Hi all. I decided to give you couple of tips that work for me and help my community stay active.
The first thing that you want to do when you open a new forum is to show people (guests) that your forum is active, meaning that your boards are full of topics and that your stats are alive and that people can gather info from your community.
1) If you just started a new forum, my advice for you is to start making your own topics, using different accounts. Use a mod for replying to your own posts which is called "Post as Alternative User". But don't post the same topics and replies, replies and topics must be different in word and sentence structure.
Don't log out every time you want to post a reply. Make replies with at least 1-2 sentences, add questions to your posts and make sure to finish topics with "Thanks for Help" , "I appreciate Your Help" , etc. You want to show guests that your forum is extremely friendly and can always help. You also want to show some activity, that's what potential guest (future member) wants to see.
So work on making your own topics and reply to them under different member ID that can be found in Admin -> Members. Your topics should be interesting, don't rush with it, remember, you want to attract attention. Make topics and answers to them in a smart and interesting way. Avoid 1,2 word post.
2) About boards. Don't open 50 boards right away. Do it step by step, take your time. First think about the most important topics that your forum must have. First, make 5 topics and work on filling them out. You want to have at least 15 topics in one board. Think from the side of a guest, when you enter board you want to see many topics in there. You want to have a feeling that there is not enough time to read all of them. That feeling will bring a guest back to the your forum because he/she knows that there is an interesting info.
Imagine if you have 2,3 topics and you already started promotion? A guest came, saw that there are 2 topics in one board and left. You don't want that! Like I said, make at least 5-8 boards and fill each with at least 20 topics. Again, don't rush. Start promoting only after you see that forum looks juicy and always think from guest's side.
3) Promotion. I noticed lots of topics here on forum, saying add link to your forum signatures, promote on youtube, submit articles to digg, etc. The last one, digg - doesn't work for me at all. I've not seen that digg readers registered on my forum. It's just useless in my opinion. Adding link to signatures, youtube videos - works! Do that.
Now, what works the best in my opinion is craiglist guys! If you want to see people registering on your forum day and night then make short ads and post them on craiglist. You want to write a short and positive ad about your forum. You want to explain in one two sentences that on this forum you met many friendly people and that you recommend them to take a look and register if they have questions about this and that. Post ads regularly, I would recommend you to do it on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that's when most of the people sit in front of monitors and look for something cheap on craiglist.
Ads will least for 7 days only over there. You want to make 2-3 ads in different cities. Remember that there are moderators that check all ads. Some of them can be deleted if a mod will check out your account and will see there the same ads but in different cities. So when you post on craiglist, you don't want to show that you're 100% spammer. If you do, you'll receive a notice from your domain company about stopping doing that. don't over submit craiglist, 2-3 ads once/3-4 days.
Don't forget to add "Welcome Topic" mod to your forum and welcome through PM. You want to welcome every person that registers on your forum. Use different member IDs when replying to his/her topics. Replies must be completely different from each other, again you want to show that forum is active.
One more thing that you want to do is to set up treshhold (Admin -> Features and Options) to some unbelievable numbers, for example 30000. Remove "User for the Past 15 Minutes", you don't want to see there 3000. Second, you want to rename "Users Online" to something that will show that there are really 100 currently members online, you may use what I used - "Currently Users Online."
Also, I would suggest you to remove "Most Online Today:" and "Most Online Ever:" because once you'll start promoting your forum all of the guests that will come to your forum will be added to those numbers and after a while there will be a huge number and it will look suspicious, you don't want that.
This will keep that active mood on forum, it will show that there are always members on forum and plus it will attract guests to register and start posting.
These are my tips SMF members. I hope they will help you.
this is some good advice. I am just starting a community and been reading around tips, yours so far is one I like very much.
good job and thanks for sharing. :D
evolution88 let me see your forum.
there's nothing there yet, i'm still working on it. i'll pm you once it's done or almost done.
Quote from: alex30 on January 25, 2009, 11:46:11 PM
evolution88 let me see your forum.
If you feel like taking a look at mine and making suggestions that would be awesome. I've been killing myself trying to get new members.
http://secsportshub.com/main/index.php?option=com_smf&view=forum&Itemid=252
shanksta13
Work on filling all those boards out. I would put that green upper ad little more down.
Enjoyable layout that relates to your main forum topic, nice board icons. I would personally like to join your forum, that's a good sign there. Spread out your forum link on other sport forums.
Follow my advices above please.
Good advice. I been considering craigslist but really not sure where the most appropriate section is to post an ad there about my forum.
The "User online time threshold" tip is a spendid idea! But what do you mean to rename "users online" exactly? Edit the code to make it say "Users Online - 1,379" ?
Good tips,
btw: The blog link in your sig line is not working.
Quote from: brandonroy on January 26, 2009, 05:03:50 AM
Good advice. I been considering craigslist but really not sure where the most appropriate section is to post an ad there about my forum.
The "User online time threshold" tip is a spendid idea! But what do you mean to rename "users online" exactly? Edit the code to make it say "Users Online - 1,379" ?
