same as the thread : what generates talking forums members? sure there are lots of forums out there and many of them get new members each day. but all of those member never say a thing once they sign up. so the obvious goal to reach is gaining members that will stay active among your forum. Where do you start? where to you go to start? how do you keep them comin? the advice that you give in this thread will not only help all of the forum owners on DP but i will also post the best compiled advice in my blog. Thank you for your help Amxcorey
I think if you manage to start a forum with lots of controversial topics, it will generate a lot of interest. I know I will keep coming back for more.
as cool_78 said. Keep the interesting stuff and try not to bore the members with stuff other forums already have. Be original
Starting a good forum is one of the hardest things one can undertake. I have been lucky enough to start two very popular and successful forums. The key is.... TONS of work in the early stages. You need to create hundreds of new posts and new topics every week to generate interest. You need to avoid fake forum posting services. And you need to create a personality for your forum, in other words the very best forums are extensions of the people who create them. If you are a boring person most likely you will create a boring forum.
If you come up with a very attractive forum where people can post there work and get help on things is the best way to start. Or offer weekly contests to.
You should think topics that would attract the surfers. It should be the latest trends, news or anything that covers the topic of your board. A promo, games/competition, poll and freebies are some of the samples you can have.
My own opinion is that forums are made best to compliment an original website. I hear too often people say how hard it is to start one up from scratch, there's a lot of competition ya know. Once a website gains notoriety, people are eager to post within that site.. and that, in my opinion, is the best way to generate talking forum members.
I think that having contests and prizes is key. But don't just have contests where users will earn something the more they post. Make sure to tell them you will moderate each post and only give the prize to helpful posters. Or say something like you will give the prize to the person who gives the most helpful post each week. That way you get quality posts, and not just quick one liners.
I've found that if one offers free sex with a super model, people are more likely to not only sign up, but to give you a few posts. I suggest trying that. If that doesn't work, offer rotten apples to random people at a Star Jones appearance. If THAT doesn't work, close the forum.
hahaha maybe ill put that in just to get people laughing. Ill have the blog post up at the end of the day tomorrow nad pm all of you who are included. feel free to keep posting though. Thanks Amxcorey
Yeah, if you can start topics on breaking news related to your niche/forum people will want to talk about it as it has urgency to it. Don't wait for others to start new topics, use different user names and start threads you think will generate replies by ending with a question.
In order to generate people from talking you should have a good topic. Try to be informed about the current news and events. Use topics you think forum members can be interested most.
Also they should make sure their threads their populating into their forum to get it started are genuine. I've seen some pretty blatant scrapping going on in newly created forums where the owner is just copy and pasting some BS and putting into the forum. Maby some will fall for that, but most likely can spot the fake.
thought those who posted here might like to know. i just made a blog post covering some great topics on getting active members. thanks for all of the advice. if you would like to see the post let me know