Specialized Gated Content to Increase Membership

[Shawn Gossman]

Imagine being a guest at a forum, you see a thread that looks cool. You get invested in what it has to offer. It's telling you a story and then right before you learn what you are hoping to learn, a message shows that you need to login to see the rest of the thread.

It will either make you mad and you'll or like most people, you'll join the forum to see what the rest of the post says.

This strategy is called "gated content" and it's often a strategy that works really well. In fact, it's because of the gated content strategy that most newspaper companies still exist because they can lure in paid members to their digital content through use of gated content strategies whereas they're requiring a premium membership.

Forums could do it for free or premium membership - that would be up to them.

Do any of you use gated content strategies on your forum to gain membership? Is this for free or paid membership or both?

 

[Ravenfreak]

I do have gated content, but it's not hidden behind a paywall instead it's hidden behind a post wall so to speak. 😛 In order to gain access to the off topic area of RPG Haven, you need 10 posts and you're automatically added to a new usergroup that gains access to the off topic area. Then there's other sections that open up as you post, and an exclusive lounge too if you reach a large amount of posts.

 

[Jason76]

Yeah, people don't want to join forums. It's sad they have to be bribed like this, and with social media, people are always joining with no gates.

 

[Katrina]

Running a Christian forum, I won't be doing something like this. I want people to see posts without being coerced into joining. It's a tactic that's okay for other sites, but not for a Christian one.

As for a member, I most likely won't join a site like that unless it was a health forum, which I've done in the past. Even then, I used an email that I created just for that forum and a username that I don't use anywhere else, because if I post on there, I want my privacy.

 

[zappaDPJ]

As a forum owner I'll have a private area for members but I've never implemented gated content as described.

As a forum user I'll flee at the first hint of gated content and never go back. For me at least it's the wrong kind of enticement.