As far as marketing FR and, more importantly, advancing the conservative cause, we could do more. We have to give a prospective reader/FREEPER/donor value (which should be the root of any marketing effort). We have to show that FR is the place where you can read it all (political, humor, whatever). We have to show that spending 15 or 30 minutes reading stories is worth coming to the site. We have to show that the commentary on the site is valuable.
I have taken a step upon myself to promote the conservative cause and, more specficially, FR. And, that is where it starts.
One thing that I do is take stories that are posted on FR and format them into a self-contained, fully-styled, clean HTML file. That file can then be sent via email to anyone and everyone in your address book. The email forwarding takes affect however it is going to take affect, depending on the reciever's mood.
In each file, I include the source reference to the story (where it was published orginally), another comment "For interesting commentary on this issue, click here" (with the "click here" being a link to the FR post), and another note that says, "If you want to read more of the truth, go to Free Republic.com".
I don't do it for every story, of course. But, for the "big" issues, I do it and usually tell all the FREEPERs within the post that I have created an HTML file that is available for emailing.
For example, when the whole "Joe Wilson" thing broke, FREEPER Wolfstar did an huge amount of research and wrote a post that detailed how the whole thing was and is a set up. I made that post into an HTML file for emailing and sent it to everyone I knew.
It is like a FR ping, but it is in email and has the story of note included. I think this is a very effect and viral way of propogating the stories and promoting FR.
It is really a matter of convenience and presentation. If we can't get the folks to come to FR, we have to go to them (via email). Most importantly, we are getting the truth out; giving FR a mention and a link (or two) is opening the door and a bonus.