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Written for GenWebs.net - Webmaster Blog

Staff promotion on a forum is a very important aspect and should not be taken lightly. In this guide to forum staff promotion I will go over who not to promote, who to promote, and when to promote.

The Do-Nots of Staff Promotion

Do not promote your friends.
Do not promote someone because they donated.
Do not promote new members no matter how nice they seem.
Do not promote members to gain traffic to your forum.

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Now let me elaborate. If you want your website to go somewhere, and not just be a hang-out for a group of friends, you cannot promote your friends. It’ll look bad. You needs your staff to look top-of-the-line elite, and promoting your friends will cause problems because they’ll try and get away with things. Then they’ll have to be punished and if you punish them your friendship weakens.

Another thing I see is someone getting promoted because they donated to the website. If I donated $20.00 to a forum should I get a moderator position? Absolutely not. This is especially true for small forums because they are so grateful for a donation. This looks bad on you, and you’ll probably be promoting someone who is either under-qualified or does not even want the position.

You also need to watch out for social engineering attempts. My guide to forum staff promotion says, if you promote new users, and have you have people who do not like you, you have a problem. It’s incredibly easy to create a false resume, join a forum, PM the admin and ask for a moderator position. With some very basic persuasion you can become an administrator and the website can be ruined. Your database can be sold, forum closed, etc. This is why you do not promote new members.

The last, but biggest problem I’m going to discuss in this guide to forum staff promotion is offering board promotions to gain traffic. This is not the correct way to gain traffic. If people join your forums to become staff what happens when they don’t? You got that right, they leave! You either promote everybody or have a dead forum. You need to make people join for the quality content and community. I cannot stress this enough.

The Do’s of Staff Promotion

Do promote members with experience.
Do promote members with a genuine interest in your forum.
Do promote members who act in a professional manner.
Do promote members with promising ideas for the site.
Do promote people you like.

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You know that saying “everybody has to start somewhere?” Yeah, well this guide to forum staff promotion says that somewhere will not be your forum. Only promote members with experience on a forum your size or bigger. Otherwise you’ll end up having to teach them things they should already know. Basic things like warnings, when to ban, etc. The newbie things.

Another thing to check for is if they have a genuine interest in your forum/niche? If not..they aren’t for you. The best moderators love the  niche they moderate. It’s proven if you enjoy it, they’ll perform better.

The last three points can be fit into one paragraph. Only promote members who have good grammar. Don’t promote people who will embarrass your site.  Another good tip would be to promote someone who has many ideas for your forums that you agree with. If you like that person and his way of thinking they will be a much greater asset to the team.

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So hopefully you learned something from my guide to forum staff promotion. Share these tips, learn from these tips, remember these tips, and most of all implement these tips. This article is included in my guide How to Create a Forum (Forum Staff Promotion).  Stay inspired.

Nice little guide there bro, good work.

Great guide you have here, Laugh. May come in handy if I choose to start a forum again.

Good guide, I hope it comes in handy. Thank you.

The guide looks great.Thanks for the share.

Nice detailed guide you've made, looks like you took time to write it/plan it out, thanks for the tips.

I had never realized just how important a staff promotion or passing on a user for a staff promotion can be until I dealt with it on my own forum. A seemingly unimportant decision actually was very important. Some members were rather displeased because they felt they should have been promoted. Good guide though, would have certainly helped me out the first time I did it.

Seems like most of this is common sense, good guide though.