Why should members join your forum?

[BeautifulAngel]

Why should members join your forum? What does your forum provide them and how does it benefit them?

 

[Bryn]

'cause it's better than all the others, lolol.

Joking aside, I'd personally like others to join mine when, even though we're just your typical general community forum, we're a smaller bunch and it seemed somewhat "special" also. I mean, some of my own members said that it was one of the best out of the many new ones coming out these days. Besides, it had a difficult start but I'm happy with it's progress so far 🙂

 

[テクニカル諏訪子]

Because I offer free bowl of udon at my forum. （嘘）

People shouldn't for now, the only forum I actually own at the moment is to test my self made forum system.
After launch everyone will be welcome, and get some udon.

 

[BeautifulAngel]

'cause it's better than all the others, lolol.

Joking aside, I'd personally like others to join mine when, even though we're just your typical general community forum, we're a smaller bunch and it seemed somewhat "special" also. I mean, some of my own members said that it was one of the best out of the many new ones coming out these days. Besides, it had a difficult start but I'm happy with it's progress so far 🙂

"We're just your typical general community forum" makes you seem like your forum is like all the rest of the general forums. What does your forum have that others don't? What makes your forum so special and better than the others? Why should members register and post on your forum and not other general forums?

 

[Page]

Well, comes down to the person/member of what they want or after! I mean we can not all please everyone.

 

[Bryn]

"We're just your typical general community forum" makes you seem like your forum is like all the rest of the general forums. What does your forum have that others don't? What makes your forum so special and better than the others? Why should members register and post on your forum and not other general forums?

Well, if I should let the cat out the bag, we have a special section dedicated to funny stuff (memes included, usually crap we find at Imgur) that is unlocked when any of my members become active enough, post-count wise 😉

 

[Mozzie]

We are a friendly community board where you can meet and chat to others member all over the world. We also boast a great graphics team that do themes, coding, banners, signatures, avatars , affiliate badges, and heaps more for our members who own their own sites and all out friends on the board. They can put up request for anything, i think this, though other boards offer this as well, ours is an extensive collection of graphics that people can snag right away. Apart from all that, we try and provide a stress free fun place to come and relax where we try to be positive all the time..

 

[Page]

We are a friendly community board where you can meet and chat to others member all over the world. We also boast a great graphics team that do themes, coding, banners, signatures, avatars , affiliate badges, and heaps more for our members who own their own sites and all out friends on the board. They can put up request for anything, i think this, though other boards offer this as well, ours is an extensive collection of graphics that people can snag right away. Apart from all that, we try and provide a stress free fun place to come and relax where we try to be positive all the time..

We also have something in common that its not easy to grow and get forums off the darn floor

 

[BeautifulAngel]

Well, comes down to the person/member of what they want or after! I mean we can not all please everyone.

I agree, it does come down to what the members want. But what does your forum have that other forums don't have?

Well, if I should let the cat out the bag, we have a special section dedicated to funny stuff (memes included, usually crap we find at Imgur) that is unlocked when any of my members become active enough, post-count wise 😉

Do your non-active members know of this special section? If not I would definitely let them know, it would be an incentive to post more and become an active member.

A lot of general forum forums have a funny section, I'd suggest you sit down and really think of a way that you can make your forum unique in a way that other forums won't be able to compare.

We are a friendly community board where you can meet and chat to others member all over the world. We also boast a great graphics team that do themes, coding, banners, signatures, avatars , affiliate badges, and heaps more for our members who own their own sites and all out friends on the board. They can put up request for anything, i think this, though other boards offer this as well, ours is an extensive collection of graphics that people can snag right away. Apart from all that, we try and provide a stress free fun place to come and relax where we try to be positive all the time..

Your forum sounds like an amazing place to just hangout and enjoy your time. It's pretty cool that you have graphic teams to help other members with their graphic needs!

