Ideas for getting new members

[Fatalysm]

This is my refusal to see this place die.

 

Admin have a list of email addresses on the IP.Board and I say we remind everyone to come and login via their email, i know many are going to be inactive but with over 20,000 members it'll gain some traction. If we send an email every couple weeks or a month to people, we'll get people back here for sure. Let's send out a newsletter, let's bring people in.

 

Perhaps we setup a fund for advertising, so that we get more hits. I think that if everyone is agreed, some small donation from people to a different fund for advertising is a great idea. I imagine that if everyone who likes coming here had a small donation to give we'll pool enough to reach some people!

 

Perhaps we spam the social media. We should be all over facebook, twitter, tumblr, instagram...everywhere. I don't care if we have to create new accounts to spam the share button and retweet, that's what we should be doing.

 

Perhaps we create a donation pool so that people who create guides and write regular content have a way of getting something back for their contribution, like a commission for successful guides if the money is readily available.

[Guitarguy]

I say Sal posts a promiscuous picture of himself to garner publicity.

[Fatalysm]

I say Sal posts a promiscuous picture of himself to garner publicity.

I think this may be divisive and may lead to tumultuous times.

 

I do think we should take control of twitter and facebook, at least we could be trying. I've just started a twitter @SalsRealmFatal I've also liked this topic on facebook and shared via google+.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Fatalysm

[Sobend]

Money for guides is a no-no for me. I don't want this to be seen as anything but people writing guides for the community.

 

Social media is an important thing and it's definitely something we should have done long ago. Like have more than just "we have a new guide now, yay!" but actually have discussion about the game and other things.

[Fatalysm]

Money for guides is a no-no for me. I don't want this to be seen as anything but people writing guides for the community.

 

Social media is an important thing and it's definitely something we should have done long ago. Like have more than just "we have a new guide now, yay!" but actually have discussion about the game and other things.

I kind of agree on the no money for guides to keep the community feel but I do feel there should be some incentive for people so that we get more people contributing and more people interested. If we are competing with a wiki then we need to take people away from there and over to here.

 

Social Media is a definite.

 

I don't think it's a good idea but I'll throw the suggestion out there. "Exclusive club for active donators" Don't know if that's just segregating an already small community though. Just might be an idea to keep people who are donating interested. Might help with the donating for advertising thing. Probably a dumb idea but whatever.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Fatalysm

[Sobend]

There are ways to get people to contribute without paying them cash incentives. For one, there is already an incentive: get your name on the site. This has been the #1 reason why people write guides, and it is what powered the site for awhile. As the site's grandeur has diminished so has this benefit, so you're going to have to find ways to increase it in order to make up for that.

 

What to do? I would personally suggest an "Author's Page" where people who write guides get a little blurb, like Salmoneus. Basically I'm thinking if you write X number of guides you have the option to get on this page. Send a picture of your character and perhaps write a little bit about yourself. This would go under a proposed community tab with other things such as the newsletter (which we stopped a year ago or so because activity here did not warrant a community newsletter).

[Jj Dynomite]

I'm on board with trying to revive this site. I was talking to Sobend about this quite a bit and I'll let him give the input on whatever he was telling me.

 

I think for the most part we ought not 'spam' social media but merely try to build up a presence. Get a lot of Sals Realmers to be active on Twitter, post a lot of content, ie levels, events etc, and get enough people to share the posts. Eventually you'll get enough players willing to come on here and post.

 

I'll try and share whatever people post on social media as well and I'll post here as often as I can.

[Chaoss]

I'd love the site to get a boost of activity again! Perhaps if a cash incentive is too much, it can be a gp incentive? Would have to be either not that much, or rewarded for outstanding, dedicated service though. I can see that getting difficult to decide though. I'm personally against it.

 

I agree that the old reason people wrote guides was to get their name on the site. I used to provide pictures and edits so guides would say "Written by: Sobend. With thanks to: Chaoss, et al." I think that could still work - but honestly I don't think there is much incentive to write guides because firstly, they are mostly already written, and secondly, Rswiki gets more traffic and is the first result whenever you search anything RS-related.

 

One thing that might make people interested is reminding them that this place exists. Setting your flairs on r/runescape to "Sal's Realm of Runescape" would be an idea.. with the Santa Hat icon. If we were all posting there it would be a couple thousand people reading the flairs each day and being reminded that this place exists. If they had an account in the past they might feel obliged to revisit and stay for a bit!

[Phoenix Rider]

We need new blood so that there will be activity which in turn will encourage more to join. The main reason for people going inactive isn't that they hate the site but that they just grew up and we weren't able to replace them with newer members. Most of us came here in secondary school and we don't have the time and energy for Runescape that we did years ago. The guides were our major draw but Runescape Wiki basically made traditional guide making a dying art. I came to SAl's because it was the first on the Google Search back then. Now we've fallen behind the official and fan run wikis

 

I think our only solution is to encourage more clans to make use of this place as a home I remember that the clan forums used to be a major source of members. I have no idea how to do this though. I've been inactive for years and I don't really know much about the overall Runescape community compared to 5 years ago.

 

This has all been said before though. It's great theory. As for execution...

[Fake]

Honestly imo I think the best way to attract people to join Sal's Realm would be to advertise on RuneScape. Bring people in who play the game...

[Phoenix Rider]

Honestly imo I think the best way to attract people to join Sal's Realm would be to advertise on RuneScape. Bring people in who play the game...

 

I would willingly take part in any advertising drive. If we could get together over a school holiday and advertise in major areas as a group like before, that'll be great. I remember doing that with Samsara and others during our Christmas parties back then.

[reepicheep]

Here's the problem: why would anybody go to this site? (that's not a dig against Sal's, that's a question). Clans left at some point and besides the fact that pking isn't exactly the most alive thing they ain't coming back. Guides are nice but the problem is that guides are quicker and more numerous on the rs wiki. I think it's super admirable that people here still write guides but it's a losing (if not lost battle). I don't know what the current stats are and maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect anybody coming to Sal's for guides doesn't know about the RS wiki. And that's not down to quality of guides or whatever necessarily, the RS wiki just has way more people and so way more information about everything. Why would I go to the RS wiki to look up info on an item but then switch back to Sal's for a guide? And Phoenix Rider is 100% right: many people moved on and never looked back. I know a bunch through other means that never come here anymore because they lost the interest. I personally also frankly don't have much reason to come here, because there's not that many threads I'm interested in. The debate subforum, alive though it was when Gnostic Christian Bishop still stalked these halls, is dead. I don't have enough energy or interest to make it alive again personally, as cool as it would be to see it liven up again. I don't want to crap all over your ambitions, I just don't think it can be done - not when Runescape itself is just not very active and reddit exists. If a new skill comes out I'll check the Runescape subreddit to see what the best skill is, not Sal's - it's just too slow.