The pitch.

[Zoom]

If being a member of various forums over the last few years has taught me anything, it's that small, close, active forums are actually more sought-after than bigger forums when it comes to community-based topics: that is, any forum that relies on a sense of community for activity. (Of course forums that offer resources are usually more effective when larger.)
I think most people that sign up to The Echo and other related sites are looking for small but very active. (I know I was.) Whether they know it or not, this is because they want community: they want to get to know people, they want motivation to post new work, they want to know that when they post something, people will see it. The urge to know and be known is ancient.

So, also, is the urge to be part of an elite group. And here's where it gets interesting...

The Echo's been around for years AND has been featured on Proboards.com, and yet it only has 25 members? = You've purposefully kept the community small and sweet. Quality over quantity.

Not that it's hard to 'get in'. We're even going to say it isn't hard to get in. But, it is somewhere you get in to.

So with that in mind, here's my tentative ad...



Post title: Join the Echo - a community-based writing forum

THE ECHO

Though the Echo has been running strong since August 2007, and has even been featured on the Proboards main site, it has only 25 members - because here, we value quality over quantity.

And though we're a writing forum, we don't judge you by your writing. Instead, we're looking for friendly, intelligent people who can contribute to our vibrant community and do their best to encourage other members.

After all, actually putting the words onto paper is the easy part.

. . .


"I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all." - Richard Wright, American Hunger, 1977.

Okay. Input...go.
If any other members are reading this, what initially attracted you to The Echo? What was the clincher - the thing you saw that made you say to yourself, "okay, I'm signing up"?
What was your initial reacton to the ad above? What did you like? What didn't you like?
Basically, what do you think?

[Zoom]

Why hello there Zoom, what a nice little ad you've got.

This is me responding to the questions I asked at the bottom of the pitch.


So basically I perused the featured boards on Proboards.com, opened like twenty promising forums, and went through them one by one. When I got to this one, I knew it was the one. The people seemed intelligent and interesting. The skin was easy on the eyes. I liked the name. It was small but active.
Believe it or not the thing that convinced me to sign up was the active Cbox. I have a thing for cboxes. Sort of a relic that way. I hate the new Shoutboxes.
The things I don't like about the ad:

The post title. I was going for attractive and to the point. I'm afraid I've labeled us too quickly.
Not too happy with the second paragraph either. I believe it's just a simple concept+wording problem though. Also I can't tell if I love or hate the words "vibrant community".
I like the last line but again I worry I've given the reader the impression we're some sort of happy hugging support group. I mean. We kind of are. But we're also semi-professionals, or at least we'd like to think we are. My guess is that the average reader is going to be looking for love acceptance, but what about the exceptional reader? The people we really want?
I like how the quote is at the end, to give some context and meaning to the title without making them read a whole paragraph before they read our hook.

Bababa it's 5 AM

[Endovia]

Wow. I'm impressed that you joined a few days ago and you've created an advertisement for us. We must have made an impression.

Um, I don't know if being featured on Proboards main site is that prestigious. Sapphire got us featured through this facebook thing Proboards was doing. It's great that we've been featured (even though we did get a splurge of advertisers from it) and I'm proud of The Echo, but Proboards is a business. They do have an ulterior motive for featuring their own forums: to show off. It sounds nice in an advertisement saying that we've been featured somewhere, but, to me, it sounds a little bragging, too. (Also, I don't consider us an elite group. We're all different ages, all different writing styles. We've got quirky, fun, calm, energetic personalities. There's one thing we have in common: We love writing.)

I wouldn't mention a specific number of members in an advertisement because our amount of members changes somewhat often due to activity checks. I don't want to be continuously updating an ad. Plus, I'd most likely forget at some point to change it and then it looks outdated and doesn't reflect well on our activity level.

"because here, we value quality over quantity."
While we do appreciate dedicated members, we are talking about people. Personally, this sounds like we're discussing factory production, which I don't think was what you were going for. It also sounds a little uppity. "And our forum's better because we value quality." is what I hear and that's not what we're trying to say. We're also a forum that is open to everyone, writers just starting off, people who dream of being a writer, those who have been writing for years. We need a mix of inexperienced and experienced writers in order to be able to have diverse discussions and help each other.

"And though we're a writing forum, we don't judge you by your writing."
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do writing forums usually judge writers by their writing? If so, then, no, we're not judgmental, but I don't feel like that needs to be stated.

I'm not sure about the last line because for some writers it is difficult to write. Even professional writers have hang ups. We've all had writer's block at some point. This line could deter people completely new to writing who really need support to help them write.

