How do you get people to use a forum?

[Gayowulf]

Like the title says.

I have the traffic, I have the forum, now what?

[Ben]

make a link that says "DON'T CLICK HERE!" and link it to the forums main page. that link always gets people curious and they click it.

[Hobbes]

Use your message boards for announcements or leave text blocks around your site that say "Use the message board to leave a message for the friend" .. I have the traffic and the board, but people only post for my friend's advice and to drop a note to say "hi" when they cant chat.

[vedette]

you could try getting your friends to join it and make them advertise for you.

[Bruce]

Register a bunch of usernames yourself and start having a conversation or two with yourself. If people find something interesting they'll join and add their comments. That's why I'm here.

[Gayowulf]

Well lots of people visit it. i have about 40 members signed up, and right now there are 112 guests and no members surfing the board.

the problem is is that no one posts. I post announcements there and even have a couple double logins to get things going. but nothng works :(

[vedette]

maybe your board doesn't have enough forums, so that nobody posts.

Don't you know of any weird and hyper people? They tend to post non stop.

[Bruce]

So people already visit the board, and you have memebers, but no one posts? That sounds kinda screwy to me.

Maybe you got a bad batch of members.

[Gayowulf]

Yeah a bad, lazy batch. I think they are a bunch of thankless freeloaders.

Ill start a big fight with myself. maybe that will attract some people.

[Jan]

What's the URL? I will join and fight with you ;)

[Archbob]

I could use people at the forums in my sig too, they are completely new.

[LeX]

They're all waiting for somebody to sign up and post something before they decide to register themselves. ;)

[trenzterra]

maybe you should start some threads.

[MN-Carl]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
Yeah a bad, lazy batch. I think they are a bunch of thankless freeloaders.

Ill start a big fight with myself. maybe that will attract some people.

Get yupapa and Giancarlo to signup ... make things more interesting ..... also ..... get me to signup and coldturkey ... i have a bone to pick with him.

[trenzterra]

or just tell us the url.

[MN-Carl]

Originally posted by trenzterra
or just tell us the url.

i was gonna say that :D

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by cdudeuk18


i was gonna say that :D too bad I came in first :p

[Gayowulf]

I would tell you the url, but my site is off topic an inappropriate for these forums.

[MN-Carl]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
I would tell you the url, but my site is off topic an inappropriate for these forums.

Oh , what kindof site is it ???

This is a general forum remember :)

[MN-Carl]

Originally posted by trenzterra
too bad I came in first :p

:nervous:

Hmmmm ..... yeh ... but i posted first :D

[Bruce]

Originally posted by cdudeuk18


Oh , what kindof site is it ???
It's a pr0n site. I thoguht everyone knew that.

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by cdudeuk18


:nervous:

Hmmmm ..... yeh ... but i posted first :D but you deleted it first :p

[Gayowulf]

Its not bad pr0n. its good pr0n

come to think of it... it isnt even pr0n.

[Archbob]

Its never porn, just "indecent" exposure.

[Gayowulf]

lol.
in my site's case, it is decent.

[MN-Carl]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
Its not bad pr0n. its good pr0n

come to think of it... it isnt even pr0n.

:rolleyes: Hmm .. whats the forum for then ?

[Gayowulf]

trading links and passwords general chat other friendly stuff.

too bad all the members are a bunch of lazy -----es.

[LastActionHero]

Time to brag :D

Approx no of days since site launch - 15
Registered Members : 288
Waiting for Activation: 38
Total Posts :2455
Total Threads :209

:D

[Hoth]

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to have to look at those stats? :mad: I've had 3 forums... 1 has been around for 5 months and has 55 members and 264 posts (most of those by me), one has been around about 2 years and has had about 15 posters, and one has been around about 7 or 8 months and had 29 members and some tiny number of posts.

On the subject of tips: I've just tried the little trick of using the fact that I just switched to a new forum script and changed the forum URL as an excuse to re-launch the forum to old members... meaning e-mailing all the old members to notify them of the changes. So far it's resulted in 0 of them returning to post. ;) (But it's only been a day, and that's out of only 29.) But anyway along the same lines, if you can get people to register but not post then you can send out newsletters to them to try to make sure the forum stays on their mind. Point is, once people register you've got to keep at 'em to convince them to post. Create some interesting threads, then send out a newsletter linking to those threads and asking your members to contribute their opinions on the topic.

