What do you do when activity gets low?

[Beverly]

Do you think it makes any difference if you are admin and you post a lot? My forum is really slow at the moment and I have tried everything I can, competitions, games, new threads, and advertising. Closed my forum to guests, opened it to guests and partially closing it to guests. :shrug:

I backed off posting as to avoid the stigma attached to admin posts all over the forum.

Personally, I don't think it's bad when an admin does most of the posting in a forum. The key to keeping activity alive in my opinion is to make it a point to respond to members' posts when they post them. If you start a thread, go back and reply to others' responses. Content building and advertising is a never ending process as an administrator - if you aren't in a position to keep up with it you should consider hiring more staff to help you.

If you are an admin or site owner and really love your forum, then you will be so invested in it that you post there everyday.

Though hopefully, you will have a few very active members who can see you through hard times when there are not many other people posting.

As a stop-gap measure, you might consider forum post swaps. This will work temporarily to help you get new content, at least until you can get more real members posting daily.

When building my own forum, I relied on post swaps, which worked out very well. Several of the people who were posting there became regular members. After awhile, it wasn't a matter of exchanging a certain number of posts as we posted around to each others forum on a regular basis. It was a nice arrangement.

 

[LadyAnna]

I have not really bothered much with getting my forum active, it has been a learning place for me so far with most members being old friends (most of them are inactive now though).

I do plan on a) send out an email saying "Hey, we're still here and we're updated/changed/whatever applies at the time" and b) start looking at posting packages and/or post exchange.

Of course I'd also have to go on a posting freenzie and start a bunch threads myself as well to give people something to reply to.

 

[Forces of Steel]

There are many ways around dealing with low activity, but most of them would be deemed unprofessional. It's ultimately up to the main people on where their forums will be going next.

If all else fails, try advertising on social media on a daily basis. While some people may be annoyed by it, they have every right to unsubscribe from you. No harm, really.