What really geared up the activity at my forum is the currency. You can not imagine how much activity you can generate with a little bit of forum money. But for that you will have to put some weight in your currency. Make them believe that it is worth to collect. Before I move ahead I would give you an example from histroy. Do you know how Brits introduced "Tea" in the united India? People here were used to drink water. milk and Lassi (An easily digestable form of milk). They gave it for free. They got the people use tea in their daily life by providing them with lots of opportunities of free tea. Once they got used to it they started making it hard to get it for free and then they started selling it and now you see it used everywhere in every house of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh extensively and other once British Colonies. They even have invented the terms like Bed Tea and replaced once established tradition of eating yogurt when you get up early in the morning with it. You just need to work your way out like this. How would they know your forum currency value if they can not use it and how they could use it if they can not have it. Provide both opportunities and your startup forum will get a head start. At least it worked very well on my forum. Hope it helps. Chodhry PS: Please share what worked for you increasing the activity on your forums. Thanks!
yep I too think its a good marketing way I think there are many too which i read somewhere over the internet if u go to a gal and say" i am rich, marry me" direct adverising if u ask ur friend to ask her abt u its an indirect marketing and so on.... as you all very well know far better than me..
But what to do when you get around 10 members daily, but they dont post anything. They just join and be on the forum for around 30mins each and come back rarely. Iam talking about my general topic forum.where my thread to post ratio is 1:2 which is very less no of posts. Members come and start threads but never reply to others threads.
Amit, give them a reason to post. That reason could be a posting contest winning them something which they can use. Now if you are operating a gaming related forum then may be a game pack or something like that would make them post. You can think on these lines and comeup with your own reason for your users to stick around and post.
Contests always work. But there is no guarantee people will come back when the contest ends. Too often they are there to get something for nothing, then they leave.
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum103/763.htm that's one of the better threads I've ever seen on the subject. think you may need to be registered to view it, though. I don't have any really earth-shattering advice. most if it should be fairly basic things that you should already be doing: create legitimate, useful content on the "main" site. lots of it. place plugs for your forums in places that get the most attention. it's the same as adsense, or really anything else in the SEO/AM world, you need to test, test, and test some more to see what works the best. another strategy that's worked incredibly well for me is to give something away for free that either requires they sign up to the forums or sign up for a newsletter. with the latter, the newsletter will come with plugs for the forum.
Yeah for sure. Just have to hope that natural traffic doesn't drop off after the contest ends. And it shouldn't if you have employed the right tactics to keep conversations flowing.
As there are countless forums evolved in all niches you have to provide some unique item/service to your visitors and reason for their stay on your forums.
Promotion, advertising, Admin participation (a big one). Forum enhancements such as a nice skin and a reputation or similar system - people love getting involved in those.