 

[Bryn]

Do your non-active members know of this special section? If not I would definitely let them know, it would be an incentive to post more and become an active member.

A lot of general forum forums have a funny section, I'd suggest you sit down and really think of a way that you can make your forum unique in a way that other forums won't be able to compare.

For the first point, maybe I should, so that I now don't have something to hide 😛 And as for the second, I cannot think of anything else I could add to make it more "unique". Also I don't want to be pilfering ideas from others too.

Although, my much older forum had some perks which made it stand out well... the discussion of bootleg games and a section dedicated to the complaining of how much YouTube sucked

 

[BeautifulAngel]

I feel like it would definitely help out the activity on your forum if you let them know if they get x amount of posts they get a reward.

 

[Bryn]

Yes, I'll probably make a notice of that later on today 😉

 

[topned]

To answer the OP question.

TopNed is a place where its members can advertise their goods and services free of charge. I use search engine optimization on the forum so that their advertisements stand a better than average chance of showing up on the first or second pages of the search engine results for the terms they use in their posts.

 

[Bluezone777]

Honestly, if you been around forums long enough, you find that most forums really aren't all that special and it is to be expected that all boards are going to be described as something more than they are so most sales pitches are gong to fall flat simply because you gotten used to hearing it all before and seeing the end result not be as described. I don't have a forum of my own anymore so can't answer the OP question.

 

[topned]

Honestly, if you been around forums long enough, you find that most forums really aren't all that special and it is to be expected that all boards are going to be described as something more than they are so most sales pitches are gong to fall flat simply because you gotten used to hearing it all before and seeing the end result not be as described. I don't have a forum of my own anymore so can't answer the OP question.

As someone mentioned before the best chance a forum has of being successful these days is to be very sub-niche specific on a popular topic.

For example

Niche: gaming
Sub-niche: Madden Lovers

Even then it would take some time to build up that community.

 

[BeautifulAngel]

To answer the OP question.

TopNed is a place where its members can advertise their goods and services free of charge. I use search engine optimization on the forum so that their advertisements stand a better than average chance of showing up on the first or second pages of the search engine results for the terms they use in their posts.

Sounds like a great place! I'll definitely have to take a look.

Honestly, if you been around forums long enough, you find that most forums really aren't all that special and it is to be expected that all boards are going to be described as something more than they are so most sales pitches are gong to fall flat simply because you gotten used to hearing it all before and seeing the end result not be as described. I don't have a forum of my own anymore so can't answer the OP question.

I've been around forums for many of years 🙂 Just because most of them don't have anything special doesn't mean that they shouldn't have something unique.

It's the same with a small business, there are plenty of small businesses out there, yes many fail but I feel as though it is because the owner created a business that they weren't passionate about or didn't have anything unique to offer. Take restaurants for example, they all serve food, but what makes them unique is what food they serve and how different their food is compared to the restaurant next door.

Because it is so simple to create forums a lot of people just like the idea of owning something (which is understandable) however, in order for the forum to succeed it must have a unique niche or something that stands out that other forums don't have or can't compare to. Being an owner of a forum is a lot like owning your own business, if you only open up the forum to open one up, you will not find success. You also have to be able to dedicate your time and energy and give the forum all you got. Just like a business, it may not make revenue or be popular in the first year or so but if you keep working at it and you stay enthusiastic about it, your forum will grow and succeed. No forum gets popular over night, any successful forum owner can tell you that. It's all about patience, time management, dedication and hard work.

 

[テクニカル諏訪子]

No matter how much I love being around on forums, I can easily see how it's slowly fading away currently.
In Japan forums were never big, the closest that come to big Japanese forum is 5ch.net, and regardless it's more similar to blog comments.
In the west people seem to believe more in central chat apps over independent forums.

Central chat apps are popular in Japan too, mainly Skype and of course LINE, but Discord is growing a lot in popularity too.
There is a phpBB forum on GameGaz, but it's empty for almost 10 years (since it came in existance).