The irony here is that we like being a small forum, and so we want to stay small, but the point of advertising is to spread the word and get bigger. I think there's a happy medium we can accomplish. I do love seeing new faces and writing, but I like us small, too. I think one of the reasons why we've been able to keep going is because we're small.
Where would you be thinking of putting this ad? On other forums? I think it's fine to have a little paragraph of stuff to advertise on other forums, but I like our bullet point ad on the Proboards forum because it is simple and straight to the point. When people are looking through those threads on that forum, they don't want to read a lot to get to the meat.

I'm thrilled that you're so excited about The Echo and promoting us. (I also love that you like the skin. ) It'd be nice to have a new ad. I've wondered about making an image ad or an image to go with the ad text as I've seen that quite often and it really does grab your attention. What do you think of image ads?

[Zoom]

Haha, kid with lots of free time = kid who becomes attached to things pretty quickly. I'm up till 5, 6 am usually, doing random stuff, but I check back here every hour or so, hoping somebody's around to keep me company Even my real life friends go to bed around 2. Leaves me a lot of time to think about this place.


I don't know if being featured is prestigious or not (seems pretty cool to me!) but if we're trying to sell the forum as a group that's hard to join, but not for YOU, dear reader, because you really are the best, it doesn't hurt to add some incentive.

I don't think we're an 'elite group' either, actually That was part of the angle.


The statement that we value quality over quantity could be misconstrued to mean we only want people who are 'good' writers. So in the next paragraph I try to clear it up while endorsing the whole supportive community thing.

What I meant by the last line was that a supportive backing is crucial, because they help you find the words. Then all you have to do is write them down.


That irony did occur to me, as did the fact that people with any smarts at all (eg people we want to join us) are going to see through this ad in a second. I wonder what a campaign to attract these people would look like?



...This is another thing I love about the Echo - let's say it's 5 in the morning. My sleep-deprived brain comes up with something 'brilliant', so I write it down to bounce it off the sounding board - you guys. Chances are it's no good, but I need the feedback - the the oppurtunity to talk about it - before I can realize that.
And if I ever come up with something workable, we'll know.

So anyway, my point with that last paragraph - I just realized that this pitch isn't what we're looking for. Please disregard it.



I think that an image ad, when done tastefully, can be eye-catching and help tie the ad together. Could be fun too.

[sapphire]

Thanks for putting this together, Zoom!
While I agree that it's not quite what we're looking for, it means a lot that you went through the effort to write it up.

[Endovia]

Lots of free time sounds really nice. Lots of time to write, too.


The sounding board. Yep, that's us, The Echo.

I might play around with an image ad idea later. (Too much going on right now for me.) If you have ideas for an image idea feel free to bounce them off us or put something together. Like Sapphire said, it definitely means a lot to us to see someone so devoted to The Echo and share in our passion for the forum.

[Zoom]

This 'free time to write' usually turns into 'free time to procrastinate and freak out not only about my upcoming unmet deadlines, but also about my apparent apathy regarding them'. Fun times!

Haha: nickname for 'Suggestions': 'The Sounding board'. Because it's a board of a forum. lololol puns


Eh, I just needed something to believe in.

[clueless]

Re: If being a member of various forums over the last few years has taught me anything, it's that small, close, active forums are actually more sought-after than bigger forums when it comes to community-based topics: that is, any forum that relies on a sense of community for activity. (Of course forums that offer resources are usually more effective when larger.)

This is so true. Speaking for myself there is one other thing I would like to see on the forums.

When confronted by a new story I would like to know just what the writer is expecting - a quick overview, or an in-depth critique.

The critter could waste a lot of time if the writer just wants an overview. This could be avoided - even made into two critique forums each with their own objectives.

I think this might be better.

[the Red Dragon]

For what it's worth, here's my take...

In response to your two questions, I joined the echo because I was looking for an informal writing group where I could get thorough (but friendly) critique for my writing.

I'd definitely go with some kind of image - it's much more eye-catching than just words. Also, at first read...
"Though the Echo has been running strong since August 2007, and has even been featured on the Proboards main site, it has only 25 members - because here, we value quality over quantity."
To me, that sounded kind of snooty - meaning, not YOU sounded snooty, but we/the Echo as a whole did, if you know what I mean. This isn't something I'm good at, so I can't really give you any good recommendations...that's just my thoughts on it.

Overall, I like it. It's jingly. ;D

[Zoom]

"When confronted by a new story I would like to know just what the writer is expecting - a quick overview, or an in-depth critique."
For some reason, people here seem to put these on the bottom, if they put them in at all.

[A Mask Among Many]

Actually, I originally wasn't looking for a writing group, but a friend of mine who has five stars on this forum told me he loved it, and I've needed more than just one person to critique my work for a while. ;D

I personally rather liked the idea of an ad until I saw the responses to this post. Um... I did, however, want to tell everyone that a picture ad possibly like just the banner at the top, except a little smaller.

Just my probably pointless suggestion.