[Nyxia]

I know I've seen a lot of talk about attracting new members, and the fact that no one really as tossed out any ideas on how to go about it. I know of at least two ways to try and advertise the site in places where we might attract a few more people than simple word of mouth.

roleplaygateway: One pretty big directory
Now I've been a member of this lovely site even before I found Evelon. I've been on a lot of the sites they advertise here, though I'm still only on a few now. Still they offer a free (or $50) listing for a site, and I know a good chunk of their community is always on the look out for something new and fun.

Flight Rising Group: I mention this because Valenth did create one, though I have no idea how successful theirs has been. Still I know quiet a few of our players are on there, and it might be a fun way to draw in some people. It also might be a perfect use for the pixel pets/clickables.

I'm hoping maybe this topic will spark some other ideas as well, if someone has run across another site that could be used for tempting new people and what not.

[zapdragon555]

I personally think a flightrising group would be great because there are a lot of roleplayers and writers on that site who would probably be very interested!

[Thunder]

There are a ton of us on FR. I think setting up a group there would work out well, and I'd be happy to contribute o3o

[ToxicShadow]

I think both of your ideas are good, for advertisement purposes. I imagine that there are actually a lot of directory type sites for listing roleplay and adoptable websites, which could possibly be looked into. It would definitely be worth listing Evelon in some of them.

Since I know FR has a large member base, I think a group there would also help. Especially because we have a number of users or even once users that play on FR, and I know some users list discounts for other Evelonians in trade threads, so we're already sort of mentioned. The issue would be having someone to organize and put it together. As far as I am aware, there aren't any Evelon staff that are particularly active on FR. Kyrit has an account there, but she said she's not very active with it before.

Another site I thought on advertising on is ChicksenSmoothie, since they have this area for other website chatter. I'm not terribly active on CS, but I could possibly throw something together, if anyone thinks it would be of help.

Also, I know that we have a Facebook group, but perhaps a Twitter group and other sites such as that may also come in handy?

[Nyxia]

I'm getting ready to go to work so this will be brief and hopefully make some kind of sense.

FR Group: Like I said it is a place I know we have a lot of people which is helpful. The only thing is while I did suggest it, I have limited amounts of time and my design skills are horridly rusty. If we can get a handful of people who would want to help design it that would be fantastic. I was thinking also we might have like a hatchery sort of thing as well, a few of us can toss up a pair or two of dragons to breed or sell babies there. That might also get us seen. As far as having one of our mods on, I really don't think that would hurt us that they don't play FR. Really if they see the kind of community it is through us users, that would likely draw people to at least look at the site.

* Side note for FR: I've seen what you've done Toxic in your trade thread and all. Maybe we can get people together and have like a little welcome area in the trades. Someplace that we put pets up that new members can get easily that aren't the free pets from the site and all.

CS: I haven't been on that site in ages, truth be told. It might be a great place if we have members who are active (somewhat at least) do something there as well. I'm not shooting down the idea, all I'm saying is we need to have them in places where threads don't die and what not.

Other Medias: Honestly I hardly deal with social medias so that one is out of my realm, but maybe a tumblr account or something would be good. I know there are a good few people here who have tumblr (I am not among them), so it is something to look into. I haven't the slightest idea how to deal with twitter, but if it is manageable then awesome.

My own thoughts on this is that to get people to look at our site, our members need to sorta use the other sites they play on to advertise Evelon. I don't think it needs to be fancy or anything, but we shouldn't stretch ourselves too thin either. I know from my own way of looking at things; if I see a site advertised somewhere else but the topic is old and dead, I'm not interested as much in giving the site a look. If there are other games/medias/forums where we have either a dedicated (long time member) or a fair group, that people want to advertise on or through then pulling our time and resources for it seems great.

[Kyrit]

Tumblr;
We do have a Tumblr account, but it's run by Baal only. It also hasn't had an update in 5 months now. =( For a short period of time she was posting updates pretty frequently on it, but yeah. Same goes for the Facebook page.

FR group;
I do get on FR at least once a day to feed my dragons and all, but yeah. I'm by no means an active member. XD I don't post on their forums at all. A user run thread would be perfectly fine though, and you guys would have my support at the very least. =) It could be mentioned in the thread that if they need help getting their account activated or they're having any problems they can send me a PM on FR and I'll see it within 24 hours.

Listing sites;
There's also the Virtual Pet List that I know of. I did poke my nose around there a little bit about a year or so ago probably.

[Nyxia]

Really short as I run out the door. Couldn't we do a tumblr run buy the mods? Something that shows our major updates more than just on the site?

[ToxicShadow]

Nyxia, I think you have me confused with Thunder, as I don't have a specific Sales thread on FR. That aside, though, I'm certainly willing to try to help out in the process of making a group in any way that I can. My primary concern about not having an active staff on FR is just a matter of which user will run the group, then. I suppose whomever wants to volunteer can be responsible for hosting it and updating it as its needed?