I'd like to hear a little more about this as well.
Quote from: alex30 on January 26, 2009, 01:11:07 AM
shanksta13
Work on filling all those boards out. I would put that green upper ad little more down.
Enjoyable layout that relates to your main forum topic, nice board icons. I would personally like to join your forum, that's a good sign there. Spread out your forum link on other sport forums.
Follow my advices above please.
Thanks for the tips.
Here is what you can place there - "Currently Users Online", what it means is that you show guests and your members that simply these members are current and some of them are on forum but aren't logged out.
Don't forget to remove "User for the Past 15 minutes" You don't want to see 3000 instead of 15, just remove it if you don't know how, use search option, there are many topics about it.
Quote from: alex30 on January 26, 2009, 10:16:04 AM
Here is what you can place there - "Currently Users Online", what it means is that you show guests and your members that simply these members are current and some of them are on forum but aren't logged out.
Don't forget to remove "User for the Past 15 minutes" You don't want to see 3000 instead of 15, just remove it if you don't know hoe, use search option, there are many topics about it.
I renamed mine to say
Recently active users:I think it was in boardindex.template.php
Now tell us more about craigslist? :)
Quote from: ApplianceJunk on January 26, 2009, 06:38:55 AM
Good tips,
btw: The blog link in your sig line is not working.
Thanks for your catch, link is fixed.
Quote from: brandonroy on January 26, 2009, 10:20:42 AM
Quote from: alex30 on January 26, 2009, 10:16:04 AM
Here is what you can place there - "Currently Users Online", what it means is that you show guests and your members that simply these members are current and some of them are on forum but aren't logged out.
Don't forget to remove "User for the Past 15 minutes" You don't want to see 3000 instead of 15, just remove it if you don't know hoe, use search option, there are many topics about it.
I renamed mine to say Recently active users:
I think it was in boardindex.template.php
Now tell us more about craigslist? :)
Haha :) I explained how you should use craiglist what else do you want to know?
Quote from: alex30 on January 26, 2009, 10:21:55 AM
Quote from: ApplianceJunk on January 26, 2009, 06:38:55 AM
Good tips,
btw: The blog link in your sig line is not working.
Thanks for your catch, link is fixed.
Quote from: brandonroy on January 26, 2009, 10:20:42 AM
Quote from: alex30 on January 26, 2009, 10:16:04 AM
Here is what you can place there - "Currently Users Online", what it means is that you show guests and your members that simply these members are current and some of them are on forum but aren't logged out.
Don't forget to remove "User for the Past 15 minutes" You don't want to see 3000 instead of 15, just remove it if you don't know hoe, use search option, there are many topics about it.
I renamed mine to say Recently active users:
I think it was in boardindex.template.php
Now tell us more about craigslist? :)
Haha :) I explained how you should use craiglist what else do you want to know?
Well, I guess I'd like to know which section on craigslist is best for us to promote without being spammy and getting flagged. I posted an ad there one time (I believe it was about finding a moderator) and it was flagged within minutes! And the ad was in the section that was most relative to my forum. I guess I could try again. :-\
Find the most appropriate one for music.
brandonroy of course that will happen, you'll be flagged sometimes. Do you remember I said, post at least 2-3 ads in different cities. Every city has it's own moderators. In one you'll get flagged in another you'll be fine.
Here is mine: http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/forum (http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/forum)
I am working on finding different icons for the "hot topic", "new.gif" and pst xx.gif.
Also, I am trying to change the padding in various places as well.
:)
stingerman great forum so far, nice colors. Work on all those things that I mentioned and you'll be ok stingerman! ;)
Wonderful tips for building community. Thanks.
Really like your forum shanksta13!
how do u place a image for each board (the basketball, baseball, etc.)?
i would really like to apply that concept to my forum
http://www.swampratracing.com/forum (http://www.swampratracing.com/forum)
rsanchez78118 of of the inconveniences on your forum is that my browser is scratched. Do you think about removing right side? Or make it fir in all browsers.
Quote from: rsanchez78118 on January 28, 2009, 01:51:00 PM
Really like your forum shanksta13!
how do u place a image for each board (the basketball, baseball, etc.)?
i would really like to apply that concept to my forum
http://www.swampratracing.com/forum (http://www.swampratracing.com/forum)
Just use the Images on Board modification. You can find it here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=246022.0
good info I will be using it soon... ;D
got it to work. i just deleted most of it... check it out
www.mnsportscentral.com (http://www.mnsportscentral.com)
Quote from: sreisenb001 on January 30, 2009, 03:41:54 PM
good info I will be using it soon... ;D
let me see your forum.
Quote from: alex30 on February 05, 2009, 09:50:29 PM
Quote from: sreisenb001 on January 30, 2009, 03:41:54 PM
good info I will be using it soon... ;D
let me see your forum.
http://www.mnsportscentral.com/ (http://www.mnsportscentral.com/)
Alex the "Post as Alternate User" mod doesn't work for the new version of smf.
