IN DESPERATE NEED OF IDEAS

[woo]

I run a paranormal forum and whilst my content is good, im still haveing trouble with lack of posters and members.

i have been up and running since march this yr and have only 33 members, some of which have never posted and those that do are fizzling fast.

i have advertised on all the major search engines, have links on different sites such as livespace blog, myspace , paranormal yellow pages ,facebook ,bebo and every forum i visit and promotion sites like this one.
i know the bots are seeing me alright as ive checked on the info they are retrieving and its satisfactory.

i had a site review done and it wasnt good at all and whilst i will address their much appreciated comments and views, im a lil limited as im new to html and css but thought id done ok considering lol.

so what i need is ideas on what i can do to get my present members posting again and what more i can do to encourage new members.

at present i do a word scramble once a week where the winner gets a sig tag created by myself (as i dont have the means to offer cash based prizes)
i create regular questionaires on our topics to try to define peoples personal preferences and views so that i might be able to accomidate their individual needs, but neither seems to have great appeal.

i also send bi weekly news letters to remind our members whats been happeing on the site and highlight topics i think they may find of some interest.
every month i send the results of a top poster and offer them their own personal forum where they can add topics and chat about the areas of the paranormal world that interests them. (this has proved quite positive in the past) but unfortunately because of the lack of posters the forum has gone to the same person for the last 3 months.

it was suggested i do more competitions and think up some ideas that will prick the members interest again but im all out of ideas just now.
any help and ideas would be greatly appreciated, but please bare in mind that i cannot spend money on prizes so winner ideas will be welcome also.

plz check us out and let me know what you think
http://www.paranormalinsights.com/portal.php

thanks for reading my ramblings and i look forward to hearing from you soon xxx

 

[CyberFreak]

I think one of the main problems is the topic subject as it is quite specialised.

Every category of forum has different audiences which it is aimed at and some audiences are bigger then others. General sport forums are aimed at sport fans which the audience is quite big as there is alot of sport fans however if you make a football forum then your audience it only football fans which is alot smaller then the audience of the sports forum for example.

The topic of paranormal i think doesn't interest alot of people and the audience you are aiming at is pretty small so it will grow alot slower then a forum which has a bigger audience. I am not saying that no one is really interested in your forum as i am sure millions of people would be interested but compared to football it is a small number of people you are aiming at. I am not saying your forum won't grow as it will but it will take longer and alot more patience and dedication to grow but it certainly can be a big and active forum.

I think the best thing you can do is try to aim at your audience. Look for paranormal forums similar to yours and ask if they want to affiliate with you. The worst they can say is no and what have you lost? Many forums do affiliate with similar forums as people can be members of 2 forums and be active on both so you won't lose members and your forum link is seen by people who would be interested in your forum which increases the chance of new members considerably. Also if you take a look through Google to find directories and topsites specially for paranormal forums it may also work. I find it is better to concentrate in targeting your audience directly and still do the stuff you do now like other forums you visit and promotion forums aswell but aim mostly directly to your audience -🙂-

Hope this helps and good luck with your forum and stick with it!

 

[woo]

thankyou for your input fowler -😉- xxx

 

[SCS]

Visited your URL and it looks good to me. Sometimes, I think, it is a matter of time and persistence.

 

[woo]

thanks for your support scs xxx

 

[woo]

things have really picked up fabulously since my original post guys, but as ever, new ideas are always welcome.
thankyou xxx

 

[RPGaming]

Well... if you wanted to affiliate a bit, you site would be a great place for my members to check out stories and whatnot of the paranormal for some of our games...