I own a forum, its got 1000 members and doing fairly well. Ive got some regular members most of which have 100 posts. But what Im stuck with is getting the new members to post. How can I encourage members to post? Here is the forum: http://www.theflickzone.com
That is expensive and not worth it. People don't post and good quality things and its unfair on the other members not getting paid.
Come up with your own forum currency and rewards members based on participation and posting. Organize contests would help as well.
We have like a points system at the moment which users can trade with each other. They get 10 per post. But the users don't value them much.
Maybe they didn't see the value in this system or they have overlooked it.. have you explicitly tell the new members that you have such a system?
You can do these if you like and find worth doing: 1. Contests with a fairly attractive prize (Not too big prize money but should be enough to appeal one) 2. Hold many different and interesting contests so that everybody(or most of members) find themselves interested and eligible 3. Even if you spend $150 on 5-6 small and interesting different contests, it may work becuase most of members will be active, if not to participate then to follow and it may motivate them to join next. 4. Try some interesting rewards or labels like; The Jewel/maverick of the week - Member whom you find intelligent and most active that particular week. And rewards like these. Try to highlight the start member of that wek so that others can see and get motivated (may be little but it works at times) 5. Start nice fun games/ chit-chat and try to highlight these contests and running games on top or any easily visible position 6. Start interesting posts yourself too. Try replying interesting and witty answers. THat actually makes people follow the threads. There can be many ideas actually. Just to suggest.
Yep, there isnt much trading going on though. I tried to promote the fact that people could sell graphics such as avatars and signatures. But it didnt really take off. I had a reward system where people got medals but nobody liked it. We do have quite alot of general chit-chat. The new members dont take part much though. We have reputation which is used to a certain extent, but like the points, they dont have much value at the moment. We have special ranks for people who post alot. But this hasnt proved to be an incentive. I cant afford to give out things which cost money. I dont have enough income to do things like that. However a good friend of mine who is also a member has said that whoever makes 500 threads gets a zune. Which is awesome. Hopefully it works.
Unless people give out paid things for cetrain post levels there arent many incetives for new members to post unless they really like your forum - i mean take a look at digitalpoint - ok i know its massive but not its got rep everybody comes here and posts for nothing because they know its a good forum - post your ofrum and get it advertises on google and get more rep
Offer something that is unique. I wouldn't personally join your forum myself because there's much bigger/active movie forums out there. Should set up a review system for movies?
I think the secret of having a successful forum is making the forum useful to others. Why would other go to a forum if they find it not use for. So think out how your members could get benefited; backlinks, useful articles... etc etc; and make your marketing strategy around that. The stats I see for your forum isn't bad. You got 1000+ members, lot of threads and posts which is a good thing.
contests, revenue sharing, exclusive sections for members that have posted X posts, free stuff for obtaining certain posting levels are all good ways to get people posting..
Revenue sharing for a movie forum honestly won't attract much users. Doubt any average online users will have an adsense account.
Well from my experience revenue sharing and contests both help get a few posts, but not to create a loyal base of users. Unless a forum has members who really love to be there, its not gonna go anywhere. Thats just my opinion.
You can use an RSS feed posting bot to create new threads. Log into your admin control panel - left hand column almost all the way to the bottom - RSS Feeds. Create a "Newsfeed" user account and turn off private messages for that user. Set up a few feeds that updates every 10 - 12 hours. Example on how to set this up: For your new movies section - http://www.theflickzone.com/forumdisplay.php?f=10 Set up a RSS feed from yahoo movies webpage - http://movies.yahoo.com/rss This is the feed for "Opening this week" - http://rss.ent.yahoo.com/movies/thisweek.xml The posting bot would check that address how often you set it to, and grab how ever many new items you tell it to. The bot will then start a thread in your movies section for every new item it finds on that page. Members can then reply to these new threads. Its an easy way to get fresh content into your forum and its free. I have about 5 RSS feeds my bot checks every 12 hours. It will grab 2 or 3 items from each feed. This can give up to 10 - 15 new threads every 12 hours on the most recent news articles from the source site. Some of my members love it, because the bot post news items the members might over look on other sites. This bot also works while you are away from your computer and sleeping. So you can wake up every morning and have new content. Set up one bot, wait 3 or 4 hours and set up another one. That way they are checking their sources at different times periods. If you set up 4 or 5 bots, set them to only grab one or two items each every 12 hours. These posting bots should blend into your membership, and should not not post more the real members. Here is an example of my posting bot and a thread it created - http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?p=232494#post232494