I agree with 2 and 3 a lot... When you have a few posts and a lot of boards, it is overwhelming... Also Promotion is good, without it, people wouldn't know you existed XD
I don't know about #1 though. My forum is still starting out... At least I think it is, I am still the majority of posting topics but my members are slowing to start posting their own. Doing something like #1 seems kind of like lying to your members...
Awesome info!
I am still working on the forum, but mostly the people signed on for now are people I got from myspace.
I use a myspace adder program, then "google" search those that may be interested in being my friend, so I would type dog, kennel, dog breeder, animal shelter etc...
(Myspace has been up for like 3 weeks or so.. close to 2k friends who can potentially be interested in my dog forum since they are in the criteria from when I first added them.. ) If its a music forum, search for musicians, djs's, artist or "music people" etc... when asking them to add you as your friend. Be careful who you bug because they will mark you as spam, and your account will be deleted by myspace. Also use a legit program.
www.myspace.com/doggeekz
Then I post bulletins and and announcements. Like I said I am not at that step because my site needs more content and working on a logo/banner for the site before I start inviting people to the site.
www.doggeekz.com
S.Nieves
S.Nieves once you get more members let me know we can exchange our links with each other.
alex30, I checked out your site. Very cool!
Heres a site where a couple of my friends do some moderating.
www.reefcentral.com
Give me like 3 more months and we will definitely exchange links. I plan to add a section for other pets.. Ill add you in there with a link back.
S.Nieves that forum rocks. Admin definitely used threshold to amazing numbers, have you seen those members? There are thousands of them, I prefer not to go that big. Thanks for showing it.
I'll wait for you then, keep up!
sreisenb001 nothing to say, you're at PR2, keep working on posting your links on related sites.
pr2?
Pr is actually your site visibility on the internet.
There are many things that you will learn about it.
Please google what's website pr and you'll get tons of info on this.
hey thanks I had never heard of that before :D
Do reasearch, those are important things to know if you decided to jump into this.
Thanks for your great advice!
Excellent tips Alex, thank you for sharing.
Question: Do you get a lot of spammers coming to you from Craigslist? I'm promoting a community forum and I know that my local CL is full of spammers-do you think that it would be wise to advertise on CL for this type of forum?
CSS you welcome mate.
O absolutely weisus!
I see you got a lot of boards there, try to post in every state if possible so people will join and see that there is a specific spot for them in a board that belongs to their region. I noticed that you also have a board for moderators. If you need moderators, make ads and post them on cl as well. This works for me and should work for you.
We have no spam from cl, only pure people register who want to learn new things.
Alex,
Now that's what I was hoping to hear, thanks again for the great advice!
Just a thought...your thread seems to be becoming a bit of an advice forum in itself, moreover, you seem to enjoy it; perhaps a link to your new "advice" forum would be in order??? ;)
The whole thread is an advice weisus. :D
I actually posted on Craigslist last month, but it only let me post in 1 section at a time.
Good suggestions.
I'm always a bit leery of posting under a different name. Even if it helps to look active at first, people will wonder where those "active members" went - any why they aren't posting (esp. if you have a smaller community).
STS, you have to go to "community" whenever you post and post your ad over there. Then you go back and go to another city and again go to "community" and you may do that as many times as you want.
Okay I am baffeled... I have submitted time and time again to MSN and Yahoo but I can still not get linked by them.. I have 12600 pages on Google and 0 on both yahoo and MSN... WHat do I need to do
Really good guide there, I will follow it. ;)
Thanks for the info. It was really helpful.
sreisenb001 I'm more then sure that you have your home page indexed on msn and yahoo but not all 12600 pages. Usually it takes time for them to index most of your pages.
- Lawrence - you welcome, glad it raised your mood. ;D
Thanks for this useful guide! Can you please see my forum (see my signature) ? How can i improve my forum? I have Welcome PM mod, Welcome Mod by vbgamer.
thanks! antonio
Awesome forum, nice design. All you have to do now is to work on link building.
I would personally join your forum, keep up.
Quote from: alex30 on March 25, 2009, 04:31:00 PM
Awesome forum, nice design. All you have to do now is to work on link building.
I would personally join your forum, keep up.
Thanks Alex! sorry for my english...but "to work on link building"....i don't understand ...the menu links or...?
thanks!antonio
Link building means that you spread out your site link on other related sites and build PR (rank) on google and on other search engines. Please use search option to find more info on this.
So i need to make multiple account and start to post topic in the forum right? :D
So how do u think of my forum?
www.anixekai.vlexo.net
First you need to register a 1,2 accounts. Then you need to download mod called "post as an alternative user."
Your forum is very nice, I like your banner a lot. You was the one who made it?
eric1234 I saw you added a shout box. Is it active there?
I personally don't use shout boxes, because they stop members from posting on forums and you don't want that.
The tips are pretty good but i wouldnt suggest to create multiple accounts and reply to yourself, its silly. :P
ArkServer it's all except to you.
