What is the thing that makes your forum work and thrive ?

[Cedric]

Are you struggling to get your forum off the ground? Or maybe you've been running a forum for a while but it's not growing as quickly as you'd like. Whatever the case, one of the best ways to improve your forum is to learn from others who have already found success.

So, what works on your forum? Do you find that certain types of content or discussions generate more engagement and participation? Have you found any particular strategies or techniques that have helped you grow your community and increase your forum's visibility?

In this forum discussion, let's share our experiences and insights on what has worked for us on our respective forums. Whether it's a specific approach to moderation, a particular type of content or topic that resonates with your community, or a clever marketing tactic that helped you attract new members, we want to hear from you.

• Consistency: One of the keys to building a successful forum is consistency. Whether it's posting regular content, moderating the forum to keep it free of spam and trolls, or engaging with your members, consistency is key. Make sure you have a plan for how often you'll be posting and engaging with your community, and stick to it.
• Quality Content: Another important factor in building a successful forum is creating high-quality content. This could be in the form of blog posts, forum threads, or even videos. The key is to provide value to your members and offer something that they can't get anywhere else.
• Community Engagement: Engaging with your community is another crucial aspect of running a successful forum. This could involve responding to questions or comments, running polls or surveys to get feedback, or even hosting events or interviews. The more engaged you are with your community, the more invested they will feel in your forum.
• Clear Navigation: Make sure that your forum is easy to navigate and that it's clear where to find different topics or threads. A confusing or cluttered forum layout can quickly turn people off and make it difficult for them to find the information they're looking for.
• Promotion: Finally, it's important to promote your forum and get the word out about it. This could involve sharing links on social media, reaching out to other bloggers or influencers in your niche, or even running ads to attract new members. Do not ever give up doing this, thinking you are well established already. There is ALWAYS room to promote, even if you're the biggest in your niche.

By sharing our successes and lessons learned, we can all benefit from each other's experiences and insights. So, join the conversation and let's help each other build thriving and successful forums!

 

[Cory]

Being a resource forum, I think the plethora of resources we have available is what brings so much success to my forum, at least member registration-wise. I gain members pretty consistently due to having the codes and skins hidden from guests. I have a lot of unique codes posted on my board too that I personally created or converted from the ZetaBoards software, so finding these unique codes only on my board is one way to attract new members.

 

[Heatman]

If you're not consistent with what's being implemented in your community, it's going to be very difficult for you to make any huge progress. Also, constant promoting of your forum is very important because the more members you're getting the better for your community's growth. I can't stress enough how important it is for you to always have high quality contents added all the time.

 

[Reverie]

Implementing contests/interactive celebrations was important because it brought people in and together. We also had things like poll of the day to get some natural conversations going. That was hard to keep up though as you run out of things to poll about. Creating discussions that would welcome everyone or a small group of people to further discuss is a great idea. Make sure it is a topic that people know something about or want to know more about.

Advertising frequently is important to bring in new people, but the most important thing is being an active participant in your own community as well.

 

[joelr]

There are two broad areas to focus on for growth:
- Fulfilling extrinsic need
- Fulfilling intrinsic need

Extrinsic need is more transactional, and usually means offering solutions, resources, education, or velocity or other "hard" values. This is where you want to focus on if you're starting a new community and want to bring in new members.

Intrinsic need is emotive, and is where you should focus if your goal is to nurture the existing community. This is the "soft" value like recognition, active engagement, making friends, etc.

These are two very different (and complimentary) approaches, and it depends on knowing your community lifecycle and how you want to grow.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

One thing I’d say not to do - don’t make a deal to pay posters and then abandon your forum

Also don’t advertise posting payouts. Else you’ll end up with members joining solely for that purpose and members making such low quality posts just to boost their post count 😡 Also remember if you pay one poster information gets around through word of mouth and soon you’ll just have posters and you’ll need loads of money to put up for grabs 🤣😕 !

 

[kensonplays]

Consistency: One of the keys to building a successful forum is consistency.

I reply to new threads and posts by other members, but since I do not want it to look one-sided with only me posting, sometimes I go a couple of weeks before responding so it does not show me as the "latest post" for every single area on the site haha.

Quality Content: Another important factor in building a successful forum is creating high-quality content.

I am working on 3-4 blog posts in the background, and when I feel they are ready, I will hit publish on them.

Community Engagement: Engaging with your community is another crucial aspect of running a successful forum.

I visit my site multiple times a day, even on days where nobody joins, nobody posts, or nobody reacts haha. I reply when I get new posts, but unless I made the forum a tertiary part of my site and the blog higher up, rather than trying to treat both equally, some days there is nothing to engage too. :/

Clear Navigation: Make sure that your forum is easy to navigate and that it's clear where to find different topics or threads.

I think my nav is fairly easy to see:

I moved the "whats new" into Forums, and Bob's UBS blog addon into a sub-menu of Blog. The "Blog" links to my personal blog, with the dropdown to member blogs and whatnot.

Promotion: Finally, it's important to promote your forum and get the word out about it.

My site URL is my status on Discord, so in all servers I am in, it shows that as my status. I also am active on a couple other forums where I have my link in my signature, and I promote my site a couple time at least during my livestreams. I think I am covering about all areas I can for free promotion and avertising. Not much more I can do probably, without spending money on advertisements?

 

[Kennysplash]

One thing I am looking to incorporate in my forum is fun and games. It makes it more interactive and fun.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

One thing I am looking to incorporate in my forum is fun and games. It makes it more interactive and fun.

Just ensure you don’t go overboard as low quality posts can reduce SEO.

Quality over quantity IMO

 

[Ravenfreak]

Adding quality content to the forum is going to help. Also consistently adding new topics or replies to topics every day will help too. The layout of your forum can play a impact on how your forum thrives, too many subforums could put members off and may overwhelm them.

 

[~ True Legend ~]

Adding quality content to the forum is going to help. Also consistently adding new topics or replies to topics every day will help too. The layout of your forum can play a impact on how your forum thrives, too many subforums could put members off and may overwhelm them.

Agreed I’ll provide suggestions this weekend for theezone @Ravenfreak