You have heard about when first starting a forum you should make fake accounts and post as those members to help make the forum look active and give your forum more posts/topics and content. What are your thoughts on this? Personally I find this to be cheap and people can eventually find out what your doing. You can also get burned out fast by doing this. There's no way I would ever do this.
Fake members
- Thread starter Ramo
- Start date
I've done it with my first forum it went ok, but after that I stopped doing it as it is not really a good idea to have fake members on the forum. It is way better to do some exchanges than to create fake accounts to boost your activity.
I did this when I first started http://www.adminforums.org 4 years ago - Gotta populate your forum with content somehow.
THF_Martin
Addicted
I have normally with some forums just to get some discussions going, I haven't bothered with my horror forum though. You can do it without it.
I'd rather just buy packages or do exchanges to get content. I don't see why I should have to or need to resort to making fake members. I see it as dishonest and unnecessary. What happens when people reply to those members six months later? Are you going to log back in and reply? Let the member go unanswered? Reply with your admin account and confuse people?
Yeah, plenty of problems and that's just scratching the surface.
Yeah, plenty of problems and that's just scratching the surface.
Ideal is to find a couple friends who are willing to make a few posts every day until you're well on your way to having some data.
Other than that, I feel that post exchanges are more useful than fake members because you get to know other forum admins and owners.
Other than that, I feel that post exchanges are more useful than fake members because you get to know other forum admins and owners.
THF_Martin
Addicted
To be honest the same is likely to happen from exchanges, packages and maybe just in general as members stop posting and move on. I see your point but the same can be applied to all other scenarios.Geoffrey said:
I have to agree with this. In the end, it's a toss-up and the individual decides what works best for them. Each system (exchanges, fake members, etc..) has advantages and disadvantages.
On one of my exchanges last week, I went to a forum where the admin had started a lot of topics. Each topic was set up in such a way that the potential member would find something they wanted to reply to, and that was really cool. The most important thing is to have some data to get started, and whether new members stay or not much depends on whether there is something worth replying to. This does not only apply to new forums, but also to established forums because these too need to get and keep new members in order to grow and keep growing.
Being honest here.. I found forumpromotion on accident a couple weeks ago. I had no plans to keep posting here. I registered to use the post exchange section and had all intention of sticking to that section and just come here as needed. But, the forum has a lot of good data, along with a good amount of fresh data, and I find myself coming back here every day, and as you can tell, I wandered out of the post exchange section 🙂
Joshua Farrell
FP's Housekeeper
With me, it depends on the reasoning behind the fake members. In the beginning of a forum, when it is usually hard to establish, one might consider making 1 or 2 fake accounts to start creating content to reply to.
At one point, I only had 1 fake account on one of the forums I had owned at one time, and I had phased that account out eventually, by making it look like that whoever had "owned" that account, had life get in the way, so I made up a story to go along with it, when the forum got active enough to not rely on using that fake account.
At one point, I only had 1 fake account on one of the forums I had owned at one time, and I had phased that account out eventually, by making it look like that whoever had "owned" that account, had life get in the way, so I made up a story to go along with it, when the forum got active enough to not rely on using that fake account.
Forces of Steel
Resident
I don't recommend this idea, since I wouldn't like to think that I've been sharing my feelings with a puppet.
Even if you've made a new forum, the best thing that you'd want to do is ask friends and family if they're interested in your concept.
If that doesn't prove to be fruitful, then you can try paying like-minded people to come contribute content. Also, try hitting up social media.
Even if you've made a new forum, the best thing that you'd want to do is ask friends and family if they're interested in your concept.
If that doesn't prove to be fruitful, then you can try paying like-minded people to come contribute content. Also, try hitting up social media.
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