I did this from the beginning when there were 10 users, it worked out. I made my forum look active, that was the most important thing at that start time.
At the start of our forums I wrote "How To" type topics.
For example: How to replace the belt on your washer.
What I found was that no matter how detailed I tried to be there was always someone that would read it and then ask a question in a reply to the topic.
It just happened to work out for us doing it this way when starting our forums.
Alex love the site. How did you get the fish there?
Am not very good when it comes to adding folders and such.
Have spent ages today figuring out the affiliates mod (grrr).
Ah well.
Hi TheListener!
You mean that yellow one? You go to forum/Themes/YourTheme/images/
and look for "on", "on2", "off" and replace with your own icons called "on", "on2", "off".
Let's see your site.
Thanks Alex
www.visionaryhosting.info/forum
Not all the site is visible to guests. However if you decide to register as a member to see what it looks like then I can delete the account after.
No problem TheListener !
Forum looks pretty nice. You have two buttons for "Staff List", I would remove one, go to /forum/Themes/your theme/index.template.php and look for "Staff List" code or attach your index.template.php here and I'll remove it for you.
You have almost no back links on search engines, work on posting your links on other related sites. Read this http://www.qassia.com/how-to-generate-good-backlinks-and-lots-of-them
Make a banner for your forum. In my opinion your forum should have a face.
Quote from: alex30 on April 18, 2009, 07:49:11 PM
No problem TheListener !
Forum looks pretty nice. You have two buttons for "Staff List", I would remove one, go to /forum/Themes/your theme/index.template.php and look for "Staff List" code or attach your index.template.php here and I'll remove it for you.
Alex
Firstly thanks for the comments which you have made.
As for the rest of the above we wouldn't have a clue where to look. We have only been doing this since the beginning of March this year.
Anytime TheListener, post your forum updates from time to time, so we can give you suggestions, etc.
Great advice. Thanks!
I always thought creating the forum would be the hard part and getting members would be the easy part. I haven't been advertising my forum much lately as I'm working on a new theme. Once the new theme is up I'll have to start putting it out there again.
QuoteI always thought creating the forum would be the hard part and getting members would be the easy part.
Thanks to SMF creating the forum is the easy part. :)
Good luck with your site.
Ryanator you welcome.
You got nice forum over there.
Thanks guys!
I tried the craigslist approach and got another couple of members over the weekend!
Just as a heads up for people looking to advertise their forum, you can advertise it on my forum. Details can be found here: http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=307271.0 (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=307271.0)
Cheers! :)
That's a good way to get some more topics on your forum. I registered and opened a new topic.
Cheers Ryanator! ;D
Thanks Alex. You've got yourself a nice community going on there! A couple of guys I work with have huge aquariums so I'll forward them a link to your site.
:)
I will throw some tips in:
1. if it is appropriate for your forum, turn the post reply notification on. For a long time, I would have people post questions, I'd answer them and never hear back from the person. I suspect that wouldn't be appropriate for highly interactive, trivial "chat" forums.
2. as a the forum owner, subscribe to each of your forums so you are emailed immediately when someone posts a new topic. I have a blackberry, so I can respond pretty quick when someone posts.
You welcome Ryanator.
Thanks for tips Jerry.
It's good to see that someone else also has an aquarium fish community.
I wouldn't call it "established" :)
I spend most of my time on this forum: http://www.syslog.org/forum
Not bad, I see many posts, your forum seems to be active.
I doubt that if you would remove upper 5 word ad, you would get more members. My first feeling was... aha owner of the forum wants to earn money. But it's all except to you.
I would also make a banner, let people memorize your forum and come back.
That is good feedback. I've been running the site since 2000, and what I've found is that there is no "community". I have 20000 people per month coming from google or other search engines looking for help on a specific topic. Sometimes they post a question, most of the time not. Generally, the visitors find what they need (or maybe not) and take off, never to return. But, I think that is probably it is for such a narrowly focused site. That was part of my hope for starting fishforu.ms - starting more of a community.
I just recently started with adsense (last fall), figuring that I have poured a lot of money into the site over almost a decade, and it needed to start paying some colo bills. I had a single link unit on the site until last weekend when I reworked the site. I haven't yet seen a particular trend positive or negative to posts, visitors or ad clicks.
That said, I think I will take your advice on the top link unit and replace it with a banner.
Thanks for the feedback.
Quote from: confusion on April 30, 2009, 11:18:40 AM
I will throw some tips in:
1. if it is appropriate for your forum, turn the post reply notification on. For a long time, I would have people post questions, I'd answer them and never hear back from the person. I suspect that wouldn't be appropriate for highly interactive, trivial "chat" forums.
2. as a the forum owner, subscribe to each of your forums so you are emailed immediately when someone posts a new topic. I have a blackberry, so I can respond pretty quick when someone posts.
its good to turn on notifications but what if you have a moderate large forum and you get like 200+ replies on a topics that u subscribed to? Wow, full inbox :D
Haha, then it's better not to do that, just revisit forum every day.
