A top poster contest probably won't get new members to join, they usually work better when the goal is to get more activity out of current members. Perhaps you could create a referral based contest, where there are two winners. One winner is picked by random from the list of "new" members referred to the site. That means a strong encouragement to join, in hopes their name will be picked as a winner. The other winner can be the member that referred that user.
It's just a thought, but could be worth trying if you don't get any other ideas 🙂
Be careful with contests based on activity. There is a danger that they will result in lots of less than helpful posts, being made on your forum. Much better to focus on quality if you can. E.g. funniest member, most helpful member, member of the month, etc.
I run some programmes and contests on my forum. They are rewarded with forum money, which is a HUGE incentive. It REALLY works well. So, if you don't have a money system I recommend getting one.
Most of our contests are centred around promotion of some kind. Like making promotional videos or voting for us in a poll.
That can work very well. I'm currently running a contest on my business forum and people enter by posting a link about the contest on Twitter. It's working great so far, and driving quite a lot of traffic to the forum.
I have a posting contest going on right now, but I don't think it's working out that well. Might have to do something different next time, I think. We have as an award, VIP status and an arcade section, but that's it, really.
Since our forum is an RPG we're having our first "RP night" when each post made in roleplaying pays 4 points instead of the usual 2. It will run for 24 hours and has been announced in advance. This is a reward night for having won that poll.
