Generating Registered Forum Users

[bbott]

I recently launched << url snipped to comply with forum policy >> been rather successful in drawing in members by offering 2 promotions.

The first is offering 1 month free banner advertising to the first 25 members to reach a post count of 30.

The second offer is 6 months free text link advertising to the top 3 posters once our community hit 100 registered members.

So far in about 4 days we're up to 15 members.

Anyone having trouble gaining membesr might want to try a promotion method similar to this! :D

[big_k105]

I have tried a promotion of giving away gmail invites back when they were at the point of people paying a good chunk of money for them and that brought in some members but most of the members that that brought in only posted so much to get there invites and then left and never came back. i have had more success with just having my site indexed well on google :)

[eWebTalk]

Usually, word of mouth is one of the most effective for my website << url snipped >>. I tried creating promotions but they wern't very successfull at drawing in members.

[hysteriaweb]

I have tried a promotion of giving away gmail invites back when they were at the point of people paying a good chunk of money for them and that brought in some members but most of the members that that brought in only posted so much to get there invites and then left and never came back. i have had more success with just having my site indexed well on google :)

Since we both run similar types of forums I actually saw your forum returned in google. Have you optimized the site any or do you pay for google adwords?

[EmoForums]

I think running promotion methods simular to that would cause spammers to come.

[2nyce]

4 days 15 members not to good.....

i had 50 or so...

now i have been up about 2 weeks or so maybe three andi have 320+

but jus keepdoing it..dont give up....

Go to sites and pay to have your site banner on theres...

[nathanaus]

15 members in 4 days isn't good? I would say that was pretty good myself.

I've had my forum up for nearly a month and have a grand total of 8 members.

[IshWig]

15 members in 4 days isn't good? I would say that was pretty good myself.

I've had my forum up for nearly a month and have a grand total of 8 members.

That's fair. Don't expect to have 100,000 in 10 days like the guy above you. All that matters is that it grows! If it keeps growing (nomatter at what rate) it's doing good. In a year or so, it should be pretty big, eh? :mrgreen:

[Dani]

I got off to a ridiculously slow start. The second month we were open, no new threads were posted and only one new post was contributed over the entire month! Just goes to show ya ... ;)

[alc6379]

I got off to a ridiculously slow start. The second month we were open, no new threads were posted and only one new post was contributed over the entire month! Just goes to show ya ... ;)

...And look at us now! I remember times when Dani and I were IMing each other, and she'd be worried about the success of the forum. Now, I think we're sitting pretty, and we didn't have to use any gimmicks from what I've seen.

[tansks]

For almost 1 month I only get 14 members and this including myself. 4 days 15 members is really a good number for me.

[nathanaus]

I'm sort of in a different situation now. Since I last posted above, I've got 80 members. My problem now is getting them to actually post!

If even half of them became regular posters it would be a great thriving little forum, but at the moment I have 2 people that post semi-regularly and thats it.

My biggest issue is my main competitor is "official" whereas I am a "fan site". Official site is booming, mine isn't. I'm a moderator on the official site but apart from a link in my signature I can't openly ask for people to go join and post.

[JTroopSoldier]

Usually, word of mouth is one of the most effective for my website << url snipped >>. I tried creating promotions but they wern't very successfull at drawing in members.

I would have to say I wouldnt agree. Word of mouth works wonders when you are selling something. But when you want people to join your site? Advertising is better. Yes.. I mean spend a little money buying some advertising from Dani (Hey dani.. Im soon to buy some from you once i get the site completely up ;).

[nathanaus]

I can't even get my moderators to post let alone my members. How hard is this!! Surely with over 90 members someone would feel the urge to post? But nope they all just sit there silently.

Pfft this is hard.

[JTroopSoldier]

Yes. I see what you mean. Give them something to come back. A reward system. A arcade. Contest that give them something in return for posting on your website.

[floris]

Thank you for the tips (if you hit postcount x, you can get free advertisement on our site).. I like that and perhaps might just look into doing that one time!

[betts01]

In looking at several different forums, I've noticed that the majority of members either don't post or post rarely. There is always a nucleus of people who post regularly and chat with each other. There are also people who join, post madly for a few weeks and then stop. We've tried to vary content on our site (which is a musician's), with off topic threads and rather mindless games, and we seem to have some members who stick to the off topic threads and/or the game threads. If you're just looking to increase post numbers, you might consider off topic threads geared to outside interests of your members. But, if anyone has good ideas on how to get the registered nonposting members posting, I'd love to hear it too.

[Eric HRF]

With my latest board, I've gotten 30 members in less than 7 days. Here's how:

My nemesis has an old UBB that has zero organization. 90% of all post go into one forum. So I built a vB3 with php portal frontend, a chat program and photopost. But most importantly, orginazation via multiple forums fitting the theme of the community.

Then I changed my sig file to have my URL in every post (oldest trick in the book), then I posted a thread about my board (dirtyest trick in the book).

Well it worked! 30 users in less than seven days.