Quote from: ArkServer on April 30, 2009, 04:15:07 PM
its good to turn on notifications but what if you have a moderate large forum and you get like 200+ replies on a topics that u subscribed to? Wow, full inbox :D
My comment was more of an idea to help with growing a forum. I, and I suspect many others here, don't have that problem :)
Not long ago we had to start the forum from scratch due to server trouble.
My partner has since learnt how to back up the forum.
Am now looking at using a new theme on the forum ( has been approved by the staff) yet the only thing stopping us is not knowing how to use templates, ftp etc.
It's all well people offering templates and how to add them but half the time it is all jargon to us leaving us none the wiser.
Thanks for update. So what theme would you like to add? That's not that hard.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/index.php?lemma=126
Great tips!
I just started my new forum, it has lots of boards though, personally I like the theme and my layout.
http://www.theultimateforum.net
Nice tips you got there alex30...!
Hope to hear you too on this one....!
My Forum
(http://ysnoi.co.cc/index.php?action=forum)
TheListener great theme. You're using default theme now, just upload that theme to your server using theme manager in your admin panel. You're also using chat box, I would remove it. I understand that many like to chat in chat box, but forum won't become popular if topics will be empty. Let google index your forum pages.
Seren I would change banner, make a bigger one. You know how many forums out there have similar look to yours? I saw a lot already with the same topic. If you're serious about having a forum and bring people on than think about how you can make your forum design different from others. Please follow those advices that I gave in first post.
ysNoi I like your layout, but I don't know what PHF means, but if you would put pH in this way then people will get that it's related to water. I would add a small explanation right under your banner, so people see what your forum is all about. I see you opened many topics and post, that's good. Get 2,3 serious people from related forums, assign them as moderators and work on opening new topics and post regularly. Work as a team, it will be easier then on your own. Post your links on related forums, you need to work on link building.
Wont let me make the banner any bigger. >.>
It's possible.
If you'll do a little research on these forums, you'll know how to do that.
Quote from: alex30 on May 03, 2009, 11:38:38 AM
ysNoi I like your layout, but I don't know what PHF means, but if you would put pH in this way then people will get that it's related to water. I would add a small explanation right under your banner, so people see what your forum is all about. I see you opened many topics and post, that's good. Get 2,3 serious people from related forums, assign them as moderators and work on opening new topics and post regularly. Work as a team, it will be easier then on your own. Post your links on related forums, you need to work on link building.
Thanks bro...! PHF means Pick-up Head Forum because that is our product in our company...! Wasn't able yet to design an optical pick-up on my banner...!
You see. I didn't get that, I thought that by pH you meant water.
Quote from: alex30 on May 04, 2009, 10:55:05 AM
You see. I didn't get that, I thought that by pH you meant water.
Thanks for eyeing that bro...I just don´t know now how to make it look so good...! I might edit it in the future as you said..!
It looks fine, fits in your forum colors, leave it as it is just add explanation under it so people know where they're are.
I appreciate this topic because I had no idea how to get poeple to start posting to my forum it is dead and empty I will get started on using the tips leant here today.
Thanks a bunch.
Quote from: wilsond on May 18, 2009, 02:27:08 PM
I appreciate this topic because I had no idea how to get poeple to start posting to my forum it is dead and empty I will get started on using the tips leant here today.
Thanks a bunch.
You won't get anyone registering if they are unable to view any boards.
The only permissions guests have on my forum are viewing the staff list and entering chat ( password required).
Guests can view the boards but are unable to view the topics.
Guys when you close all boards google, etc. bots cannot access your forums and index you in their search engines. If you want to close your boards then do it when you have a good group of people that come over every day, but I don't see a reason for closing it, just add a floating bar that says "register blah blah" make your forum interesting and you'll get those guests.
Quote from: alex30 on May 18, 2009, 05:53:43 PM
Guys when you close all boards google, etc. bots cannot access your forums and index you in their search engines. If you want to close your boards then do it when you have a good group of people that come over every day, but I don't see a reason for closing it, just add a floating bar that says "register blah blah" make your forum interesting and you'll get those guests.
ohhh I had no idea.. I forgot how I did that, well let me fiddle with it and try to open it up
thanks guys!! ;D
wilsond you also have a lot of ads on your front page. This will pull your guests off. I would reduce amount of ads first. This shows that money is your priority number one but now forum as a community place.
Quote from: alex30 on May 18, 2009, 08:23:42 PM
wilsond you also have a lot of ads on your front page. This will pull your guests off. I would reduce amount of ads first. This shows that money is your priority number one but now forum as a community place.
Thanks for the tips alex30
The fake posting can look very bad, I have seen people alter their post count and you can see that it is fake.
Besides it is cheating! :P
If you post a quesiton and then an immediate answer it will look fake as can be, also if you dont add some random deviations off of the topic it will look fake also.
Takes a lil bit of work to make a fake look real...
