Attracting Members

**BFC** · 04-10-2009, 08:51 PM

I'm just curious what advice others have for someone starting out new to running a forum. What do you do to attract members? What do you do to keep members? Should a web design site have a portal page or have the forum as its frontpage?

Thats all I have for now

Thanks
BFC

**Rizzo** · 04-13-2009, 07:50 PM

Once you have a core group of people i found that they just kept inviting others and so forth.

as for the portal page, i'm interested in that response and i'm not sure.

**juster** · 04-13-2009, 11:01 PM

It very much depends on what the topic of your board is. Some topics will have members who take people with them from other boards, but other ones you have to fight for.
Also the design and a portal or not is a question that only can be answered if we would know more about your board. So if you want more response on this, tell us what your board is or what it is about.

**GL2814** · 04-14-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BFC

What do you do to attract members? What do you do to keep members?

Good relevant threads and posts. It is all about content. Want to keep members and attract new ones you need content that makes people want to post that makes them want to be involved in the conversation.

**2dub** · 04-14-2009, 09:42 PM

I post to similar sites with good posts and have (had one removed my sig) a signature linking back. Got my site off the ground that way.

**Rizzo** · 04-14-2009, 10:12 PM

Sites relevant to mine never allow that *sigh*

**juster** · 04-15-2009, 01:18 AM

Must say I think that is not done. I find it a lack of respect if you advert for your own board on other boards without asking, specialy when that board is the same (or near) the topic your board is about.
I remove it too from my boards.

I also use a signature for visiting guests. They see a banner below every post that they should sign up and join. (is an mod from vb.org, do not remember the name)

**Rizzo** · 04-15-2009, 01:20 AM

I have found allowing people to connect to my site via facebook has been a help (ie when they go to my site there is a 'login using facebook' tag - makes it much easier for them to sign up.

**~kev~** · 05-07-2009, 01:42 PM

Attract members - my primary promotion technique is video blogging. Over the past 2 years I have posted around 320 videos on youtube. And to a less extent other video sites such as metacafe, dailymotion, yahoo video, break,,,

Keeping members - why would the want to leave? I offer the best forum around. I am not a no face admin that my members never get to see. My members know what I look like, what I sound like and even what I like to eat. This helps to create in intimate relationship with the people that join my forum.

**ArnyVee** · 05-07-2009, 02:08 PM

Just starting out, there are several ways to attract members.

Personally, I handpicked many of my first 100 members (or used the other members to refer folks). So, we built a nice big core of members and built from there.

Always have the members help out. They feel like they have a stake in things and feel a big part of the success of the site. Have them post your RSS feed to their Facebook or Twitterfeed or whatever they have setup. Speaking of Facebook...I get a good amount of traffic and membership from my Facebook page and my Facebook account (with 'notes' comes through based on my Twitter and forum RSS feeds) directly.

But, what it all comes down to is content and/or engaging topics and conversations. You see, you can get the visitors to your site, but it's converting them into members and then the challenge of converting them to paying members after that to help with site costs, etc.

Personally, we have a great community that has really gotten behind our efforts to succeed and it's something that is a point of pride for us at TheWDB.com

**Soliloquy** · 05-09-2009, 10:57 PM

The best thing I ever did was install the Yet Another Awards System mod and give members a pretty little graphic next to their names as a reward fo linking to the forum, donating, etc. They love their bling.

**glennybee** · 05-12-2009, 12:39 PM

Run competitions and offer a prize for the most referrals in a month.
Yahoo! Answers is always great for driving traffic, answer questions on your niche and you can add your forum url to the resources box.
You can write a few articles about the niche of your forum and submit them to article directories like EzineArticles, ArticleDashboard, ArticleBase, etc.
Social bookmark all your important posts using software or Onlywire.com. This will help them get indexed quicker and get traffic from search engines.

Visit forums that are in the same niche, what do you like and dislike about them? Take the good things and leave the bad.