📈 Marketing Strategies A promotion technique: Activity Breeds Activity

[Cedric]

Promoting a community can be approached in various ways. Since a community operates as a website, many strategies for promoting websites apply equally to forums and online communities. However, there is a fundamental promotional principle that holds significant importance. And I bet it's one you know of unconsciously.

The principle is: activity breeds more activity. This holds particularly true for online communities, especially those centered around forums. The level of activity within your forums carries substantial influence. Visitors to your community seek to find ongoing discussions and engagement. The presence of active conversations makes them to participate and become involved. Conversely, when there's a lack of activity, the likelihood of visitors becoming community members diminishes.

However, this concept might not immediately strike one as a traditional promotional tactic. Promotion often brings to mind ideas like advertisements and word-of-mouth efforts. But the activity within your community profoundly impacts the efficacy of all other marketing endeavors. Consider the scenario where you invest in an advertising campaign. Directing visitors to a dormant website risks driving them away, wasting your resources. Ideally, you want visitors to land on a platform already abuzz with interactions, possessing its own appeal.

When seeking to attract individuals to your community, it's crucial to initiate the first step: generating activity. This involves you personally initiating discussions or inviting friends to contribute. Ensuring consistent daily activity within your community facilitates better engagement and retention of new members. In succinct terms: activity encourages more activity.

 

[kensonplays]

I try to create activity, but I don't want it to seem one-sided. Right now, the only activity we get is when I have a forum post trade, or service active. I don't want every single one of the "recent posts" to all say "by KensonPlays", it'd be nice if others show in there as well.

Am I overthinking things? Does it not really matter if every single one of the recent posts sidebar, and forum index, all show "by KensonPlays"?

 

[Uncrowned]

I would say that the forum's layout also plays a major role here. You are 100% correct that activity is a huge asset to gaining more activity, but you can also artificially make forums look more active with a smart layout. A forum with 100 posts and 5 categories will look much more active than a forum with 100 posts and 10 categories.

 

[Mike30]

Gamification in a forum is crucial to keep members active. Also, the constant efforts to bring new members onboard. I like to see it like when you go to a park or a party, when you see activity it makes you wanting to be active as well, it's contagious


After I posted this, I had to add a thought on Gamification
Maybe opt-in members to be active on some specific time frame during the day
Group A: If member is active from hour x to hour x (There is an incentive for members of group A)
Group B: If member is active from hour x to hour x (There is an incentive for members of group B)

And those time frames where there are no many members on it, increase the incentive
etc...
In this way, the forum gets a constant activity through the day/week/months

 

[Jason]

That's why probably 10, 15, or 20 posting drummers on my forum would make it a powerhouse like the two big ones, DrumForum.org and DrummerWorld.com.

That would be a situation I would have to pay for.

 

[Ravenfreak]

Keep posting on your forum, even if you're the only one. If you keep at it, more members will join and more activity will start to pop up. Log in every single day and add new content to your forums, look for unique content you can add to your forum too. This can potentially make new members join your community.