I figure that we could do something similar to Valenth's group, where they have a, "Breeding Circle." It could be a list of users willing to share their nests with other users, free of charge, since many of us already do that anyway? Additionally, perhaps we could also have section where some users offer up free dragons or items to other members of the group? I often breed more dragons than I have room for in my Lair, so I certainly wouldn't be against giving away some dragons.

We'd also have to come up with a name for it...


On the matters of ChickenSmoothie, I'm not horribly active on it, but I can certainly take my time to log in. (I was actually super active during the recent Egypt event on there, once I realized it was happening.) That being said, since I had a lot of free time today, I actually went ahead and made a massive post to advertise there. Maybe if any other of our users log into CS, they can help me bump it? I stole the banner and starting description from our Facebook group.

[Thunder]

@Toxic and Nyxia, I don't have a specific sales thread on FR either, but I can certainly help run a forum topic for us. I go on FR pretty consistently and can try my hand at a few graphics for the topic as well.

I really like the idea of a breeding circle/hatchery sort of thing. People on FR are always looking for those kinds of services, so that would help get some attention. We could also get it placed on that hatchery list they have.

Also, since FR is a dragon site, I think it would be beneficial to have pictures of some of Evelon's dragon species in there.

[Nyxia]

@ Toxic: In my own defense I wasn't mistaken, I just didn't state that very clearly. I meant what you have going with your Evelon trade thread.

I think it would be a great idea to have people volunteer for running that, though I do worry a little about that just from what's happened when people have volunteered to keep up lists here. The breeding circle idea is what I had in mind. And damn woman! That CS post looks unbelievably amazing! I might have to borrow a bit on your design for other sites and all.

@Thunder: I think that would be great, we could also see if users who have hatcheries in their flight if they would be willing to list our Evelon one as well. Maybe have a directory of Evelon users by their FR user name & Evelon one.

On that I have a couple more things to add to no one in particular. It would be nice in my opinion if we had like a list of sites we think would attract people, and the members of our community who are there willing to volunteer. Another thing I think might help to get people interested in at least checking us out is if, like Thunder suggested, people who don't want to maintain a thread just have an Evelon pet in their sig on other sites. That is honestly how I first found this place, someone had a Yonyuu in their sig on Subeta and I clicked on it.

I'd like to see what all the other mods think of this too, plus I kinda need to be sure its okay with them on the RoleplayGateway.

Finally we do need to start bouncing around some ideas of what to do about the site once we've attracted new users. I don't mean to be harsh, but the forum has been pretty dead for the six or eight months. Once we have new people we don't want the advertising/sales area to be the only thing on the new post list, if that makes sense. I see no point in making a new suggestion thread simply for that purpose, so ideas on that as well are welcome here. Attracting people here is wonderful and needed, but we also want to keep them around too. (This last part seems really out of place to me, sorry if its random to throw this out here now and all.)

[Thunder]

I'd be willing to run any lists for an FR thread. I take care of trade notes here, so something like that won't be any trouble for me.

We have some nice ideas on how to engage newbies on Evelon in this thread. Particularly I like Toxic's idea of giving them awards for doing things like setting up their zoo pens, introducing themselves, etc. I'd very much like to see some kind of welcoming program implemented.

[ToxicShadow]

My goodness! I realized that I hadn't quite gotten back to this yet. :c

Nyxia: Oh, my trade thread here. o3o In that case, I probably could attempt to do written portions of the FR group, if only I knew what to write. As for my advertisement on CS, please feel free to borrow any part of it? I certainly don't mind, since it is all in the name of trying to snag more members. c:

Everyone in General: I'm not sure what else we could do, as a matter of gaining more activity. Thunder already linked some suggestions that I made, regarding rewards for newcomers and such, and I also suggested official pet raffles, in part, so that new users could try to also gain pretty pets without having to spend a pretty penny.

Another thing that I began to consider, since I have a section in my trade threads stating that I will give away some certain pets to new users for free, would be having a thread solely for the purpose? Where users choose to donate pets to the collection, then new users can choose one of the pets for free. Or, say, a breeding item, a more rare pet, custom or breedable came in, then new users could post stating why they wanted the item/pet, for a chance to get it. (Probably free raffle style to those interested.)

[Thunder]

I would definitely be willing to contribute to such a pool, Toxic o3o

[Nyxia]

Wow I'm sorry I haven't said anything sooner.

Thunder: If you want to start up the FR thread, have at it. And thank you for the link, I had thought we already had one.

Toxic: I think it would be great if we could set up single thread where those of us who want to toss stuff in to give away could post it. We could host small events too, like your monster hunt, so that new members get to rp and interact more with us old timers and still get Ks or pets. I have three Halloween themed events I'm planning to start the beginning of October. I was also thinking, in the case of breedable things, something along the lines of the giveaway thread. We can list a few creatures we'd be fine renting out, and an item with it. They can pick if they want to rent two pets, or if they want to do the breeding with another user.

[Kylo]

At the upcoming nakacon next Feburary I will be handing out some business cards for the site and it turns out my current fursuit can be easily modded to fit for a rollaby so I'll be in that advertising. I hope that will help for drawing in new members. Maybe we can use cons as venues for getting out word?