Strategies Difficulty of finding new members

[Cedric]

A discussion about something that's been on my mind lately: the difficulty of finding new members.

When you're just starting out, it can feel like getting new people to join your forum is the biggest hurdle. But is this really the case? Is finding new members the hardest thing initially, or are there other challenges that are just as difficult or even more so?

I'm curious to hear from other forum owners about their experiences with this. Did you struggle to find new members when you first started out, or did you find it relatively easy? What strategies did you use to attract new people to your forum? And once you had some members, what other challenges did you face in growing your community?

Let's share our experiences and insights so that we can all learn from each other and make our forums as successful as possible!

 

[Cory]

I think by owning a resource board and hiding most resources from guests, my member registration rate has always been pretty consistent ever since the word started getting out about my forum through advertising, word of mouth, and other means. It seems like every time I bump my advertisement topic on RPG-Directory I generally start gaining more members than usual. I find member engagement harder than gaining new members, it seems. As long as I keep producing more and more resources I think the registration rate will remain fairly consistent as people tend to register for a code/skin they may want.

 

[Arantor]

Finding new members has always been one of the challenges for forums - it was just historically easier because people were more willing to join forums back in the day and you didn't have the friction of getting them off social media, or the friction of being found in Google.

I'd say over in the RP scene where I've been lately this is just as much a problem there as it ever was - the fact you see the same sites advertising daily/weekly/monthly over and over across all the venues suggests they're having the same trouble as anyone else in getting members in the door. (Let's put aside the trend in recent times to talk about private/invite-only sites in the RP scene.)

And of course, people joining the community (and/or the Discord) is no guarantee that there will be conversion into a contributing member. From what I've seen, someone arriving at your Discord via an ad has a 50/50 shot of immediately bouncing for whatever reason, and that's without any choice you may or may not have made.

 

[synpastel]

The best forum advertising I've seen is through
1. Signatures on directory boards and resource boards
2. Topsites
3. Discord
4. Tumblr
5. Word of mouth with friends online

Practically no one seriously looks through board "Advertising - new board/link back" section other than to brainlessly copy/paste your ad as a few polls have found on RPG-D, so a lot of people have moved away from that frankly tidious method of advertising.

 

[Ravenfreak]

It's definitely much more difficult to get members these days than back in the day. Though it's funny, on my first forum I only had 9 members but I also was not aware of promotional forums at the time, and I honestly didn't know what I was doing. :V It can also be tough to get your members to sign in and post too.

 

[Reverie]

Back in the ol' days lol....

Using a signature was a big way to help advertise. I remember when forums had promotion contests. If you wore the particular forums signature at other forums during the contest you earned x amount of points. It helped because many people shared a promo signature and people who did not already know got curious.

Word of mouth was the other biggest thing! People join where their friends, or people they like, go to!

 

[Heatman]

Social media sites like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and the rest have hurt the user base of forums so much because it took away more than 70% of forum users.

Now, as a forum owner, it's usually very difficult to pull off people from social media sites to join forums. You have to get really very active on forums with your signatures on forums they are allowed to be used.

Also other some sort of incentive for members who post on your forum. It will keep your old members and they will likely refer people to join and enjoy the same incentives they enjoy.

 

[Debashis]

Social media sites like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and the rest have hurt the user base of forums so much because it took away more than 70% of forum users.

I think the release of Facebook's "Group" feature was a major contributor. It allowed us to create a group with just few clicks, add members to it and talk about things the group is about. Additionally, it allowed us to have files/docs where we could add general rules & guidelines, it allowed us to conduct events within the group and also use the pin feature to keep important post/advertisement/information regarding an event on top of the group. Basically, we could do anything and everything we did in a forum. Only thing is that forums are more organized. The discussions topics are well sorted. That's not possible in Facebook groups.

 

[Ken]

When you're just starting out, it can feel like getting new people to join your forum is the biggest hurdle. But is this really the case? Is finding new members the hardest thing initially, or are there other challenges that are just as difficult or even more so?

As of this writing, I say yes. No matter if it's here or other forums I was a member of, finding someone to become members of my forum since my return is very tough.

 

[Paul]

I still get on average about 10 a week. Half are probably spammers who get removed quickly but the other half are usually legit and mostly from word of mouth.

 

[Sinistra]

I have had problems with this too, after importing 400+ members from a database backup. I haven't been able to get them back. Either their emails have changed, or they are not interested in what my forum is about anymore. I have contacted a few people I am still in contact with from the old site, but they haven't rejoined or logged back in sense. So yes finding new members is hard.

I think sig advertising is still the way to go or find sites like AJ and put your link up there lol

 

[Cedric]

I have had problems with this too, after importing 400+ members from a database backup. I haven't been able to get them back. Either their emails have changed, or they are not interested in what my forum is about anymore. I have contacted a few people I am still in contact with from the old site, but they haven't rejoined or logged back in sense. So yes finding new members is hard.

I think sig advertising is still the way to go or find sites like AJ and put your link up there lol

Don’t give up. I’ve sent out like 30-40 emails from old forums and still sometimes it would have its purpose. Ask @Corpse Bride 😄

 

[Al]

The best way to get people to join your forum is to harass people you don’t know really well on Discord. /s

 

[ClicketyKat]

I've gone as far as visiting some other forums that are not a part of any communities I'm already on. What I've found is that it's a LOT of work to build relationships with those people, and tbh, I don't even like some of those people and feel like I've wasted months in hopes of recruiting. They seemed perfect at first, but all forums have their faults and faulty people.

 

[Jason]

I always welcome and need new people. However, I need a bunch of highly skilled musicians, especially drummers, but they are tough to win over maybe. Well, my forum might come across as made in my parent's basement and always a question is "Who is Jason?". 🤔