How to inject life during the quiet periods?

As almost every forum owner knows, there are times in the year when your forum goes a little quiet. People still come on in dribs and drabs but no one really posts very much. about 10 posts or topics etc a day.

it sometimes happens in summer, or over christmas. it can be pretty random. but, when it does happen, what can i do to inject life into my forum during quiet periods? any tips/suggestions/advice?

 

that is the time i do
- learning
- SEO
- adsense optimization
- new content
- site clean up
manual directory submissions, etc

 

I'd rather get people more involved in discussion, make the forum buzz a bit more. Any tips on that?

 

publish content and mini-howtos in your forum.
start new threads / sub-forums with content and leave the thread open to share / add experiences / questions.

for example:

if you have a forum that includes tech topics like wireless routers, write tech details on various routers, add tips and configuration examples, specials for certain network types or ISPs,
then ppl may ask additional questions or add additional data relevant to particular situations of wlan.

in such an example you would start one thread for each and every wireless router model.

same principle applies to every type of forum on any topics

 

Get vB plus vBSEO and you wont have "dead times" anymore. Worked for my forums.

 

if you see my forum though it's fairly general.

Can anyone give me more tailored advice please? Whilst I appreciate the comments so far, they are fairly generic or non-suited. My forum is SEO'd

I thought of moving to vB, but it's expensive, and the transfer from SMF to vB isn't easy as I want to keep all topics, posts, members etc.

 

Contests can work well.

 

Also you can run few paid posting rounds just to keep it going through these times.

.

 

Have you noticed a big jump in your forum activity. If that's the case then why is vBSEO so underrated? I was just thinking about getting vBSEO..is it worth it?

 

Automate your forum posts for a few days....

 

Diversions...

Keep them around with something to do... like word games, forum games, and the like.

Here are a few ideas from WIKI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_game]

 

when this happens to me i posts tons on other forums searching to receive new sign ups and more content.

 

Thankyou Qryztufre and arteaga624! I will look into your suggestions! The forum word games sounds brilliant

also thanks to everyone else who commented, keep the ideas coming please

 

Check out the external links (on the WIKI) for more ideas, or look for other forums that have them.

I have done this on my forums (see Fun and Games) and it sometimes does seem to keep a few people for a bit longer.

Just keep in mind that if it gets out of control, then it will distract from the overall boards.

Also, I tried an Arcade, which supposedly should have the same effect. My member base was completely outraged as they felt it would bring in too many miscreants and/or low quality members just interested in the games. Many members do love the fun & games though...
Q

 

*u can start some sort of contests or incentives for posting (like colour, rank etc)
*start some forum games
*target specific audience at the dead time knowing which audience will be active at that period of time

hope it helps

 

Nice one..

 

automated or paid posting is bad if you already have a collection of loyal active members.

 

I agree with you. A bunch of automated posts while your human members are sleeping are bound to turn them off so early in the morning

Some people just do not realize it's not just traffic, its QUALITY traffic. It's not just about content, it's QUALITY content.