Scratch

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Trust Me!
3. The Baby Steps
4. Advertising your Advert Thread
5. Secrets of the 28000 Views
6. Extras

Introduction
Lots of scratchers have been making their own advert threads, and although some have gone as far as reaching a few thousand views, non of them have lasted long enough. The owners get excited over the immediate success of the thread, then they lose track and their advert thread fails. In this guide, I will teach you about where threads will succeed, and how they can fail.

Trust Me!
I won't go on too long in this section as this may sound like I love myself; this thread is to help aspiring advertisers and not to promote my work. However, I did make 'The Advert Thread', the very first to use a front-page indexing system that I originally created. I do know what makes threads work, as there is a reason why 'The Scratch Cat's Hideout' got over 250 projects and why others have struggled to get 25. We'll get onto this later.

So, I've made three successful advertising threads since October 29th 2011, lasting a total of 9 months (the remainder weeks can be subtracted because I took a small break).

The Baby Steps
If you're thinking whether or not to start your own advert thread, or if you have already made it but it is at a very early stage, I'd recommend that you do not skip this section.

Firstly, you need to write down your plan. When I made my first thread, I had no idea whether the index system would work, and now everyone with an advert thread uses one or something similar. So, be brave as when I made the first version (which was re-categorised many times until it was right) I was pretty nervous it would not work. Try to make a unique way of advertising projects. I don't mean using an index system with a different theme, I mean you might wanna make a website for them or have a project every week which highlights any new games added. For weeks where no new ones are added, make a project which shows your personal favourites out of the ones on your thread. However, because anyone can read this and use the idea you'd best hurry!

I had to decide on many things, such as the categories that the projects would be divided into. If I got confused where a project should go, the creator would too. In fact, they maybe put of from adding their project to be advertised if they don't think that their project is eligable to be added to your thread. I decided to include sub-categories to make it far easier. Let me tell you that they are useful.

Let's say that someone makes a game where you're a person who lives in a Mario type world, but you access these places through an RPG-like hub world. Let's say you have three categories; Platform, Linear Games, and RPG. These are very similar, and deciding where this game should go is pretty tough. However, by making sub-categories, and putting Platform and RPG under one called Adventure, and then putting Linear Games under Arcade; we can now split it into two choices with two options each.

So, the first choice is whether it is an adventure or an arcade game? It's more adventure, and now we only have to choose between Platform and RPG. People forget that a platform game is not just any side-scrolling adventure game. A platform game must be based around jumping onto blocks, and usually these types of games mix elements such as adventure and fighting to make this more interesting. Anything with auto-jump enabled, is clearly not a platform game and does not count. So, any type of game that focuses on jumping over and onto things is a platform game, so do not be including flying games.

Secondly, you need the theme. This will effect the name of the thread too. At the moment I'm thinking of reverting back to 'The Scratch Cat's Hideout', as the name was more memorable and it seemed more popular than 'The Advert Thread 2'. The theme will affect the layout as well. 'The Advert Thread 2' uses a website layout, with buttons in a horizontal line at the top under the logo kindly donated by XenoK. 'The Scratch Cat's Hideout' used a vertical system with an 'elevator' leading to all of the floors. The floors were the categories, and the 'rooms'/'areas' were the sub-categories such as the Mall which lead to the Newsagents which had all of the newspapers and contests within it.

Thirdly, you need to know what you are advertising. Make sure you have enough categories for everything you want to advertise, and make it clear what each advertises. If people are unsure of whether their advert can be submitted, they may just pass by.

Advertising your Advert Thread

I could tell you to advertise in your signature and your project notes, but that's what everybody says. What happens when a New Scratcher joins and they get fed up because they are getting no views? They get annoyed and squirm. Why don't you ask them if they want their project advertising, that way they might spread the word too and if they become famous one day then you'll have a future of lots of great projects by them!

Also, let's be honest. Although it's not morally right to boast about your thread, you have to-to succeed. For example, on my title I specify that it advertises over 120 projects, which is nothing but the truth and it's part of the title meaning it is not spamming any place. At the same time, scratchers see that it has more business than everyone else's and that's it, most people go for it.

