Boss Hog

Where to start, obviously as well as the community and advice aspect the main reason we all use forums is as a tool to market our services.

The idea of this forum is to offer help to people who are not professional graphic/website designers, a place for professional graphic/website designers to discuss issues and also a place for people to request services from graphic/website designers.

In order for the forum to grow 1) We need general users to know this is a good place to come when searching for these types of services, and 2) We need graphic designers/website designers to know it is worth joining up as there is a good chance of business from it.

So....what do you think we can do to help us achieve this goal? Is there anything that you would like implemented that will be beneficial to you and the forum?

Sites like US based 99Designs get huge amounts of traffic from design competitions, you all know how they work, there isn't anything that I know of similar for just UK citizens, what do you think of this concept? Do you think it would draw people to the forum or is this concept of possibly working for nothing insulting to professionals.

The problem we have is that we are targetting a niche market hence the slow sign up of members, I could start a more general forum tomorrow and have more users in 2 weeks, however, this is what I am interested in so chose this subject.

Any ideas?

Pixels Ink

I like the idea of design competitions.

I'm just heading out to see a client so I'll give better feedback later :)

Eagle

Whilst competitions do work (and I used to do them), as a professional I'm now duty-bound to shun them! I'm not sure how the majority would feel here but it could be worth trying. I wouldn't be participating though (or promoting it as a resource).

Just MHO

:)

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Pixels Ink

I wouldn't have time to do the competitions either, but I think publicising the fact we have them would bring in new blood to the forums.

Boss Hog

I thought that would be the response, I suppose established designers would not have the time or need to enter such competitions, just thinking of ways to grow the community really.

To be honest on reflection would we want newbies with their pirate copy of Illustrator offering logos for a fiver?

Any other ideas or suggestions that would benefit you and the forum?

Maddy

Maybe there could be a comprehensive and up-to-date list of links to jobs both employed and freelance.