My forum www.utexas-forums.com is haveing trouble getting members. I've made a posting contest and put around 500 flyers under people's doors, purchased 40k facebook flyers and massed e-mailed 4 of my classes. Does anyone have any other suggestions for me? Its REALLY hard to pick up momentum.
Welcome to the forum world. Your site is real nice. It's a bitch though getting signups. Try putting a Tell-A-Friend link in place of the Calendar in the navbar. Offer a prize that would get the interest of college students...an iPod, etc. You're missing a sports forum! That would be a huge way to promote...open a football forum, and do some flyers at games.
Exactly...you need a dedicated sports forum for UT football as a top level forum near the top of the list.
I think the others have good suggestions. To kick start it you might need to ride the coat-tails of a more trendy theme, like sports. Also, stop spamming your classmates, that might hurt more than help. I like the idea of offering an ipod giveaway or something. Kids might jump all over that. Perhaps the top 25 posters each month get entered into the raffle... etc. Good luck!
ask yourself this question... If I was one of my fellow classmates, why would I use the forums? If nothing comes to mind then might want to reroll your website unfortunately. Need something catchy, new, and interesting or else they will just go to well-established ways of social networking...IE myspace, facebook, etc.
One activity which you have not done upto now is Promotion . Just optimise the site for a long term benefit .Get it a good PR. You can stop addressing " Welcome to university of Texas" if you want to make it global . Just work hard on the topics and see that some intresting stuff comes out
you need more posts. people are not going to join if it looks like a dead forum. get a bunch of friends, a few cases of beer and have them post away.
and also make some more interesting topics. -bar scene -where is the party at stuff that college kids are into.
I have many posts regarding creating forum/community traffic, instead of me double-posting it all here, just go to my blog.
Just offer your college friends a few beers each for 50 posts. 4 beers has gotta equal out to 50 posts. It would only take 4 people, and you have 200 posts!
Dont advertise via facebook, I received HORRIBLE CTR. Campus news paper classified ads or banners might work well. Hang some flyers on "free speech" boards. Purchase a nice template and get a more web 2.0 modern look. To me that design targets adults more than college students. Good luck.
Here are a few ideas: Calendar of Events: You could utilize the "Calendar" by posting/allow posting of Game Days, Parties, etc. Chat Feature: You could add a "Chat" feature to the forum. Resources: You could add a resources section that listed all of the local clubs/bars/restaurants with feedback/reviews. Member Profiles: You could allow more options (biography, location, etc.) for members to customize their profile pages.