It seems to me that general discussion forums seem to do better in terms of activity, member retention and new member turnout (what I call regarding guests becoming members) than those of a specific niche/interest. I should know from personal experience when I owned and ran two general forums in the past (RX Community and The Lightweb), but my current one isn't getting the attention it deserves (especially when it has more than one niche, in hope to attract more people).
I don't know if it's because of that or are forums currently experiencing a low point right now, which would affect general forums as well. So can anybody here give me peace of mind regarding it, or is it just my paranoia?
I've run adult fantasy niche forums/sites since at least 1997, and they've always been very popular. My current one, open since mid 2023, has almost 500 members and lots of activity.
There are some medical forums that are doing exceedingly well without having a general area of topic.
Some general ones do well and some niches do well. It depends on the niche and it also depends on the members. I've been really turned off by a few members on some general forums enough that I didn't want to stick around. It's not that they've committed rule violations, it's just that they're too rude to want to keep dealing with them.
Some forums give off a better vibe than others and they do well.
I feel that my general discussion forum is definitely more active than my niche based forums. Of course this will most likely change whenever the Gex Trilogy gets released and Gex Forums will most likely get a bit more active than it is now.
The problem people are having with niche forums is that they aren't targeting their audience better.
I am seeing so many niche forums with a bunch of "off topic" sections on topics that have nothing to do with the niche. That means they're trying to get a generalized audience. General is another word for generic. If your audience is generic, it'll be harder to get more niche-specific folks.
Niche forums would do better if they focused on niche content and niche audience.
It all boils down to what type of niche it is. Some niches are more popular than others. If a niche is in high demand and more active, it’s naturally going to do better than a general board.
If you see discussions happening on social media about your niche, it would be a good idea to jump in, interact with those users, and see if you can pull them over to your forum.
These days, a lot of community owners aren’t sticking to their main niche and are branching out way too much. That’s part of the problem. If you’re running a sports forum or a tech forum, you should be catering to those topics not trying to turn your board into a catch-all with sections like webmaster talk, SEO talk, and everything else. It actually hurts your niche focus in the long run.
The forum world still has plenty of space to do well, but when you branch too wide, you end up losing your core audience. Focus is what builds a strong forum, not trying to be everything at once.
Can also see this in some niches in which the community as a whole, has moved over to places like reddit and/or Discord. Going with the easy to get locked in platforms without trying to look elsewhere for their information and other community members.
General forums can get a lot of users because of the wide availability of forums and niche forums have comparatively lower number but IO do not think they are less popular.
General forums have the capability to do better, because more people, but I don't recommend the fight. They're very hard to market, because being an 'everything' forum means you open yourself up to a lot more competition. Reddit is an everything forum, do you really think you can beat Reddit? At least with a niche you have a chance perform well in very specific search results.
Niche-based forums are usually smaller than general forums, but they often have more engaged members. People join for specific interests, which encourages deeper discussions and loyalty.
