Getting People to the Forum

How do you get people to the forum? I've tried everything. I've posted links on blogs, posted on other forums, asked our existing 6 members to help out, but nothing seems to really work. How do you all do it?

 

The things that attract users is content. Without content no one will register. An active community will play a part in this as well. Also find a niche that is not saturated. A custom theme to make your forum stand out from the rest. Good luck with your forums.

 

Shawn, I got things a lot of political forums wont offer.

Free speech for one. I barely let my mods do anything because I want these people to feel safe to spread their ideas. If a little war starts up...then we'll quell it...but just minor vicious debate...no concern at all.

I offer a VIP user group with a TON of cool things attatched...FOR FREE. It's activity based. They can even change their username color, open their threads, close them, move them, whatever. A lot more than you should expect on a forum.

I have a shout box too for live chat.

We run VB 3.8 - which a lot of the older debaters like. They're upset about Xenforo joining the scene ( I had to sell my Xen license) and they don't like all of the new bloatware.

As far as I see...the board should be very attractive.

The only problem is activity. We only have 6 active members. 2 of which are staff (including me).

The politics niche is really small. I just don't know how to get these people here. :-

Check out what I've done ..> patrioticvoices in my sig. I'd be honored to have your review.

((I need a third admin...interested??? Oh come on..I had to try ))

 

That is my major problem. I have over 550 posts now, my co-admin almost as much, and we only have 4 active members besides us. Politics is not over saturated...these people are just really freakin fickle. They've been burned on a lot of forums so once they find a home...it's hard to move them. Even on another board I wont mention here....it's like the SS controlling the board...and people still stay there. I don't understand it.

We do have a custom theme...so to speak. I did it myself. However I wanted to leave some default because the older debaters are used to VB 3.8 as their favorite system.

Politics has a diverse user group..we have people from 12 years old and in middle school all they way up into their 100's and sitting in a nursing home.

Thank you for the well wishes

 

In my opinion unless you discover a completely new content/service to feed people with, you have to work hard your way up the hill.

 

That's pretty much impossible man.

 

The forum requires registration.
Ain't nobody got time for that.

 

You don't go on many forums...do you...



If you have 810 posts here...something tells me...you have time for it.

So do others.

 

possible to pay others for posting, "forum posters", while many may be against this, they "forum posters" will create the content you need, and others will see topics they will want to comment, and add their 2 cents to. Will also help for search engines with the more topics for others to find you as well.

 

I have tried this as well. Politics is a hard niche and those who follow politics tend to charge way too much for their services. I'm on a shoe string budget at best. Although perhaps I will start looking for someone like this again.

 

That's because the benefits of posting here are worth the time spent on registering. What do you offer to potential posters? It's just another forum which - surprise, surprise - requires registration. A random visitor that wants to check out just one post/thread (and possibly tell others his opinion) will hardly register if he doesn't intend to participate more.

Would *you* be willing to always register on a random blog before being allowed to comment on one of the articles?

As an owner of a (new) blog you can make readers to register before posting, but guess how many comments you'll get.

(You might want to check out this forum which doesn't force people to register - many of its posts are posted by unregistered users: http://www.godlikeproductions.com/)

 

Thanks, but politics is a fast paced and often troll riddled niche. Allowing guest posts would be opening a can of worms I just do not want to deal with.

 

There is a plugin that shows your members as active even when they aren't it might help.

 

I do realize that. It worked for another forum he should try a little bit of everything.

Also he should try getting connections in other forums around his niche.

Find users who would like somewhere they can speak freely.

 

I have used a mod like this on my board. and I got banned from Adsense till I disabled it. Not a great way to go if you use ads.