Looking for ideas to promote the forum, please make suggestions!

I'm starting this thread to get some ideas for promoting the forum!

So far, I've promoted by posting some links to other forums (which is how most of you got here, I imagine!)

I'm planning to do a contest, not sure of the nature of it yet, but it's coming.

I don't want to put money into advertising at this stage, but if the opportunity was right, I might consider it.

Anyone have suggestions?

If you are checking out the site, but on the fence about registering and participating, please take a minute and register, and let me know what you're thinking. I feel like as we get a few more mixoffs going, it should start to snowball and get more participation, but any suggestions are welcome!

Hi,

I might consider linking to independent artists websites, blogs, etc, once this really takes off.

It might bring artists and us engineers closer together. If an artist looks here for a mix engineer and finds one...
then maybe have the engineer pay a small commission to help pay for the running of the site?
I would go for something like that, if it brings more business to me.

Assuming that your already thinking of socal network sites, what about member mixes played on internet radio (assuming all relavent permissions are granted, if applicable)?

There seems to be a great mix of Audio Engineers/Producers here, there seems to be two main focuses of the site. 1) Employment opertunities for engineers and 2) Learning and experience opertunities and valid critique for the less experienced engineers.

I would say that the majority of members fall into catogory 2 (myself included) so what scope is there to consider forging links with a large studio, the idea being the members who want to learn and gain experience get the opertunity to actually go in and use the recording gear, observe professionals (see catogory 1) in operation and generally absorb!

The point would be that with such links and opertunities, the promotion would probabilly handle itself!

the global reach of the internet is a bit of a stumbleing block for some but hey, nothing worth doing is ever easy!

Hi,

I like the idea of this forum. It's great.

One promotional idea would be to buy a banner in places like The Womb (http://thewombforums.com/), Gearslutz (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/) and REP (http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/). At The Womb, they sell (or used to) sell really cheap small stamp-type banners.

Especially The Womb has had similar stuff going on for years, The CAPE and MixIt!, a lot of people would be interested in this.

Promoting in the aforementioned places will probably attract a lot of professional mixers (such as myself), which is likely to raise the overall quality of the mixes (?), but may lead to all sorts of pissing contests and gear-wanky stuff.

Also, from my point of view an "Mixer for hire"-kind of section would be quite nice for us who work in the field proffessionally. It would be a good way to make a distinction between the projects that are purely for fun and those that are commercial projects in need of a mixer, that would serve both parties nicely. Obviously, the ideal would be for the pros to mix a couple of tracks from the forums and use them as "CV"-type of tracks here instead of  just listing commercial projects they've been involved with. But I would like to see that as a separate section, it would make more sense to me.

BTW, apart from mixing I also teach mixing and engineering and I was wondering if projects here could be used as educational material? It would be wonderful to give a wider variety of styles for the students to mix than what I can gather from my own vast, but indie/rock/jazz-filled archives. If they're licensed Creative Commons, wouldn't that make them available for educational use? Are there licensing guidelines or rules visible here at the forums? I didn't spot them yet anyway... That would be an important thing to emphasize, as that would clear any copyright issues.

But as said, I really like the idea of this place!

6x2

You tube would be a good option to advertise this site...perhaps post a few of the better mixes and have the name of the site in the video/slideshow and also have a link.

I did a video a while back as an example of what could be done in regards to free advertising.

Ignore the song quality...its an old recording of mine that I did when I first started home recording in 2007...I played guitar in the song...

I only posted the websites in the middle and at the end of video however you could have the website at the beginning and perhaps a few other spots in the video as well.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dRFZsTXfHY

Keep in mind the more your website address is out there the more spam accounts you will get.
They all cant be stoped, but most of them can be prevented.
Just looking at the members list there are over 30 spam accounts.

BTW, apart from mixing I also teach mixing and engineering and I was wondering if projects here could be used as educational material? It would be wonderful to give a wider variety of styles for the students to mix than what I can gather from my own vast, but indie/rock/jazz-filled archives. If they're licensed Creative Commons, wouldn't that make them available for educational use? Are there licensing guidelines or rules visible here at the forums? I didn't spot them yet anyway... That would be an important thing to emphasize, as that would clear any copyright issues.

But as said, I really like the idea of this place!

6x2

I haven't made any explicit licensing info available, other than the terms when you register. I don't think there's any problem with educational use, but you might contact the OP if there's a particular track you want to use. And of course, any of your students are welcome to come and participate in the forum, as well!

I'll add a basic licensing agreement to the bottom of the pages. Something stating that tracks are for educational use only, unless otherwise stated.

FWIW, I've linked stuff at the two forums I'm a regular at, tapeop.com and vsplanet.conforums.com, and will continue to do so.

FWIW, I've linked stuff at the two forums I'm a regular at, tapeop.com and vsplanet.conforums.com, and will continue to do so.

I think that tasteful links are a great way to bring new folks over. I've done similar things, with the ones I started. Just don't make it look like spam, of course!

Thanks for helping grow the site!

A Facebook group is a good idea these days.