Hi! I am having trouble making my forum active. I've posted myself. I am the most active user there with the most posts. I have 25 members. I don't expect a lot since the forum is new, but I feel like I am failing. I can't flood the forums because that's against the rules and it just makes me look desperate. Any advice?
Create competitions or such things to get your members interested in the forum. Unfortunately, there's not much more you can do - perhaps send a mass PM to all your members to remind them of the forum!
I found, when i was running my own forums that keeping the members up to date and "in the loop" with what went on was always a good thing - the "Email/PM all" feature isn't used as much as it should be IMO and a monthy newsletter can really help - even get members to contribute!
I started a contest, but it's hard to give rewards on forums. There's a custom title and such, but I am not sure that'd interest a person much. :/
I used to use the email all feature, but one HUGE flaw with that, is that people have to activate their emails before getting them, and since sometimes it don't go through like its supposed to. I created an email only used for my forum, I updated it when a new member joins. I have it where all my members are in a group, so that I can just put "members" in the To: field, and all the contacts of the members come up. I say its allot easier then doing it 1 member by 1 member, and it works a little bit. Ive had members that first joined my forum, made 1 post, and left, and now they are active as ever.
Forums are like theme parks, opens the first day, no one comes in, until they start noticing it, like advertisements, fliers etc.
Try advertising it an a majority of forum, not just forums that are related to your forum, but advertising forums, other forum service providers, such as PB forums, Invision forums etc, Try the topsite thing, like http://www.anime-links.com/toplist/index.php your forum may not be anime, but it still may work.
You can't just have a forum with awesome graphics, high posting, with hardly any members, and just sit there waiting, you have to take action. If you take action you get better results.
Thats it for now, just remember what I said and you should do fine.
As mage said, advertise yourself.
If you know people on MSN or Yahoo/AIM etc, put it as your name. You have to get people interested in what your forum is about. That's it, people with like minds will join your forum. If you have topics and discussion that is enjoyable then they will join and post.
Sometimes, forums fail, it's the way the world works and until you get to know about how a forum works - then it's hard, it will take you several attempts to get a truly thriving forum. It took me 3 goes to get my latest forum active - before I closed it, it had over 50,000 posts and was gaining easily 1,000 everyday.
However, the problem with a really active forum is the community often goes sour (which is why I closed my last one). Fights break out as too many people congregate - therefor, I try to think of my forums in my personal interest area that I can still have a nice community going
My suggestion is to have a go with this forum of yours for like 3 - 4 months, if it doesn't take off. Learn from what you did wrong/didn't do. Try new things with a new forum to get it going. Sometimes, forums just flop and to get away from the flopped atmosphere you need to re-create. Simple as that really.
I hope that this bit of info has been helpful
I made one of my very long-term member a Co-Admin, she is very active, and she offered to help me, she practically re did my forum, made new boards, kept the same ones, moved some old ones around, and that got me 3 new members ^_^ and I am thankful I did make her co admin, as it really helped me. I was hesitant to see the new look, so I logged off for the night, and the next morning, I was like WTH!! I talked to her, and she said don't worry. and so I stopped worrying and now I am pleased. and I do not like changes, all to much, which is one of the biggest problems I have
haha
Part of the problem is finding out where to put all your boards. I've given critique on a board before that had over 80,000 posts and it scored like 4/10 from me. They said it was dying and asked for suggestions to make it popular again.
The thing that I noticed and probably many others did was that it was a graphical design board, however, I actually calculated it at about 48% of it's total post mass was in it's off topic board.
If you have a board like that, avoid doing that at all costs! It's devastating for any specialty board to have a lot or large percentage of posts in it's off topic boards which tells most people that the forum isn't that great at what they want it to do. Most people join design boards to learn or to teach design, not waffle.
However, what this forum had done was place their archive board as a sub - board. That's a popular trend to have an archive board anywhere on a forum, however, a very fatal mistake! It looks messy having the majority of posts in an archive thread as it makes the forum look unwanted or whatever else
Just some tips as well.
If you forums is specialised, place all the specialty boards at the top of your forum (under your administration section), this allows people to focus more so on the actual reason your board exists and not the random other bit.
So heres how you would lay your board out (I found through much trial and error that this is the best way to do it).
Administration
(Announcements, Suggestions/Bugs, Intro's) <--- HINT: NEVER HAVE A STAFF APPLICATION BOARD!
Specialty
(E.G: Graphics Discussion, Graphic Showoff, Resources, Requests, etc).
Community Based Specialty
(E.G: Competitions, etc)
Community
(Off Topic Boards, etc, etc).
haha waffles haha.
Yeah just like if you forum is an RP forum:
Information
-Rules (Plot may go in there as well.)
Q & A (basically your general questions about the site )
Welcome - (very important I think every forum should have one, makes new members feel welcome to the site.)
This will take to long, so here is my site as an example: http://freunion.vforums.co.uk
You can't just have a forum with awesome graphics, high posting, with hardly any members, and just sit there waiting, you have to take action. If you take action you get better results.
I have tried taking action by updating the site and posting. I've mentioned I have a contest going to get members involved. Only one that I know of has thus far. Also, I am the only active member on their because I try to engage the members into discussion. They respond to my posts, but they don't make any threads themselves.
The only way to get members is by advertising. I have 30 members. That alone should show I have advertised.
It depends what your website is about, you have to put up not only starting threads, but some starting posts, some starting resources, some starting everything.
If you have any form of resources on your forum - you must have a substantial database of them. If your forum is about reviews, you must have a substantial amount of them. etc, etc
I'd recommend trying to affiliate with other forums and advertise on other forums that are related to your website.
I'd recommend trying to affiliate with other forums and advertise on other forums that are related to your website.
