Getting People to Join a Forum?

[Moro]

What do you do to get people to join your forum?
I'm the only person on it, so nobody's gonna join because I've got a big community...
Can anyone give me some ideas to make my forum more appealing to people?

My forum has only been up for around a week, so I don't expect to already have a bunch of people on it.

 

[Bryn]

Well first, there appears to be no theme for it so you would need to get that sorted. Also, you can invite your own circle of friends to get things rolling and when these two things are done, a heavy amount of promotion is required. Not just in here but also other forums if you hold a membership to them by means of sig advertising and such.

Hope this works out well for you. Good luck with it 🙂

 

[Page]

Or no content

 

[Bryn]

Yep, that also. It would be beneficial for you, and for anyone that starts up a forum for the first time, to make some new threads here and there so that your future visitors can see what's really there other than just the forum name. That way you would be opening the doors to discussion and the first steps of initial activity.

 

[Shannon Apple]

You do need to get hold of some friends and get them to help with content creation. Preferably, fellow tech enthusiasts who know what they are talking about. It does help if you have a couple of friends who are willing to stay on as part of your community. Cut down on the number of boards.

All of the programming languages boards can be condensed into ONE board. Instead of separate forums, introduce prefixes. As your forum fills up with threads, you can then select and move by prefix into separate forums. Only move to separate forums if you have enough threads of a specific type to warrant it. 😉 It's never good to have a whole bunch of dead forums. One forum for these in the initial stages will make your site look more active.

Prefixes are awesome and should be used by all forum owners IMO. They're especially great when your forum is little and you need some system for separating as you grow.

Good Luck!

 

[MrDangem]

You do need to get hold of some friends and get them to help with content creation. Preferably, fellow tech enthusiasts who know what they are talking about. It does help if you have a couple of friends who are willing to stay on as part of your community. Cut down on the number of boards.

All of the programming languages boards can be condensed into ONE board. Instead of separate forums, introduce prefixes. As your forum fills up with threads, you can then select and move by prefix into separate forums. Only move to separate forums if you have enough threads of a specific type to warrant it. 😉 It's never good to have a whole bunch of dead forums. One forum for these in the initial stages will make your site look more active.

Prefixes are awesome and should be used by all forum owners IMO. They're especially great when your forum is little and you need some system for separating as you grow.

Good Luck!

I agree, having a friend with the same passion will bring you more ideas and threads to make.
You can also exchange ideas and views in each threads and come up with a very enticing threads.

 

[Mozzie]

Affiliate with other boards and don't expect them to just come to you. Be active also

 

[Page]

Affiliate with other boards

does help but doesn't give you that much traffic, And those been doing it for some time like I have I Seen those website closed down and so the affiliate gets to be removed

ome friends and get them to help with content creation. Preferably, fellow tech enthusiasts who know what they are talking about. It does help if you have a couple of friends who are willing to stay on as part of

If you have friends 😵

 

[Mozzie]

Well it has worked for me. Yes some close down but i guess i have been lucky in a way. But again yes it is hard

 

[Jason76]

Having a circle of online and offline friends helps a lot. If not, you're going to have to make it awesome.

 

[Mozzie]

I started from nothing and affiliated and joined in on other boards, it took time

 

[Felly]

Content is a big one. While some people are cool with helping a new forum get on their feet, you've still gotta keep producing content to get people coming into the forum and socializing and whatnot.

Networking is also helpful. Get your friends to help you out with this too, if you can, but promotions sites like this one can really help you out with getting the word out about your forum and possibly even draw people in if they're interested in the forum's content.

But overall, the appearance of your forum to a guest is what matters the most. You may be doing a lot behind the scenes, but if your guests can't see what you're doing, then they're gonna be less likely to join up to your forum.

 

[Tom]

A quick and easy one would be to register your website with as many search engines as possible, it's a fairly painless process as with google you just search "add my website to google" and you can just enter it in right there. Others require more steps such as duckduckgo, but it's all fairly straight forward.

I've started a new forum so I don't have many users yet as well, but after adding my website to google and using it's provided web master tools you're able to track how many clicks you get through the search engine. Furthermore signing up for google web master tools is a recommendation of mine.

 

[Jason76]

Sometimes you can run into people who just love posting on forums, but, beware, some harbor offensive agendas (maybe white supremacy or someone just wanting attention for their ad). Oh, and also about people who love posting on forums, they could be the "attention getting" type, but that's normal.

 

[Page]

Oh, and also about people who love posting on forums, they could be the "attention getting" type, but that's normal.

Also there are people that like to post that are not "attention getting" members!!!!

 

[Jason76]

Oh, and also about people who love posting on forums, they could be the "attention getting" type, but that's normal.

Also there are people that like to post that are not "attention getting" members!!!!

That's a tough issue. I mean, class clowns etc. of course want attention but they keep the party going! But they're hated for it.

 

[Corzhens]

I know of a local forum that started with 10 members who are all active. When their promotion (via email, there was no social media yet) resulted in visitors, the forum easily got new members. My take on that forum is because it is dynamic as to be interesting to visitors that later on would sign up so they can post. it is far easier now to promote a forum in social media but there should be "seed members" to speak of so the visitors can see something.

 

[Jason76]

Maybe provide a cash incentive to post. For instance, contests where the winner gets a decent amount of cash work.