Another idea, even though I guess it doesn't work for Gayowulf: shamelessly spam for your site in threads like this one. Be sure to use lots of marketing words to entice people to click. *** (sort of) NEW FORUM, fascinating subjects, stimulating conversation (or at least I enjoy talking to myself :p ). Beautifully customized, wonderful background pattern and colors (you'd better like dark blue), created and run by everyone's favorite planet/god. Learn, discover, explore, create. All webmasters must join, or they'll risk falling hopelessly behind all the informed webmasters who know their success hinges on posting at my forums. Get in early and you might get a chance at the ever-so-high honor of moderating. Come one, come all! See new signature for link! (That way it's not technically spam :D ) ***

Or, you can be more subtle. In my experience neither way works, so it makes little difference. :)

[LastActionHero]

I understand your frustration, happened with me on one of my other sites,4 members (all me:D). Part of it depends on which category your site falls under, your site is in a highly congested category so attracting traffic is not easy.

[murat]

whats a pr0n ?

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by murat
whats a pr0n ? pr0n == porn I believe.

[murat]

oh

tell us the url !!!

[trenzterra]

Originally posted by murat
oh

tell us the url !!! you like porn don't you. :p

[cheatpark]

My forum could do with some posters.

[Bruce]

Was it realy necessary to dig up this old thread just to tell us that?

[cheatpark]

I knew someone would make a comment about me bringing up an old thread. I guess people don't like it. By the way who is that picture of in your avatar?

[murat]

Originally posted by trenzterra
you like porn don't you. :p

you dont ? ;)

[Bruce]

Originally posted by cheatpark
By the way who is that picture of in your avatar? Tupac Shakur.

R.I.P.

[murat]

whats that ?

[Bruce]

Don't you mean who? :confused2

He's tha best rapper of all time.

[murat]

i dont know him whats the url of his website ?

[Bruce]

The official site doesn't have much stuff. http://hitemup.com and http://made-----z.net are probably the only good sites left.

[anhedonia]

Well... Since somebody's dug it up and it's of interest to me, I'm going to reply..

My forum gets very little activity too. For a while, a bunch of my online friends were posting some really funny stuff on there, and so I've got about 211 threads or something. But then I temporarily closed my site for a redesign and nobody came back. :(

Anyway, now very few people post and I don't post much either because I'll probably just be posting a thread which will have quite a few views but 0 replies.

My forum is at: http://www.bittergirl.net

I have a General Discussion forum and a Music forum. Maybe I ought to add some more?

Anyway, I was just wondering what people's comments are on what I should do to liven it up. :cry2:

[Epgs]

since it was dug up. i have:
Statistics
Newest Member: caboosesw
Registered Members: 279 Administrators: 3
Threads: 191 Super Moderators: 0
Posts: 949 Moderators: 3
Smilies: 17 Avatars: 2
Non Active Users: 0 Deleted User: 0



on one site and the other is really bad, i am gonna join forums on a new service we are launching www.techiestalk.com (will launch tomorrow). It will be www.techoutline.com and www.linuxmax.net and we are gonna create one forum. We might be looking for other sites to join too, so if you only have a few visitors and wanna talk about computers this might be an option. pm me for details. (this is not an ad i hope, just related to the topic)

[anhedonia]

*sighs*

My stats are quite sad:

BG Forums welcomes our newest member Ibuprufen making a total of 22 registered members.
BG Forums has a total of 241 posts (217 replies to 24 Topics)

[cheatpark]

Cheatpark network forums Welcome back, admin
View New Posts
Members: 3, Threads: 1, Posts: 4
Welcome to our newest member, cheatpark test

[anhedonia]

Originally posted by cheatpark
Welcome to our newest member, cheatpark test

lol!

Sorry, but that's quite funny. :o :D

[Toefur]

I just feel like bragging.

19117 Posts in 1131 Threads
Registered Members: 370
Welcome to our newest Member: xpunkrockjulietx

I would have had three times as many as everything, but my forums/hosts have died so many times it's just not funny anymore.

[Blank Verse]

I haven't even had a forum in a couple of months...:(

[anhedonia]

Originally posted by Toefur
I just feel like bragging.

19117 Posts in 1131 Threads
Registered Members: 370
Welcome to our newest Member: xpunkrockjulietx

-----! :p

[Toefur]

Originally posted by +chips


-----! :p

And proud of it! :chinese2:

[stu]

gayowulf, pm me the url to your board. I'll help participate in the conversation..

lots of pr0n right?

[nitroboy]

I think my forum is worst of all :p

3 Posts in 3 Threads
Registered Members: 2
Welcome to our newest Member: NITROboy

=> no car lovers there? or any boaters??? :classic2: