Are you overly focused on members and activity?

[joelr]

I see a lot of admins with goals that are focused on more members, more topics, more activity. Are you one of these admins?

It's okay to have those as goals, but activity and engagement are usually consequences of doing other things (tapping into an audience, offering value, building a sense of community, constructing systems that are sustainable).

 

[cpvr1]

I’m focused on building a quality and engaging community. My main goal is to build a great resource and forum where people can hang out & find things that they can find anywhere else. Especially in relevance in my particular niche.

 

[Shortie]

As a community owner, one of the first mistakes I made was exactly this, I became too focused on the numbers and not focused enough on the content and the quality of content.

I learned the hard way and it took a few failures over the years but now I look more towards content than numbers and I always feel better for that and like my communities do better thinking that way.

 

[Nomad]

I will be frank, I focus on members and activities. The primary purpose of my community is to built into a platform where like minded people come to share and learn. When there are no members and no activities, my goal becomes failed.

 

[Dilip]

A community is all about its members, their interaction and information sharing. I do value it above all.

But not crazy about it. If you are focusing on people, there are much more interesting platforms to choose in 2024.

 

[MrDawn]

I see a lot of admins with goals that are focused on more members, more topics, more activity. Are you one of these admins?

I was a long time ago before I quit and moved on to just being a member and helping other admins with their forums.

 

[Tracy]

For me... no.
My site was started with the intent to give me somewhere to post content in a format that I was comfortable with. It was also open for others to join in (think like a public beach party where anybody walking by can stop in and have fun).
That's why I don't even require you to sign up to access anything on the site, from posts, images or even resource downloads. The site is designed to distribute data to others with minimal impact on their obtaining it. I realized long ago that on most sites (especially forums) that the content is generated by a very few and consumed by a large number. That's not something that bothers me, especially in my niche as I want to get more to actively participate in the niche, not necessarily my site.

 

[Teegold]

If I may ask, isn't having more members, more activities and and more engagements the key to growing a forum? So we can't blame a forum owner for focusing on those things. I stand to be corrected though.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I used to be but now days I'm not too overly focused on member and activity. I enjoy having a space where I can connect with other like minded individuals, and I also enjoy having a place to share information about subjects I'm passionate about.

 

[zoldos]

I focus on creating content that is engaging and interesting, and also spreading the word about my forum in the hopes of gaining memberships, esp. those that come back and post. :

 

[Cory]

As a resource board owner, I am focused on pushing as many resources as possible for the community of administrators. I have had about 40+ registrations this month alone and a lot of new members never post, so I know they're there for the resources. I like activity and sometimes seeing my stats increase, but it is not my #1 priority. I used to be all about more and more activity, but as long as I receive a decent amount of members online a day and the new registrations keep flowing in, then I know I am doing something right.