But then again, if advertising on a site related to yours, you may not get all that much attention if the other site is bigger and/or more established than yours.
I'd recommend trying to affiliate with other forums and advertise on other forums that are related to your website.
But then again, if advertising on a site related to yours, you may not get all that much attention if the other site is bigger and/or more established than yours.
You have to play the numbers game with advertising. Get as much as you can for as little as possible. Affiliating may not be useful in situations for newer forums, as most forums that accept affiliates are often well established forums with high prestige. This causes the dilemma of people clicking their affiliate button and decide they like their site better than yours
Advertise in different ways, signature advertising is great - if you have any form of resources, post them on like minded forums with a link back to yours on it
I have another question having to do with this topic. I used to have the firm belief that inactive accounts should be deleted, but this can seem to be an issue. Some people will join simply to access what they cannot. Guests can see 90% of my forum and I think it's stalkerish to join for the sake of browsing. What would be considered inactive? Sometimes things come up where you can't have the internet for a month, you're sick, there as an accident, a death, etc. where you can't always get to the computer within just a month.
I never delete inactive accounts. What attracts people is an open community forum. If you have a high number of a posts and a low number of members because you delete inactive ones then it looks to be a very close, tight and CLOSED community. That means, there is little opportunity for new members to be accepted within the community so they don't bother.
So, I am a strong believer of NOT deleting inactive accounts, don't do it - it causes issues and can be avoided easily.
I have to disagree. 90% of the forum can be seen by guests. The purpose in creating a community is for interaction. If you don't have the time to do it, why join?
I have seen admins delete inactive accounts, but the member count doesn't always remain small. It just remains accurate.
On the subject of inactive accounts, i'm with Sven on this one - there's been a couple of occasions i've seen where people have deleted accounts only for the member to come back and say "why did you delete it?" - we have no idea why they haven't come back (maybe had holiday, lost their internet etc". This person refused to re-register and that's lost them what could've been a valuable member.
Personally, people will almost always look to see if the forum is popular, and they'll do that by looking at the member/post count. If those numbers are high then it'll attract more people.
I suppose it all depends on the admin's definition of "successful" - is it a small, but dedicated member base who post daily, or is it a lot of members which have taken the time to register, but for some reason or another have not returned.
I mean, if the account falls inactive and has posts... then it becomes a guest posting. That doesn't look good, as it looks like they quit the forum rather than fall inactive which is a terrible look and must be avoided at all costs.
I mean, deleting accounts has loads of implications, even if they make one, they may use it every month or so because thats all they need it for. That's not a reason to delete the person, no account should ever be deleted simply for that reason. If you use the mass email feature/mass PM feature, they may decide they want to come back if you release a good update or something.
However, if you have deleted their account then they don't know in the first place. I mean, I still get emails from forums I registered on over 1 year ago and no longer visit. Some of the ideas are looking good and I went back and checked it out, found that it had been over rated etc, etc. However, there was one that got me hooked and I returned and stayed.
Deleting accounts looses you mass amounts of members.
I'd send out an e-mail to those individuals first before deleting their account. Of course I'll want to give them time, but I wonder if a month is too soon? I have asked another staff member on my board and she thinks it isn't.
I'll send out newsletters to try to bring the members back with site updates, but sometimes that doesn't always work.
Also, this rule about inctive accounts is mentioned in the rules. If the member isn't aware it's because they failed to read the rules, which is what they should have done in the first place.
Some members have the intention of joining and not posting at all. I just don't see the purpose in allowing members if they aren't going to post. Therefore, we aren't always losing members.
I'm apart of a message board that has over 4,000 members but only about 300 of us are actually active. It's taken a couple years for this board to get that many members. Obviously, some of them don't have the intention of coming back and everything on this board can be seen by the guests. The 200 something member are very active, but some are annoyed by the post count. Some of them say, "why join if you aren't going to post?"
I still recommend against the deletion of accounts. Some people register but never post with intentions of coming back, but they aren't really interested in the community. They may ask for advice every now and then or something like that.
They register as security so that they don't have to do it again and are able to post when required. Some people also register to show support. I mean, when I was running a design forum way back when, people would register just to support the forum rather than to actually post, even when it's closed with just it's resources open people still register giving support to the forum.
To have people register is a great achievement and to me, it's like spitting in their face by deleting their accounts.. They are supporting and all you want out of them is numbers, that sounds and looks rude to me...
I have another question having to do with this topic. I used to have the firm belief that inactive accounts should be deleted, but this can seem to be an issue. Some people will join simply to access what they cannot. Guests can see 90% of my forum and I think it's stalkerish to join for the sake of browsing. What would be considered inactive? Sometimes things come up where you can't have the internet for a month, you're sick, there as an accident, a death, etc. where you can't always get to the computer within just a month.
for the last bit, Make a board about leaving.
like:
Leaving?
If you are leaving the forum for any reason please post it here.
I would suggest that as a sub board in the Welcome board. (if you have one)
I only delete accounts if the member sends me a PM or email requesting this. Then i respond and confirm that they want there account removed and is it because of another member causing trouble or something else. I always try to help resolve issue's.
But when i do delete the members account, i also delete all there posts and threads made. This mean's that all there information they posted is gone forever and i can wipe my hands clean. Sometimes people post there email address in threads so i delete everything.
I don't argue with the members who want to leave the forum but i do what they want done. Inactive members i leave alone. I have different forum software but i got things coded so every 45 day's a email is automatically send to all inactive members reminding them to come back to the community and contribute a little. It's a little friendly email i won't say everything i wrote in there. But it encourage's people to come back. This email is sent to members who have not logged into the forum for 45 day's. Some members lurk but don't post. They are not active just shy. lol