way to have more active members

Hello,

well, which is the best way for you to have more members active on your forum?
I really need some new tips

Hope you will help me

Forums are generally dependent on two things, I guess: the discussions and the members themselves.

1. The Discussions - Have interesting topics in your forum. Make sure that you have a lot of them and that they're updated. These will entice members to post, comment, and basically interact with each other -- that'll make them active, yes?

2. The members themselves - if you have a handful of active members, keep them active! You can even give incentives to active members, because as these people interact within your forum, they will draw in other members. These people will also be the ones to make the discussions interesting, and basically, the forum alive.

Offer the member with the most posts at the end of the month a cash prize of $10,000 dollars and a 1 week paid vacation to any destination in the world, a brand new car, and a $5.00 gift certificate (Arch Card) to McDonald's.

Programming Forums Admin wrote:

runawayhorses wrote:Offer the member with the most posts at the end of the month a cash prize of $10,000 dollars and a 1 week paid vacation to any destination in the world, a brand new car, and a $5.00 gift certificate (Arch Card) to McDonald's.

And now for a more realistic answer.: Register on http://forumpromotion.net. I use it all the time. (I may see you in passing on it, as my username on the site is, "Programming Forums.")

I am not going to tell you all about it, but give it a try. You will probably find that you like it.

'

I think he wants "natural" ways to make active members, not a forum promotion site! Good try though, I might use it.

Mmh... Thanks
Any ideas?

kailamilos wrote:Forums are generally dependent on two things, I guess: the discussions and the members themselves.

1. The Discussions - Have interesting topics in your forum. Make sure that you have a lot of them and that they're updated. These will entice members to post, comment, and basically interact with each other -- that'll make them active, yes?

2. The members themselves - if you have a handful of active members, keep them active! You can even give incentives to active members, because as these people interact within your forum, they will draw in other members. These people will also be the ones to make the discussions interesting, and basically, the forum alive.

well said.

I have attempted to contact some of the many inactive members on my forum but most to no avail.

What has always escaped me as an administrator and Im sure it plagues the minds of other admins is why people who do not want to participate even sign up in the first place.

Does anyone have a theory on this or figured it out because that I think would be most helpful in determining how to attract more of those that want to be active.

Some people have there forum closed to the public so only registered members can see the actual forum. You have to register first and then and only then can you see and read the forum. All guests can see is the login and register pages if you have it set up that way.

The majority of people that register to a forum and do not participate could be one of several things, or many things combined. So my theory to your question has several possibilities, but I'll mention just four.

1) They took one look at your forum and didn't like what they saw and left. Perhaps it was because they didn't like your layout and theme,

2) They didn't think your forum was active enough,.

3) The subject matter in the posts was not interesting to them.

4) Some forums that are for registered members only to view and read have returning banned members that are curious to what people are saying, so they connect with another computer or use a proxy server and register again with no intention of ever participating.
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I can't imagination anyone going thru the trouble of registering would not have a good reason or at least an 'expectation' of something they were looking for. If they didn't post and never returned perhaps there needs were not met.

One way to get more members, don't have the same things as other forums. For example, almost every Forumotion forum I visit, they each have the same categories, like : News and announcements, introductions, etc. It is ok if you do have those categories. Just change the name of them, make it a little more entertaining than just 'News and announcements".

No that's not going to help anything or is it going to get you more members.

Renaming a forum section is not going to do anything.

Here's what you need and is really all that anyone needs to have a successful forum: Interesting topics. You need to posses the ability to be Interesting. To write interesting. If you are a boring read people will fade away, Its like talk radio or TV talk shows.

I'm no expert on the matter, but here are some things that I think would help your forum grow:

Staying active. Really, a forum needs its founder and administrators to be active. If people see that you are not active, then they will either not register at all, or pre-existing members will leave.

Make more intuitive things on your forum for users to take part in. For example, weekly polls, a sort of "? of the month" feature, and so on.

Try to affiliate your forum with other forums. This really can help. I have gotten many more views and potential registrations from affiliating with other forums.

Try and advertise your forum anywhere that you can. If you're limited to free advertising, then try and search for other sites or even sites that you already log onto in order to promote your forum.

Make sure your forum is easily navigable. No one likes a cluttered forum that's hard to navigate through. More often than not, forums that are too complex or cluttered will just wind up turning off potential members and make them leave the site for good. (Your forum seems to be pretty navigable already; I'm more or less just speaking in general on this one.)

Make sure your forum's community is kept friendly. Everyone likes a friendly community, and in my personal view, a friendly userbase is what makes forums really shine.

runawayhorses wrote:No that's not going to help anything or is it going to get you more members.

Renaming a forum section is not going to do anything.

Here's what you need and is really all that anyone needs to have a successful forum: Interesting topics. You need to posses the ability to be Interesting. To write interesting. If you are a boring read people will fade away, Its like talk radio or TV talk shows.

I agree with you and I have tried my best to keep it interesting,in most of our threads we provide both open picture and video link detail,more than Ive seen in most other forummotion boards.

And we try to stay up to date with the times(what is happening in the world on every level).

InnerSolace wrote:I'm no expert on the matter, but here are some things that I think would help your forum grow:

Staying active. Really, a forum needs its founder and administrators to be active. If people see that you are not active, then they will either not register at all, or pre-existing members will leave.

Make more intuitive things on your forum for users to take part in. For example, weekly polls, a sort of "? of the month" feature, and so on.

Try to affiliate your forum with other forums. This really can help. I have gotten many more views and potential registrations from affiliating with other forums.

Try and advertise your forum anywhere that you can. If you're limited to free advertising, then try and search for other sites or even sites that you already log onto in order to promote your forum.
Make sure your forum is easily navigable. No one likes a cluttered forum that's hard to navigate through. More often than not, forums that are too complex or cluttered will just wind up turning off potential members and make them leave the site for good. (Your forum seems to be pretty navigable already; I'm more or less just speaking in general on this one.)

Make sure your forum's community is kept friendly. Everyone likes a friendly community, and in my personal view, a friendly userbase is what makes forums really shine.

Yes sir we have considered using our youtube channel to make attempts at creatin popular even viral videos with a promotional link to our site at the end or in the detail section below.

Indeed, YouTube would also be a good idea for forum promotion. Some people tend to notice videos more than they notice anything else. Especially with a video site as popular as YouTube.

There is already a thread like this here:

https://help.forumotion.com/t102951-how-do-you-keep-activity-going

I have Many Members , But I haven't many active members!
What Should I Do??

thanks fro the advices