[Shackbase]

I got off to a ridiculously slow start. The second month we were open, no new threads were posted and only one new post was contributed over the entire month! Just goes to show ya ... ;)

so if you had to pick one or two things that caused your slow start to go wrooom.. what would you say that was? Just time or something more substantial?

--Tone

[Antonbomb22]

any kind of posting incentive only leads to problems. a great example is gaia online with their easter day ball, they purposely promote bumping(so those 200 million or so posts are just bumps and spams). so really any kind of post rewards leads to spamming eventually which leads to undesired content and wasted db space.

[Dani]

I would have to say I wouldnt agree. Word of mouth works wonders when you are selling something. But when you want people to join your site? Advertising is better. Yes.. I mean spend a little money buying some advertising from Dani (Hey dani.. Im soon to buy some from you once i get the site completely up ;).

I'm sorry JTroopSoldier. I think the complete opposite is true - if you have something to sell, go with traditional advertising (PPC, etc.) But if it's a community, word of mouth and return visits are priority. Since communities are about people, it's only natural that their biggest advocate is people interacting and sharing with each other. In addition, forums and blogs are a great way to spread the word about sites, and can be mediums to free advertising (i.e. forum signatures)

I started off just doing free word of mouth advertising. Once the site became successful enough that it was earning some revenue, I started to invest a bit in PPC. It's been working quite good for us for some time now, but I think I've used AdWords and Overture to their limits - and feel it's time to take the plunge and expand. Therefore, this month I did some leaderboard banner campaigns as a test. The next step - which is a couple of months away - is to do some print advertising in a B2B tech magazine.

[betts01]

I can't even get my moderators to post let alone my members. How hard is this!! Surely with over 90 members someone would feel the urge to post? But nope they all just sit there silently.

Pfft this is hard.

Have you talked to your moderators about posting? We asked ours to pledge 10 posts per day, and we encourage them to be very quick about responding to posts by others, especially newbies. If someone is interested enough in a site to volunteer to be a moderator, then they should be interested in it's success, and should be willing to contribute to that success.

[Shackbase]

Dani,

see your last post confuses me; you say you think word of mouth for a community web site and I agree, or you will just get a bunch of single click visitors that just clicked on your banner or text ad and never bothered staying.

Now in your next paragraph you say you did do ppc and other forms of advertising and some leaderboard advertising recently.

I have a forum (Talk Shack) which will feature cross posting from my Ranking sites, every product review on the ranking sites will have a forum thread dedicated to it for visitors to discuss their thoughts and questions about that particular item - theres 4 Ranking sites and 1 forum - if I were to advertise one of them, should i advertise a ranking site or the forum?

Also - what would you say beside a forum signature would be the best kind of word of mouth advertising?

Thanks for your insight - it is clear that most of us are envious (in a good way) and look up to you for your success and I know we all appreciate you sharing your thoughts so freely.

--Tone

[harishankar]

My forum has only about 1000 posts with about 50 members in 5 months.

This is a slow progress, but I am quite happy because the content contributed has been of excellent quality (we are a book reviews and discussion community) and not a single user has flamed or trolled in the whole period of its existence. We are peculiar in the sense that we're not a discussion oriented community but rather a content-driven site with a forum serving as a tool to post book reviews. We also have discussion forums, but the focus is on exchanging book reviews with other members.

Never mind quantity. It's quality I'm after and I don't mind the forum building up slowly as long as I can have quality content.

[Shackbase]

I'd have to agree with duffy (err.. Harishankar) - quality over quantity.

Ofourse as your membership grows, so will your posts exponentially.

--Tone

[Libertate]

You guys are funny...

I had ... 12 new members last year. That was a good year. normally I get about 6 a year. This community has been up since 2001. My current member count is at 491. (I got lucky in the begining by acquiring an existing pool of members.)

You have to take it into consideration what the site is about, and what are your requirements to be a member from your point of view, and from the prospective member's view. In this particular community's case, the requirements are "extreme".

So, the content will narrow your audiance, the requirements from your side will narrow it again, and finally the prospective member's requirements further narrow the pool of potential members.

It is all a game of statistics.

Therefore - advertise every way, shape and form, thereby increasing the initial pool of potential members.

Of course, if you do the advertising right, you will be able to get a clear picture what is your advertising dollar/new member ratio is. The more members you get for the less money the better, right?

[harishankar]

You guys are funny...

I had ... 12 new members last year. That was a good year. normally I get about 6 a year. This community has been up since 2001. My current member count is at 491. (I got lucky in the begining by acquiring an existing pool of members.)

Hey. Thanks for posting that info. I feel a lot better :mrgreen:

I thought that I was doing badly having an average of 10 members per month signing up.

[Libertate]

Hey. Thanks for posting that info. I feel a lot better :mrgreen:

I thought that I was doing badly having an average of 10 members per month signing up.

Hey, anything to make you feel better! :twisted:

[adromidon]

I got off to a ridiculously slow start. The second month we were open, no new threads were posted and only one new post was contributed over the entire month! Just goes to show ya ... ;)

What did you do to go from 2 months with only one post to being as active as you are now