Time Frame for Growing Forum

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dani, administrator

i just posted a thread accidentally with a wrong name. i noticed that i couldnt change the title of this thread. please remove it or change the title of thread. i tried to remove my cp, couldnt do it. thanks

olddocks

Junior Poster in Training

70 posts since Jul 2005

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Changed.

The Queen of DaniWeb

Administrator

19,421 posts since Feb 2002

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That's a very general question, and that really depends on you.

I have a forum with about 300 members, and the forum hasn't yet come to a state that can grow alone.
But for instance I meat today a guy that made a forum with 250 members in 12 hours!

Light Poster

31 posts since Mar 2006

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There is not a fixed number for this. i have a forum with more than 300 members and 13000 posts, with a great postcount/member ratio and still i can't say it can go by itself. You need to work relentlessly to keep it active and nice.

dojo

Junior Poster

139 posts since Jan 2006

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This site is still not yet self-sufficient for more than a couple of hours ... nearly 70,000 members strong, and I don't know where we'd be without a great team of devoted moderators to keep things active and running smoothly.

The Queen of DaniWeb

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Getting 500 members can take weeks, months, or years. With a good niche, the right promotion, and a good forum layout, I'd say it could take a few months if your lucky.

XanderCreation

Newbie Poster

4 posts since Apr 2006

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well, the problem with me is i have my own handcoded forum though i have lot of members nobody is coming forward to post or participate. my site has been around since one year and i get lot of traffic. do you think switching to vbulletin would solve my problem and my community will grow grow better????

olddocks

Junior Poster in Training

70 posts since Jul 2005

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Getting lots of traffic means nothing. Put yourself into the minds of your visitors. They come, they see an empty site where no one posts a lot. Why should they take the time to post when what they have to say won't be heard or they are unlikely to receive a reply?

The only advice I can give you is to POST POST POST yourself! I say this a real lot, but I might as well just repeat myself here, at the chance of being repetitive. Members are selfish. They only care that what they have to post gets seen and replied to. So the goal to turning an inactive forum into an active one is to make sure that you instantly reply to every thread or post that is made. One member at a time will see that THEIR own post has been answered right away, and so they'll come back. Don't worry right away about getting conversation going. That will come with time. At first, just focus on making sure that YOU personally answer every single post made within a short amount of time.

The Queen of DaniWeb

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he only advice I can give you is to POST POST POST yourself! I say this a real lot, but I might as well just repeat myself here, at the chance of being repetitive

At that part I would like to make a question. Is it good to post on every single thread in your forum? Isn't this image of the 'one man show' bad for you? I mean that if you start making threads and post replies to anyone else's threads is good for your forum?

I guess propably not. What is your opinion?

Light Poster

31 posts since Mar 2006

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Posting in every single thread is the only way to be successful when you're first starting out. With few people posting on a new site, you can't rely on other members to get the job done. Once your site grows and becomes entirely self-sustaining, then you'll find yourself focusing more and more on moderation issues that arise and less time posting, and when you get to that point, that's fine.

The Queen of DaniWeb

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I see. My forum has not so big activity as there are only about 300 members with 7500 posts, so I keep repling on every post, but I am really not sure if this is good. On the other hand leaving those threads and wait untill someone replies is bad too, and the worst would propably be to make several accounts and post from them (I have done it in the past, but I think it is redicoulous)

Light Poster

31 posts since Mar 2006

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Right now you should be replying to every post. This is fine. Once the site grows large enough, you'll have a dedicated team of regular members who will share this job with you.

The Queen of DaniWeb

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Ok. Thanks for your comment :)

Light Poster

31 posts since Mar 2006

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Good info ...

The only forum I own and I don't post that much is my Romanian MA forum. I have some very dedicated members who are also instructors, so I just keep the board running. When opening the forums I started all the threads (20-30 new threads each day) and replied a lot. Now, after some months, I don't have the highest post count anymore. I am not as good in MA as they are (am only a blue belt), so I just keep myself from posting too much since they do know how to handle the discussion.

But all my 5 forums I have aside that one have me as the highest posting member. I "own" a good percentage of the replies and 60-90 % of the topics. The forums are still small so I need to boost the replies with new topics constantly. But little by little new members join and they find that they do have what to talk about. Then, I can relax on the posting a bit and just read their replies and post when I truly have to.. There are days the topics are going without me, so I just look at them. When I feel a day is less active, then I can reply to some of the threads I ignored on the active days and reboost the posting.

dojo

Junior Poster

139 posts since Jan 2006

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The answer to anyone who says - how many members should I have in 3 months? is not a number it is the fact that it depends on how many people are interested in your subject. For example this forum has over 70,000 members in a few years but if it was about a more specific subject for example PDAs then there would only be a fraction of the amount of members. So in conclusion you should just make sure that your forum has steady growth.

roryt

Nearly a Posting Virtuoso

1,286 posts since Oct 2005

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That's not necessarily true. At first glance, you might think that a more general site has a larger pool of potential members. However, a lot of times, people are more inclined to join niche forums. For example, a hardcore PHP programmer might be a lot more inclined to join a PHP-geared niche forum than a general programming site or a general IT site with just one section devoted to PHP. I think it's more of a give 'n' take between a lot of one thing or a little of everything. In the end, it all balances out when you factor in everything about the community as a whole.

The Queen of DaniWeb

Administrator

19,421 posts since Feb 2002

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I have one thing to add to what dani said. It's true that people will most likely join a forum they're interested in. But it also makes sense that niche website owners will initially have to do more work finding interested users. An owner of a non-niche forum could ask all his friends to post and they'd probably have some idea and relate to what they're posting about.

clarinetalex

Junior Poster in Training

56 posts since Nov 2005

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Getting lots of traffic means nothing. Put yourself into the minds of your visitors. They come, they see an empty site where no one posts a lot. Why should they take the time to post when what they have to say won't be heard or they are unlikely to receive a reply? The only advice I can give you is to POST POST POST yourself! I say this a real lot, but I might as well just repeat myself here, at the chance of being repetitive. Members are selfish. They only care that what they have to post gets seen and replied to. So the goal to turning an inactive forum into an active one is to make sure that you instantly reply to every thread or post that is made. One member at a time will see that THEIR own post has been answered right away, and so they'll come back. Don't worry right away about getting conversation going. That will come with time. At first, just focus on making sure that YOU personally answer every single post made within a short amount of time.

I have a question about the posting bit. What if they haven't posted anything that really warrants a reply? I mean what if they've posted a statement or an ad or something like that? I don't really know how to respond to statements.

deannaspencer

Newbie Poster

3 posts since May 2006

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If you don't know how, then learn :) I promise, it's a lesson that will serve you well. If someone posts a statement or a non-question, reply with a comment of your own ... "That's interesting, but what about ..." ... Get conversation flowing. Think about how you would respond to a friend who just told you that statement. It will make you come off as much more approachable on the site. Additionally, people posting statements puts good factual info on the site instead of just questions, so it should be encouraged as much as possible. The only way to encourage it is to make people feel comfortable posting it ... and the only way to do that is to comment on it!