Cheating is harder than people think lol
wilsond you welcome.
Codenomics if that will be done in a way I explained, then there will be no problems. Once you got a few members that post daily then you won't need to do that anymore.
I do not agree with creating multiple identities & then posting back and forth to yourself.
A niche & good marketing plan will grow your forum.
One of my marketing tools for building membership is MySpace (we're a mom's forum), another is Craigslist, and the last is Facebook.
Our Marketing Plan:
Each weekend devote at least 1 hour to marketing. (I was very disciplined about that last year when we first started - but now I do it about twice a month because we're now a moderately active forum.)
MySpace
My forum has a MySpace page with a blog (www.MySpace.com/OurMomSpot) If it's a MySpace weeknd I use MySpace & search "women", aged 18-50, "proud parent" in various geographical areas...sending them messages inviting them to the forum. For every 45 messages I send, almost all view the MySpace page & blog. A few extend offers of firendship. (These peopel then have to be coaxed to the forum with follow up messgaes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - but when it oes work - they become VERY active memebrs.) Using this method, the forum gets about 3-7 visitors / views, and 1 or 2 who join the forum.
Facebook
On Facebook, I join parenting groups & place something on their walls about the forum. This usually generates a few "guests", nothing more at this point.
Criagslist
Maximum of 2 ads in two cities about the forum (any more and I could be "flagged" and prevented from posting any more ads.)
I answer ads from moms in various geographic area who say they are interested in meeting other moms or making new friends. Each message is c & p ed but tailored slighty to what the person said in their ad. Depending on the geographic area, this appears to attract the most people who view the forum, join it, and subsequantly become active participants.
I am still looking for more efficient (and FREE :) ) ways to advertise the forum & I also have to watch out for pickpocketers & poachers (people who join & try to direct traffic from the forum to their site.)
Again, this is only about 1 hour of my time on a Saturday or Sunday a few times a month. I get quite a lot done by c & p ing the invitations / messages and just tailoring them slightly depending on how the person describes themselves on MySpace or what they wrote in their Craigslist ad.
Hi Uhura!, it's your right to disagree, what works for me may not work for you. I understand.
Nice plan, thanks for sharing.
Quote from: alex30 on May 20, 2009, 01:34:19 PM
Hi Uhura!, it's your right to disagree, what works for me may not work for you. I understand.
Um...yeah.
Lots of luck to you.
I am going to try the whole social networking thing on myspace and facebook. :D
Hopefully, it works!
Ya, don't make your boards only accessible to members.
Google won't index the posts!
Good point. Making a few of the rooms viewable by guests gives visitors a taste of the forum. :)
Also - I take back what I said about Facebook. I have had 3 new members from my most recent Facebook wall posts.
rsanchez78118 answering your PM.
In order to add a music player like my forum has all you'll need to do is to register on playlist website and look for music. Once you added music then copy a code provided on their site and paste it in your forum.
http://www.playlist.com/
That's it. It will attract many guests to register because I think it adds fun to the forum. We all like to listen to music and doesn't matter what kind of niche you have, this would be a great thing on any forum."Add music to player" is just a link to a thread where people can post their requests.
daveaite this is the answer to you PM. I use this Floating Bar Mod on my forum.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1449
good advice man...thanx
You welcome Xarus, are you going to use some of that advice?
well some of your advices I was already using... well I don't like the idea with the ads...I know anyone has to earn something... well as I know ppl don't like popup ads and so on... the only ad (if I can call it ad) is an online radio that runs on every forum... I support them coz almost everyday they say how to get to my site... so we do each other a service... so that is the only ad...
and the best thing... a big forum doesnt get big in a few days... sometimes takes years , sometimes months... And all depends on what activity is on the forum... that depends 2... :)
so yeah :) good advices man :)
Well nit everyone can afford radio station for advertising, but it's good that you found a way to do that. How much do you pay?
for the radio? none :)) for the hosting i pay 39 $ /year.
what is this radio thing you speak of?
sreisenb001, Xarus was talking about advertising his forum on radio. This is another good way, but only when your forum pronounces every day.
nice tutorial this'll help me :D.
I paid $50 to advertise on myspace. I made a nice 90x48 banner and you select your category. Example for me I selected Animal/Pets/Dogs.
So anyone with in the interest genre will get your banner ad.. and hey since its myspace people are willing to be online chatting and what not. My campaign was 2 days long and I got 15 registered members and 6500 views.
I am about to start advertising on google adwords.. but don't know yet.
Personally, I ignore MySpace advertising because there are too many.
Never pay for advertising your site. There are plenty of ways to do it on your own. Unless you have extra money and no time. But it means that you will pay from time to time in order for your site to be SEOed (promoted).
@Digg: To get any real traffic from Digg you have to be the first to report a story pretty much. Otherwise, I always get 5-10 hits off any random Digg article I put up.
