Help with forum activity?

Question

Ok, I have a forum and when members join all they do is look around the forum and never come back. Or if they do come back they do the same thing and don’t post. When they do post they post once and never come back. Me and all my staff is doing all the posting. And they (members) don’t even reply to the post all they do is look

I had my forum to were guest could see the forum, however, that was until they were taking stuff off our site and not giving credit to us (or the members they took it forum).

I have done every thing I tried contest of all types. I email them and asked what they would like to add or any feedback nothing. I have a feedback forum were they can give ideas anonymously.

I mean I try and be nice but it seems only the forums with mean staff and mean owners are active. I can’t see how and why they would post on a forum like that. I mean our forums have no set topics at all we just ask them to keep it clean. I do not know what to do I posted my forum every were I could but like I said they come and look t the forum and leave or they join and don’t post. Or Post once and don’t come back.

If it helps here are just a few things you can talk about on our forum.

Community Forums, Video Games Forums, Movie Forums, Music Forums, Sports Forums, Rap Forums, Rap Battle Forums, Free Style Forums, BMX Forums, Computer Forums, Surfing Forums, Skateboarding Forums, Teen Forums, Guy Forums, Girls Forums, Advice forums, Graphic Forums, Tutorials Forums, Renders Forums, Fan Fiction Forums, Gay & Lesbian Forums and so much more.

Forum Link if it helps
http://z9.invisionfree.com/CTForum/

Answer 1

Having your forum set to 'only viewable by members' is generally a terrible idea. It means that:

(a) people will be put off registering because they've no idea if there's stuff they want to reply to on the forums to start with and
(b) anyone who does register might do it then find it's not busy enough to make it worth sticking around, which is pretty much what you're seeing.

Think about it, if you were a random member of the public and you were forced to go through a registration process just to view the content on a site you've no idea if you'd even like, would you bother? I certainly wouldn't.

Any content put up on the internet can be 'stolen' that's just the way it is and if you don't like that then don't upload it in the first place, but that's not a reason to try and lock a forum down as it'll only drive people away (or, more likely, stop them signing up in the first place).

The only time you can get away with locking a site like you've done is if you've already got a reputation that'll make people want to register; or you're offering content that people will want to register specifically for (I'm thinking of some things like members only BitTorrent sites here). By your own admission yours is just a general discussion site and that's not the kind of thing people are likely to sign up to blind when there are hundreds of thousands of alternative out there that people *can* check out before they sign up.

Answer 2

If your gripe is, lack of visitors or lack of *return* visitors, then 2 suggestions (and I haven't looked at your forum to offer more; I've just looked at your list of topics): (1) Narrow the list of topics. Make your forum set narrower so that it is more *essential* to people of a particular interest group. Because, now, the topics are so widespread, for example, people who are interested in one of your topics may be driven away by the fact that they see you are also focusing on a wildly diverse other topic (like apples and oranges, see?) (2) Link to other forums of like mind, and get them to return the favor by linking to you! Post the links high up and visible, so that folks will see the links right away upon first opening your website! That will be another indicator of the focus of your website, and of your sincerity in being interested the topic(s) on which you've focused.

In short, be meaningful, don't try to be everything to everyone!

Answer 3

Hey...City O, "I'll say it......you are forum(ed) out" Every now
and then you just got to grab-em'-up and wizz down their collar.
You will get a response !!