Of course, you'll have to do some research. You see, there's something that has always bothered me. People would pass the thread, and go onto another thread that's much smaller and never updated. I wouldn't mind if they preferred it because there was less competition to find space on the thread (it's a perfectly reasonable reason,) but when an advert thread is on page 5 and someone manages to find it and bump it back to the top with a request than that's what puzzles me. Why would they go back 5 pages to advertise something they want on front page?

Then I came up with what could be a good answer. As mentioned before, a very busy thread may not allow newly added projects to stand out. However, a smaller thread would allow newer projects to stand out because there are not as many other projects around. Another thing is that when a thread is on the first page all of the time, people get bored of checking it. However, if a request is added to a thread that has not been seen in what feels like a century, than many interested scratchers will look at the request and the index to see what's happened to it. Therefore, that request and the project with it will get views. It's a long-shot, but it's possible.

Secrets of the 28000 Views

Drum roll! The key is to remember that if you want to make a succesful advert thread you start by not making an advert thread. You showcase it as one, but really you are making an archive.

An archive stores every advert, and also collects adverts by searching around the site and adding projects they can find. When I first started, I managed to reach 30 projects by relying on people but only because I was the first person with an index. Now with competition around, it'll be much harder and so you cannot just rely on requests. I thought it would not last long, so I searched across the site until I had 73 projects exactly, and that's when business boomed. All of that attention came after I added 43 projects. Adverts were flooding in and now I did not have to worry.

However, then I got stickied. A couple of people tried to copy me, and I got annoyed. This caused me to get un-stickied which meant the thread was worth less, and someone even asked for their advert to be removed from it! So, be cool and don't worry if people copy. When I made the system that worked I got upset that everyone made their own, but I'm passed that now and I'm more then happy to help.

So be kind, and help someone out if their advert thread or any thread is struggling. Don't cause any hassle, and if you have an idea and they don't follow through with it, let them be and don't start an arguement. Not everyone needs to follow what you say, and their way might be better than yours!

Also, a successful thread needs to last for a long time. It allows scratchers who may not have visited in months to have a look back at the classics that were submitted when the thread first opened, offering a chance for you to get more views from returners. Plus, a long lasting thread gets a much larger 'brand awareness' (like 'The Scratch Cat's Hideout,') which is more 'brand awareness'than huge ones which only last a couple of weeks, so just have fun, make them worth viewing by scratchers and good luck! I now leave you with some extra features for your threads.

Extras

Here's some extras:
'Joke-of-the-every-couple-of-days'
This appears on a lot of threads now, except just as 'Joke of the day' or 'Joke of the week.' This allows me to only have to add a new joke when I remember to rather than on a schedule, and it will keep people coming back who like jokes. Honestly, I just went to the same site every time I wanted to update the thread and scrolled down to the joke under the last one I used.

'Project of the Week'
I tried running this on my own, but I kept forgetting to update this. Than I noticed that a scratcher named Joletole had copied the idea and made his own thread, only it focused entirely on Project of the Week. Back then, I used to argue with people who stole my idea (which is what lead to 'The Advert Thread' being un-stickied, and I had to re-brand it as 'The Scratch Cat's Hideout' because of the embarrassment). So, I thought that instead of arguing with him I'd make him a deal.

I let him run Project of the Week on my thread, all I had to do was to replace the old projects with the new ones. He got many scratchers working for him and that made him happy, and I'm sure more scratchers were checking up on a weekly basis since it started. In fact, for about 4 weeks I got just over 1000 views per week, and for the 5th and 6th weeks I got over 1200 each!

Members
These can help you out on your thread. NEVER HIRE STAFF! Without wages they are impossible to threat which can be annoying. Instead, you offer points for every time they complete a task, and extra points for when they complete tasks that really need doing. Plus, you can deduct points for when they are naughty.

Make sure you make a leaderboard, so that they can fight out for top position and you can sit back whilst they do everything!

Reviews
Everybody wants them for feedback and improvements. If your thread offers this, than as long as you have enough members (or enough spare time for yourself to do them) then you'll boost the number of adverts you'll get in. This won't really affect views directly though. More adverts will bring in more views, but casual gamers who want to play something new quickly will not stop to read a long review. Therefore, the review merely draws in the project creators, which will increase the number of adverts you have. The extra adverts will bring in the scratchers, not the reviews.

Last edited by Borrego6165 (2012-09-30 11:51:49)