threads and signatures are probably the only way I advertise at the moment. I doubt any other methods would work for my site just yet.