Can you check my forum out, nrlfan.com/forum (http://nrlfan.com/forum)
Groundhog this is not a correct place for that but I looked on your site and can say that it looks pretty good. Very compacted which is good. I see you also have chat which hugely reduces your post count on forums. Overall it's all good. Follow tips that I gave in this article.
Quote from: alex30 on August 18, 2009, 08:06:09 AM
Groundhog this is not a correct place for that but I looked on your site and can say that it looks pretty good. Very compacted which is good. I see you also have chat which hugely reduces your post count on forums. Overall it's all good. Follow tips that I gave in this article.
Thanks alex30. I'll probably remove the chat completely as you suggested.
If this message shouldn't be here then I will remove it now. Thanks for the advise.
Regards :)
Ive been looking for a mod for 2.0 RC1.2 that will alow me to make posts on my forums as alternat users. Please what do you sujest using
You could always sign up a second account and post yourself.
It's this mod, unfortunately it's not compatible with your version of SMF. But you can still install it manually.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=978
You will not be able to use that mod on 2.0; it is designed for 1.1 - and note that even its author does not support it now.
To be able to use it would be a complete rewrite.
Quote from: nay27uk on August 25, 2009, 10:27:43 AM
Ive been looking for a mod for 2.0 RC1.2 that will alow me to make posts on my forums as alternat users. Please what do you sujest using
This update works well for me (2.0 RC1). Download at: Reply #36
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=280897.msg2129057#msg2129057
Except that a mod author is not supposed to reuse code without permission from the original author.
Quote from: Groundhog on August 25, 2009, 01:57:22 PM
Quote from: nay27uk on August 25, 2009, 10:27:43 AM
Ive been looking for a mod for 2.0 RC1.2 that will alow me to make posts on my forums as alternat users. Please what do you sujest using
This update works well for me (2.0 RC1). Download at: Reply #36
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=280897.msg2129057#msg2129057
Thanks used that and it works, Shame ther is no mod for adding members and lots of them set on a timer maybe adding about 5-6 members a day
Quote from: nay27uk on August 27, 2009, 05:54:29 PM
Thanks used that and it works, Shame ther is no mod for adding members and lots of them set on a timer maybe adding about 5-6 members a day
Oh, you probably could do that without that much work if you wanted to, but unless they are going to be recipients of alternate posts, it's not really worth doing.
In 2.0 it wouldn't even be that hard to implement as a Scheduled Task.
Yep, you're right guys. ;D
Quote from: alex30 on January 25, 2009, 11:16:36 PM
One more thing that you want to do is to set up treshhold (Admin -> Features and Options) to some unbelievable numbers, for example 30000. Remove "User for the Past 15 Minutes", you don't want to see there 3000. Second, you want to rename "Users Online" to something that will show that there are really 100 currently members online, you may use what I used - "Currently Users Online."
Also, I would suggest you to remove "Most Online Today:" and "Most Online Ever:" because once you'll start promoting your forum all of the guests that will come to your forum will be added to those numbers and after a while there will be a huge number and it will look suspicious, you don't want that.
This will keep that active mood on forum, it will show that there are always members on forum and plus it will attract guests to register and start posting.
These are my tips SMF members. I hope they will help you.
HOW do I do this?
Pleas post this question in SMF 1.x Support.
cheers for the info mate...
I had my guests locked down to only view the "About the forum" board and couldn't see the rest of it unless they signed up.
You reckon that is a good way to go, or best to let the Guest see everything before they sign up?
Yes, my advice is to let guests see the whole forum. Use one of the mods that will appear in front of the guests saying "Register with our community and blah, blah" This is better in my opinion then limiting people to see your forums.
Hello ! I have been reading this forum a lot , just now decided to start writing as well.
I very much like your ideas Alex30 , and had a couple of questions:
first of all advertising on craigslist , how effective would it be if I am running a classifieds site as well ... would it be possible to still advertise in niches ( i.e pets ads and such )
Please any feed back greatly appreciated
my forum is at redleafads.com/ forum
speaking of a website I meant forum in prvious post, I guess I just wanted to ask as far as the content , what would u suggest be good categories as well ? I tried searching , have a couple of things in mind...
thanx in advance for your reply
Thanks for the advise.
I hope that I can get a lot members on my brandnew Dutch Ancient Egypt-forum.
sasca choose city and then community for advertising your forum.
Quote from: shanksta13 on January 26, 2009, 12:50:43 AM
If you feel like taking a look at mine and making suggestions that would be awesome. I've been killing myself trying to get new members.
http://secsportshub.com/main/index.php?option=com_smf&view=forum&Itemid=252
Wow, dude! That seems like a great forum, looks good too! I'm going to sign up for sure.
Here's mine: http://www.palmbeachpreps.com/index.php?action=forum
PalmBeachPreps do you think about changing theme of your forum? Or you're fine with what you have? Seems a bit old fashioned.
for those who didn't read.
thanks for the tips. I am going to use them to improve my forum
alex, I would suggest to NOT make other accounts to post as, once your forum is active, people will notice that they aren't on the forum anymore...!! But other than that, good advice and bookmarked!
hi i am running a computer forum can anyone tell me of a good theme to get started with?