 

[PS-Sam]

To answer the OP question.

TopNed is a place where its members can advertise their goods and services free of charge. I use search engine optimization on the forum so that their advertisements stand a better than average chance of showing up on the first or second pages of the search engine results for the terms they use in their posts.

Sounds like a great place! I'll definitely have to take a look.

Honestly, if you been around forums long enough, you find that most forums really aren't all that special and it is to be expected that all boards are going to be described as something more than they are so most sales pitches are gong to fall flat simply because you gotten used to hearing it all before and seeing the end result not be as described. I don't have a forum of my own anymore so can't answer the OP question.

I've been around forums for many of years 🙂 Just because most of them don't have anything special doesn't mean that they shouldn't have something unique.

It's the same with a small business, there are plenty of small businesses out there, yes many fail but I feel as though it is because the owner created a business that they weren't passionate about or didn't have anything unique to offer. Take restaurants for example, they all serve food, but what makes them unique is what food they serve and how different their food is compared to the restaurant next door.

Because it is so simple to create forums a lot of people just like the idea of owning something (which is understandable) however, in order for the forum to succeed it must have a unique niche or something that stands out that other forums don't have or can't compare to. Being an owner of a forum is a lot like owning your own business, if you only open up the forum to open one up, you will not find success. You also have to be able to dedicate your time and energy and give the forum all you got. Just like a business, it may not make revenue or be popular in the first year or so but if you keep working at it and you stay enthusiastic about it, your forum will grow and succeed. No forum gets popular over night, any successful forum owner can tell you that. It's all about patience, time management, dedication and hard work.

Someone who speaks my language 🙂

I have always found in small businesses that those who do what they love without the business brain are much more likely to fail. The opposite could also be true, if you don't love what you are doing then you are more likely to give up when results don't go your way. You need a good balance of both if you want to be successful. Unfortunately not everybody has that.

You need to treat your forum like a business. I don't mean taking their money or spamming them with advertisements to maximise revenue as that will backfire. You need a marketing strategy, monitoring every channel to figure out which brings in the most traffic and more importantly, which one converts traffic into members. You then invest in that channel and ditch the ones which don't contribute because they are a waste of your time and possibly money. You then need to find ways to keep your members engaged as it's so much easier and cheaper to retain members than it is to find new ones. That's without the financial side of it.

Opening a forum and creating a thread on Forum Promotion just isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

 

[BeautifulAngel]

No matter how much I love being around on forums, I can easily see how it's slowly fading away currently.
In Japan forums were never big, the closest that come to big Japanese forum is 5ch.net, and regardless it's more similar to blog comments.
In the west people seem to believe more in central chat apps over independent forums.

Central chat apps are popular in Japan too, mainly Skype and of course LINE, but Discord is growing a lot in popularity too.
There is a phpBB forum on GameGaz, but it's empty for almost 10 years (since it came in existance).

That's interesting, I didn't know that forums aren't so big in Japan. Makes sense though

 

[BeautifulAngel]

Someone who speaks my language 🙂

I have always found in small businesses that those who do what they love without the business brain are much more likely to fail. The opposite could also be true, if you don't love what you are doing then you are more likely to give up when results don't go your way. You need a good balance of both if you want to be successful. Unfortunately not everybody has that.

You need to treat your forum like a business. I don't mean taking their money or spamming them with advertisements to maximise revenue as that will backfire. You need a marketing strategy, monitoring every channel to figure out which brings in the most traffic and more importantly, which one converts traffic into members. You then invest in that channel and ditch the ones which don't contribute because they are a waste of your time and possibly money. You then need to find ways to keep your members engaged as it's so much easier and cheaper to retain members than it is to find new ones. That's without the financial side of it.

Opening a forum and creating a thread on Forum Promotion just isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

I agree, you need to treat your forum like a business. You need to really dedicate yourself to this forum and keep learning about forums in order for your forum to grow and get popular.