WikiFur:Promotion


 * This page is about non-monetary promotion of WikiFur. There is also a page on paid advertising.

We all know that WikiFur is great, but if we want it to get even greater we need to continue to get new people involved with the site. Put simply, if they don't know about WikiFur or why they should visit and contribute, they won't. This leads to the dreaded p-word. . . promotion!

Objectives
Specifically, our objectives should be to get people to:


 * Link to WikiFur from their websites
 * Link to WikiFur articles on pages about relevant topics
 * Talk about and link to WikiFur on forums, perhaps including it in their signatures
 * Promote the idea that WikiFur is "the" place to come for information about the furry fandom, at least as a starting point

All of these things can be done by you right now, so get cracking. ;-)

Really, though, we need to encourage others to follow our example. To get people to do this, we need to give them an excuse to talk about WikiFur, and give them material to use when they do.

Writing and featuring good articles
Probably most people are impressed by quality articles that are fun to read, yet also informative, and which present their topics in an unbiased tone. This is where featured articles come in. Identification and promotion of the best of WikiFur sets the standard for other articles.

Of course, it's important to actually come on here and create and improve such articles, too! People won't stick around a site where there's no content, and search engines don't think too highly of stubs, either. Fortunately we seem to have made a good start there. :-)

Statistics
Another important part of promotion is the use of figures to demonstrate WikiFur's growth. A some people are impressed by size, and "WikiFur has X hundred thousand words" tends to make these people think it must be a worthwhile project. Here are some pages that can help:


 * WikiFur:About, statistics section
 * Stats in comparison
 * Statistics Record

Linking to external sites
Ironically, one of the best way to get sites to link to us is to link to them, where appropriate. Most serious webmasters have referral logs and view them at least semi-regularly. If they notice WikiFur sending visitors their way, they are likely to come looking. This is also a great way to gain contributors who know a lot about furry topics!

WikiFur Digest (tentative name)
The most important thing to do is to get people interested enough to click a link to WikiFur. To do this we should give them highly interesting tidbits and lots and lots of links for them to click through to find out more. People do click those links - When Special:Popularpages was working, it had those pages linked to from elsewhere right at the top.

I have personally had very good results by posting a semi-regular progress report in the form of a digest - see From the Creatures Wiki (backup). I think this could work well for WikiFur, too.

2000th article celebrations
I think we should try and do as much as possible for this, if possible. We've been quiet for a while now (probably too long), so we should have a lot to say. Plans include a redesign of the front page and community portal, and renaming of the latter.

Furry information quiz
Test your furry knowledge? Quizilla etc.

Past promotions

 * WikiFur - A home for the furry community - the idea that started it all . . . but it only took us to 100 articles
 * WikiFur: By and for the furry community - this really got the ball rolling, posted in several LJ communities

Promotional material
It should be obvious, but if you put something in here, expect it to be used by other people to promote WikiFur, most likely without specific attribution.

Leaflets

 * WikiFur promotional leaflet by GreenReaper, a slightly modified version of which was used at Midwest FurFest 2005


 * File:WikiFur Poster.png - By Brushwell.

Banners

 * File:WikiFurUMA2015PersonalAppeal.jpg‎ by Mike Retriever, featuring GreenReaper.

Buttons



 * By MelSkunk:
 * By Seth C Triggs: