Mini games to get users involved

[booch_21]

I run a general topic forum with the main audience coming from the a geographical area.  Since this is a message area on how to build up a forum, I'll offer up my advice and observations, for what it is worth.  There are not very many forums that serve the area in which I live so it is easier to get this localized audience.

First, summer time, at least here in the US, always has a downturn in activity.  Expect it to occur.  People want to be outside and not inside typing on a forum.

Controversial topics such as religion and politics gets people stirred up and they love to debate those issues.  If you don't have people who want to talk that stuff, you need to offer up anything that can fit the bill.  I have tried a Hobbies area, Games and Gaming, Music, anything that people have a shared interest in. 

Find users that have an interest in something specific and let them moderate that subject area.  I have a retired financial advisor and he offers up financial educational topics to people.  He is trying to get people to be smarter about investing, credit and so forth.  It has been very popular.

I run SMF Arcade and SMF Quiz.  The arcade is what it is and helps get people to come by and at least play if they aren't posting.  The Quiz has been good, but I've begun to have a weekly "fast" contest with it.  It runs daily for 5 days and forces those players to log in every day to play a 10 question quiz.  I have a group of hard cores that enjoy that and miss it when I forget to do it.

Run little word games.  A fellow Admin (thanks, Yahmez) turned me onto some forum games.  Picture games from the regional area have been popular.  The best one I have so far is the "Three Word Story".  Someone starts with three words and everyone after adds their three words, and so on.  It is up to 30+ pages and people may come and post only to that topic daily.  Here is a link to some word game ideas:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_game

Find obscure information and facts that are strange.  I check out Mental Floss.  Other users check out The Onion.  Give people something to read that isn't standard on news/sports/info sites.  I have found that for every post, there are at least 10 lurkers who are reading and never posting.  Give them that nugget to help spark that comment.

Not all of the ideas that I've had work.  Evolve the forum.  Leaving it static may seem easy, but it gets boring.  Change as people's tastes change but keep to a certain structure that will help people find the stuff that they are looking for.  Monitor your site stats to see what searches bring people to your site too.  Stats can indicate certain trends.

For some background, I have had my forum up since 2007.  Before that, I ran an old BBS in the late 80's.  I don't have thousands of users or posts a day, but I do have people that make coming by a habit and are regulars.  Don't rule out doing some kinds of advertising, either free or inexpensive.  The cheapest is to add signature links to your profiles at other forums, like here.  The bottom line, running a forum is hard work to keep things fresh.  Don't ever give up on doing that.  Once people start coming by, people will spread the word by mouth or e-mail or whatever.  Be happy with your core group of members and treat them like its their community, since it is. 

Thanks for letting me post my two cents.  Hopefully it might help someone along the way.

[Liam.]

Thanks for those ideas. I generally like the idea of having a Quiz based on the website's topic, I've not really done it myself, but I've had a forum games board (with post count disabled), on all of the sites that I run, and it usually works. An Arcade doesn't fare very well on a business forum, for example though; but gaming and general it works well