If you guys have a forum how do you get people to stay active in it when there is barely anyone there? I am trying to keep discussions alive with my friend until other people join but it is hard to get even him to post.
It really does depend what niche is the forum in. Have you tried using social media to see if you can create any interest. Even create a croup on FB and see how many people will join the group. Remember people want to know what is in it for them.
Its tough - there is nothing worse than a forum that looks quiet - its one of those things though that can snowball once it gets going. I would definitely try setting up a Facebook group and see if you can get your friends to like it and try and spread the word that way
Also try occasionally doing polls to see what people are interested in. (It might not be the best idea but it's something). That might be easily done via FB pages and perhaps you'll find a few good ideas that you can use to try to keep current users happy and also be able to attract some new customers.
Business doesn't work like that full stop. You need vigerous aggressive marketing techniques. You also need to make the forum look active, perhaps by firstly creating fake accounts that have informed factual posts that are keyword rich and engaging. Then you'll need to have writers and bloggers post comments on threads and create threads (outsourcing to writers/bloggers) Anyone can create a facebook page. The problem is there are thousands/millions of them! so why would anyone find your page through the search bar in facebook? firstly they would have to look for your facebook page through the search bar - bad idea. Secondly, if they don't know the name of your page, they'll never join - People join pages that have interest and have a 'social buzz' Creating a facebook page will simply do you nothing. You'll need to market your facebook page wisely, create attractive engaging posts ----Pictures are great (one's that pain a thousand words) At the end of the day, making a business successful does not happen over night, you need to put together a load of good little things to make one great big thing. Be under no illusions - Building a business is both time consuming and expensive. If your unwilling to part with funds i suggest you re think your strategies. PM Me if you would like to discuss any of your marketing needs. I run multiple online businesses that cater for services i believe could be extremely beneficial to you and your business. - www.seo-toplist.net/ - Not cheap, but quality is what is needed, seriously. Good luck my friend.
Provide incentives for people to post on the forum. Most new webmasters forum allow a do follow link in the signature as a way to encourage people to participate. You can later make it no follow when you think your forum has grown to a size that people cannot ignore.
My forum is in the same boat. It's really a paradox, you need active posters to active posters. Luckily when I started mine I already had a small number of active posters so they are what helped attract others. Still, I think it more comes down to, have you differentiated yourself from your competitors? Have you given your first-time visitors another option than any other website? It would probably be beneficial to think about what "culture" you want to have and do everything you can to establish that.
I tried to start a forum once, and I failed dismally. It's really hard to get started to be honest. You'll find that the majority of prominent forums have been around.. For many years. That being said, you might want to consider paying people to post and keep it active. (I remember I heard one forum owner say that they also had a lot of personalities on the forum and often conversed with themselves in order to provoke other people to chime in lol). Remember this: If people visit your forum, and see nobody is posting, and that your "latest post" has been hours, or even worse DAYS ago, people won't really want to chime in. For that reason, it's difficult to get momentum.
This is the main problem. By definition "niche" is small so there are are only so many people interested in that topic and each forum is fiercely fighting each other to attract those users. Also, once a user has been with a particular forum for a while, it will take a lot to pull them away since they've already become part of the community. It's just like moving in real life. There needs to be a pretty big motivation to get you to leave everything you are used to for something completely new and different. I experienced just how cutthroat this can be a little while ago. There are pretty much 4 big players in my particular niche (and I'm not one of them). About six months ago one of them announced they would be closing their forums, effective in 12 hours. As soon as word got out about this, the other 3 big players and me starting posting like crazy on their forum, trying to fight for the mass exodus that was starting to happen. I even texted all my mods to get on the site and help me promote ours. It was completely insane, like hyenas going after a kill. Anyway, I don't think there's any one thing you can do, a button you can push, that will make people come to your site. As I suggested above, really research your niche and ask yourself, what do users want? Then look at your competitors and see if they meet those needs. If not, you know what you need to focus on. If so, you're just going to have to do it better than them.
Holding posting competitions can be a great way to keep people active on your forum, and give them some sort of prize. If the forum is in an overcrowded niche, then even this may prove hard to keep members from going and joining bigger and more established communities.
it is www.collegeconnects.us Also I have been creating every kind of social bookmarking site and things of that nature, it definitely attracted guests but no one that joined. I started doing some article marketing but now that I have finally settled on a theme I need another different logo because it will not match and I cannot create a thread here : ( I plan on telling all my friends soon and have them tell their friends etc, you know how it goes, I just wanted to wait until everything was somewhat finalized
@colcon the web designer Paul Jarvis has written a wonderful article on on starting from scratch that you can apply to your forum and get users involved. You can do it!
keeping active participants in a forum can really be quite tricky, considering the number of forums out there, but the key really is to keep those interesting topics (depending on which niche your forum is dedicated to) flowing in to encourage posters to keep those posts and shares coming in. it might entail a lot of hard work but it will sure prove to be worth it in the end.