Kcmartz true that people can see it, but once your forum is active, just simply remove those accounts.
james45 under search of them section, type in 'computer'
Thanks for the Tips :).
Quote from: alex30 on March 13, 2010, 05:12:31 PM
Kcmartz true that people can see it, but once your forum is active, just simply remove those accounts.
Yeah, but then having a bunch of posts that say "Guest" doesn't help. It just makes it seem like a bunch of people left your forum. :P
Making a forum like that with fake posts doesn't really work. Also, it's kinda annoying to talk to youself, lol.
Yeah i agree Royal.
You do whatever you want to do to ensure that you keep active community.
It worked for me, but may not work for you.
Quote from: Royalduke on March 14, 2010, 10:15:01 AM
Making a forum like that with fake posts doesn't really work. Also, it's kinda annoying to talk to youself, lol.
I guess the trick is to be able to talk to yourself without all the posts looking like they come from the same person/same style. It would help to have MPD.
A lot of people recommend starting up a forum with a few dummy users just to make it look better but I don't think it's something that works long term.
Quote from: perplexed on March 14, 2010, 02:11:21 PM
Quote from: Royalduke on March 14, 2010, 10:15:01 AM
Making a forum like that with fake posts doesn't really work. Also, it's kinda annoying to talk to youself, lol.
I guess the trick is to be able to talk to yourself without all the posts looking like they come from the same person/same style. It would help to have MPD.
A lot of people recommend starting up a forum with a few dummy users just to make it look better but I don't think it's something that works long term.
You have no idea how easy it is for an average person to spot someone with the same personality. Sometime you can tell with the words they use, their mood, or even the spelling mistakes they make.
It all depends on how. The problem lies in variability. Not in the way you talk, but in your userbase. If every member of your forum posted "li3k d1s" then someone is going to think thats fishy. But if you have different styles of writing in the way you talk then it makes it less obvious that it's done by the same person. With more people to diffuse the writing styles over it becomes harder to pinpoint the copy-users.
Wait....why the hell am I explaining this when I don't even condone it?
/me shrugs.
Cassiel good that you explained for that bunch of kids.
Have you guys used Twitter at all to build interaction? I just signed up for my site.
yeah I used twitter and while I get a lot of followers no one leaves twitter to visit the forum lol
Yeah that's kind of what I think is gonna happen ::)
well twitter is good for people who feel that they can say anything in what 160 characters, so those guys don't want to post on a forum lol
but you know, free promotion and all that, it can't hurt and maybe if we say something incredibly interesting some of those twits will join up :)
Yes, I am using twitter too.
When you add people, make sure to add only those people (civilians) who maybe interested in your web/forum content, and skip your competitors. Than your tweets would be actually useful. If you want to bring new members, you've got to post ads on craiglist every 2nd day.
Well twitter is good for brining in new members if other people RT your posts. But I don't see that happening often with sites and businesses. I guess twitter falls more in the "Keep the members" side than the "Bring in new members" side.
However, for members of your site that are following your Twitter it helps to keep them involved with the forum better than if they were just getting the news from your forum's newletter (if you have one).
It also is a good indicator of your activity level. ;)
Quote from: Cassiel on March 18, 2010, 11:06:57 PM
Well twitter is good for brining in new members if other people RT your posts. But I don't see that happening often with sites and businesses. I guess twitter falls more in the "Keep the members" side than the "Bring in new members" side.
However, for members of your site that are following your Twitter it helps to keep them involved with the forum better than if they were just getting the news from your forum's newletter (if you have one).
It also is a good indicator of your activity level. ;)
Thats what I think too, people that are already posting members feel like they are more "in the know"... and who knows? Maybe someone will see me tweeting about a contest of ours and join up :P
Twitter is good when you work on adding correct people if not than you'll have bunch of advertisers posting same exact thing to promote their projects and your tweets would be useless.
Quote from: alex30 on March 18, 2010, 08:49:44 PM
When you add people, make sure to add only those people (civilians) who maybe interested in your web/forum content, and skip your competitors. Than your tweets would be actually useful. If you want to bring new members, you've got to post ads on craiglist every 2nd day.
doesn't posting on craigslist attract a lot of spammers?
Thanks for the advices. I liked it a lot.
You welcome mate, glad I could help you.
Nice tips however ""Welcome Topic" is a bad idea. I don't think we need that as I'm sure new members would be happy to post their own intro or current members post a welcome thread for new members.
Can someone explain to me how to use craiglist because it looks confusing and all jumbled up to me :-\
Dismal Shadow you can't say it's bad idea unless you tried it. I tried it and it helps.
Quote from: alex30 on March 31, 2010, 04:14:34 PM
Dismal Shadow you can't say it's bad idea unless you tried it. I tried it and it helps.
I did. :)
But I removed it.
I only remove topics that don't have members posts. Many members like to post replies welcoming new users and that's why I'm for this feature.