How to help a dead forum.

[Lorcan]

How to help a dead forum

As a admin I know it can be difficult to keep your forum active.
When you start a forum, it's active.
You probably asked a few friends to come over at the start and they're active aswell.
When you've done your first advertising campains you probably got a few new members that are active aswell
But it happens often that activity drops after a few weeks or months, and you're left with an almost dead community.
Many things can cause this... People loose interest, not enough new threads to reply to and so on...
It can be very difficult to revive such a community on your own...

Step 1: Make a bunch of new topics
Start a few topics on your forum, and try to spread them over your entire forum.
So don't only post in the "general chat" area, but also in subforums about the main topic of your forum.
Try to start discussions!
When you only post information, people will read it and leave it.
So you have to try to get some discussions, ask for feedback or ask other questions.
In your general chat forums you can start topics like "post your pic" or "favourite music".
Polls are also good!
Topics like that can be great ice-breakers.

Try to create a few new topics each day for a couple of days!

Step 2: Ask your friends
Once you've created a few new threads you can ask your friends over again.
Tell them that you created new topics and would appreciate it if they would check them out and post a few things while they're there.

Step 3: Advertise and do post exchanges
Doing post exchanges will not only increase your amount of posts and threads, but also your amount of members.
Also try to do this for a couple days...
Also get reviews and post packages for your forum from ps and take advantage of our ad services, and use the review so that you know how you could help change the image of your forum and hopefully get you some more ideas about improving your forum.

After these 3 steps you should have some activity on your forum again.
You still have a bunch of members that didn't notice the new activity on your forum, simply because they haven't visited your forum again.
So now you have to give them a reason to visit your forum...

Step 4: Install or add something new and mail all your members!
To get your members back you have to mail them... but you've got to have a reason to mail them or they could consider it spam.

Here are a few ideas:
Install a new modification on your forum
Change the layout
Start a contest
New skin
Give a new service
Ask for feedback on a specific subject
...

Once you've done this you've got a reason to send an email to all your members to notify them of the updates/changes of your forum!
At least some of them will come back to your forum to take a look at the recent changes.
And they will see all the new members and topics what you have done.

Hope this helps. :great:

 

[ZachS]

Good job. 🙂

 

[SheepishWolf]

Nice advice.

 

[Shahrier]

Done that, Been there, Doesn't work 🙁

 

[hcfwesker]

Done that, Been there, Doesn't work 🙁

It depends on how much time and effort you put into it ... and the members are actually interested.

Nice advice. It does work, it just won't do all the work.

 

[MasterDebater]

How to help a dead forum
But it happens often that activity drops after a few weeks or months, and you're left with an almost dead community.

Yup. I'm there right now.
I am starting all the threads, people join in but I am staring to feel a bit weary!
I have changed the skin, added some stats on the front page as well as a list of recent topics. I email users once per week. I have a Facebook group with 270 members who I message once per week. I've just installed a shoutbox.

Some days I feel like it will amount to nothing and want to jack it in.

 

[Doctor Tech]

How can a post exchange bring in more members to your community? They will just go to finish the post exchange, and never come back!

 

[MasterDebater]

How can a post exchange bring in more members to your community? They will just go to finish the post exchange, and never come back!

To be fair I think that when potential members see a bit of activity they will join in, where they might not if it all looks a bit 'cosy'.

 

[Fergal]

Great tips there Lorcan, thanks for sharing them with us. There are always actions you can take if your forum is not busy, and those suggestions would be a great start.

 

[Stud]

When a forum is really on next to no activity do some post exchanges to maintain activity over a rough period.

 

[Acorn]

Call me unenlightened, I don't even know what a post exchange is. XD

...What gets me is this specific problem, and I see it being mentioned by a LOT of struggling admins who seem to be doing everything right, yet it happens: The forum up and dies if they so much as take 1 or 2 days off, even if they have other staff to mind the shop, so to speak. And everyone needs a couple days off once in a while {especially on a roleplaying forum}. Or like the person up in this thread mentioned: they start all the topics, but nobody else does.

Why do people join a board if all they do is sort of plod along barely taking any initiative at all, and up and abandoning the place as soon as the head admin is gone, even if "gone" is just a couple days' vacation {so they know it isn't permanent}?

It just seems weird and it frustrates me when I see admins posting about this problem on the forum assistance boards I belong to { I belong to two roleplaying assistance forums/directories}. Because when it happens I have no clear answer for them our of my experience, because for all that I've been going on forums regularly since 1998 I can't for the life of me figure it out.

 

[Is Stranger]

Very nice Post! thanks 😀

 

[VGFreak877]

In almost 6 years that NFF has been opened, I believe I only not visited the site for a couple of times. That was when the site was at its busiest in 2004. I would come back and respond to all the threads that has replies anyway. 🙂 Also, people have to know about the site before actually posting in it. I've tried to get my site out there, but with low results.

 

[Acorn]

Most {if not all} successful forums seem to have a "heyday" after which they decline and though they may fluctuate they never seem to regain their glory days. Of course I haven't seen every forum there is, and some might argue that the scope of what I have seen is somewhat narrow. But it seems true for RP and non-RP boards. That's why on my current site, I see the littlest activity dip and I come out fighting with both barrels.

Have you advertised your forum on other forums? Thousands of boards out there where you can do that. I just looked and your board looks like it has a healthy amount of content and activity.

 

[Watch Me Sink]

While not the key to revive dead forums, the OP actually outlines a pretty good plan to bring up activity. Post exchanges never hurt, unless you get scammed.

I'd like to add that it's good to have a fair size staff when re-opening, as duties of advertising can be spread out between the staff members.

 

[sportastephanie]

Getting active on major forums is a trick I am using. I started an anime forum but decided to move providers, thinking that I could get my forum off to an even better start...It's only been 5 days and I'm about at the same activity level as before. If you post a banner in your signature on some big forums, have some good rep to your name, you probably can pick up some members that way.

A friend's forum has been hacked at least 6 times since I joined, I worked as mod, head mod, and even admin but have since gotten tired of all the posts being deleted so I don't visit it anymore. The last hacking got rid of all the boards, and the forum has recovered from that pretty well. My friend told me that it helps to be "popular" on some big forums.

 

[Deleted member 25872]

Nice advice! 🙂

 

[Reverie]

I definitely agree, posting content - topics that will create discussion is really important.

But one must figure out why it died in the first place. Maybe there needs to be particular changes of the forum before people will return/join. So it's good to do surveys in my opinion to discover what members want/like.

Post exchanges is a difficult thing, it's basically a fake "activity". People will wonder where are all those people who posted 15 times and then suddenly disappeared. Doing 1-2 is good, but I'd suggest if you're just trying to create content try to do it yourself and your staff team so at least conversations can be kept up with.

But this is a good way to get noticed for a short period of time. 🙂

 

[Allenafaith]

My forum was pretty dead up until a few days ago. I continued to advertise and I requested posting packages on forums and that helped, now I have active members and our post count is growing quickly. 😉

 

[Forces of Steel]

If a forum has been dead for years, the only way of "helping" it would be to shut it down and start a new one from scratch.