I have an extremely busy custom-coded website, although a big issue im having is getting a community feel by getting people to use the forums and chatroom. they are drawn to the website by pictures we take of people in clubs, etc. where we hand them business cards so they can get their free picture... And when they go on the site we get a lot of [optional] registrations... and although the people use *some* features of the site, they dont use the chatroom and forums how would i go about encouraging people to do this?
Show the links to the forum more prominently for one thing. It would help I think if you gave us a link to your site.
Give them a reason to go to the forum. Contest. Have a few lines about what someone said about the club (on the main site), and ask them to respond etc.
oh sorry i completely lost this post (I've only just started to use the User CP). The site is xoog.net, the forums links are fairly obvious - the forum is referenced on the homepage as well as in the menu Community -> Forum. More pictures isnt something I can really do due to the whole nature of the site. you will understand if you visit. I've tried my best to spark debate but to no real success
Perhaps the member don't feel the need to post at your community. You need to find the missing link first. A menu link isn't something a user will pay great deal of attention to.. try different things i.e. start contests, hire paid posters for a while to see if that works. In my case, controversial topics worked.. I just posted them with my ghost ID and luckily for me, people started posting in the forums. Do you send a newsletter to registered members? If you do, send a promotional letter regarding your community to them. Speaking through experience, it's easier to get a forum on the top but difficult to stay there.. since most community owners get tired or lazy after seeing that much growth. It's a never ending game and you have to do promotion all the time.
Maybe give them a sample of the forum posts on the front page, ie. the last two topics posted in. Maybe use something similar to that for chat.
It isn't easy getting a chat room populated, no matter how busy the website is. If there isn't anyone in the chat room users generally don't bother going in. If a user does take the plunge and go into an empty chat room they won't hang around waiting for members for long. A good way to get around this initial slump is having some kind of set, hosted event. Make a post on your website telling everyone to meet in your chat room at a set time for a set reason. Then, after the chat is over make a short news post outlining some of the more interesting stuff that was talked about. This way if anyone couldn't make it into the channel that night for whatever reason they will still feel like part of the community.