Users are visiting but not posting.

On the Soccer forum in my link I have a lot of registered users who have not posted yet and a lot are visting but not posting.

I just wondered the best way to get people to sign up as well as post as the number of inactive users is going to get quite high and be useless.

What do other admins do?

Thanks

 

It would be really nice if you could post a link to your forum. Before I answer I would like to take a look at your site.

This is what I would be looking for - what kind of modifications do you have installed, what would make your site more appealing then other forums, do you have streaming videos in your forums, how about an arcade, picture gallery, chat room, shout box........ The list goes on and on.

What kind of hosting package do you have? Is it a free forum hosting package where you can not install modifications, or do you have access to a real server?

What kind of forum software are you using? Is it the free stuff like phpbb and smf, or is it IPB or VB?

If you want a real review of your community, post a link. That is the only way you are going to get a real advice. Other admins need to see where you are at, then go from there.

Give your members something besides text to look at. Post pictures, install some fancy highslide picture software, install something that can stream video. Here, this is an example - http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=13993 Click the pictures, they open up with an attractive highslide / lightbox effect.

To give you an idea of what kind of forum I run, see the "Survival Gear Forum" link in my signature, click it. Its one thing to tell you "how" to do something, its another thing to show you.

 

Make some contests if you want.

 

Here's my piece of advice to you:

In order to grow a viable community like in this case a forum or a message board you will have to nurture this community like a little baby. You will have to nurture it till it's big enough to take on its own. If you want to own a forum capable of living on its own you will have to create a community that builds buzz and excitement. How do you do that?

Like all new forums you are probably wondering how to attract people, right? When fishing you use bait to lure the fish! That is exactly what you need to do here. You will have to seed your forum with some posts, articles, tips made by you or maybe by hired staff. Either way you need to have these initial seeding posts. Make sure that these seed posts have an open-ended question or a thought provoking thesis statement that will provoke and encourage people to reply once they read them. You could also hire article writers or bloggers to start a discussion on your forum or message board just to get things started and propel the community to a higher level.

This is not all. Once you go through this initial stage you will, hopefully, get some users registered and they will start posting on your forums. Don't just leave them alone in the dark! Interact with them. hire some moderators to reply to their posts or maybe you could do that yourself. Make comments on the posts, if necessary post remarks or compliments. This will encourage your user base to participate more in the community building process. And then again, you can always ask for clarification and a follow-up questions. This will expand the database of Q&As in your forum and first time visitors are browsing the forum they will see it as a credible and expanding community, a community everyone wants to join.

The time will come when you will feel the need to hire staff to look for particular things. Hire moderators, once your forum becomes a huge community it will be absolutely impossible for you to deal with the things yourself. And if you do not manage to handle the forum it will eventually start going downhill and you don't want that, right?

In the very beginning it is really important that you do not start with too many forums. Do not go for 10-20 forums! Start with just 3-4 forums. The more posts in less forums will give people the impression of the forum being busy. People love participating in things that look or appear busy. You can always expand or split the forums on a later stage.

Start several contests. Giving an incentive or reward for posting and participating by contributing to the community evolution is what you need. Giving away rewards for a best post in category, best idea, best resource, most posts, etc will make people post even more.

 

I always found the best ways to encourage people to post on a forum is to see the forum with interesting posts. A lot of people feel strange posting to an empty forum. If you start filling it seeded topics/posts, it will grow.

 

It all really boils down to the basics of websites. That they somehow need to create value for the end-user. The value might be lots of different things such as interesting articles to interesting discussions etc etc.

 

I think, you should hire Paid Posters for sometime. Also, you should offer some awards for members attraction.

 

Hire some posters. Get 30-40 people to post 50-100 posts each, that would really make the forum look active.

 

Thankyou for the advice.

The forum is about 4-5 months old and does have a fair few posters it is just getting a lot of the visitors come and go.

I dont really want to offer prizes for posts because I believe that some of the members would just post rubbish to get their post count high.

I am using vBulletin. Take a look at the site here : Coventry City Forum

 

I don't think Coventry City from all teams was a good niche for a football forum for you. I would only advice a football forum for a team within the top 4 or a general football forum, like mine.

 

Why would I make a forum about a team I don't support or a general football forum where there are hundreds already?

 

True, but getting Coventry fans to join up wont be a very easy task, I have to say.

A general soccer forum is what is doing great for me.

 

But that is like me saying to you that you should have made a Baseball website because they have more fans?

I have also just posted this to one of the fanzines so hopefully it will help and I will be on the back cover:

 

Looks good.

And those 3 points on it will grab the user's attention.

 

It was printed and sold outside of the stadium. Around 300 - 400 were sold and I have had an influx of new members. Not bad for £10 a month.

Here is the printed ad:



I still have the issue of people not posting though

 

u shud start pay per post activities.
doit for several days.....it may b helpfull to make the post.

 

What do you mean by pay per post activities?

Do you have any examples?