How to get new members posting?

[Legendary]

One of my forums has over 40 members (woot!) but...none of them are posting.

TL;DR We've had quite a few new members in the last week due to personal invitations handed out by myself and my staff members, so I am wondering what I should do to get the newbies posting?!

Instead of a private welcome message, I created a specific thread that new members are taken to straight after they join. The letter welcomes them and links them to different pages/threads on the site accompanied by a brief description (the rules, the map [FAQs], info about the money system/shop, a link to create a new intro thread, and a link that takes them to their profiles so they can edit it). Despite all this, it does not seem to work. Some of the newbies will edit their profiles but won't even make an intro thread.

My staff and I are more than willing to welcome folks with open arms, but they don't seem to feel the same despite taking the time to register.

Not really asking for opinions on my forum, but I'm sure some of you might want a visual to get a bigger picture on how to help...So here is the link theblackvine.boards.net

Any halp? Please?

[Chrissiest Chris]

I'm having the same problem. I only have 17, and four of the latest joined within the span of two weeks, yet only one has started posting. One lurk, the the remaining never returned. Even though one got around to changing their avatar :/

What I try to do is make some sort of interaction with them, without PMing them saying "please post", because that would look needy. I've brought them up in the shoutbox casually, like a guy named "wecouldacarpooled" whom I asked if his name was a reference to an episode (of the series my forum is based on). And of course I just try to post as often as possible so the forum looks active. But it's hard when you make the majority of the posts yourself. My most prominent members have around 150 posts and I have 400.

[Legendary]

Chrissiest Chris it's crazy isn't it? I'm kind of questioning why some of them joined in the first place, but I know I shouldn't do that.

I have about 640 posts on the forum now, and the number climbs higher and higher because I post A LOT. Nothing seems to entice my membership at all.

I have sent out announcement and newsletter emails to my members but that didn't do anything either. I don't think people check their email enough nowadays to see stuff like that, and I'm sure many unsubscribed...

Hopefully you and I will have luck rub off on us. I don't want to give up on it.

[Pebbles]

Nov 9, 2016 21:34:16 GMT -8 Legendary said:

One of my forums has over 40 members (woot!) but...none of them are posting.

TL;DR We've had quite a few new members in the last week due to personal invitations handed out by myself and my staff members, so I am wondering what I should do to get the newbies posting?!

Instead of a private welcome message, I created a specific thread that new members are taken to straight after they join. The letter welcomes them and links them to different pages/threads on the site accompanied by a brief description (the rules, the map [FAQs], info about the money system/shop, a link to create a new intro thread, and a link that takes them to their profiles so they can edit it). Despite all this, it does not seem to work. Some of the newbies will edit their profiles but won't even make an intro thread.

My staff and I are more than willing to welcome folks with open arms, but they don't seem to feel the same despite taking the time to register.

Not really asking for opinions on my forum, but I'm sure some of you might want a visual to get a bigger picture on how to help...So here is the link theblackvine.boards.net

Any halp? Please?

i get it too on my forum
people sign up and then do not post or forget about it
i mean, it happens on EVERY forum out there
so it is not you doing things totally wrong really

all i can say is ; be creative and try think of ideas that would attract people more to post after registering
as for me, i do send them a welcome pm but what you doing is basically the same i guess

[Legendary]

Nov 10, 2016 11:35:20 GMT -8 Pebbles said:

i get it too on my forum
people sign up and then do not post or forget about it
i mean, it happens on EVERY forum out there
so it is not you doing things totally wrong really

all i can say is ; be creative and try think of ideas that would attract people more to post after registering
as for me, i do send them a welcome pm but what you doing is basically the same i guess

This was reassuring! Thanks!

I added more things to our forum shop and included an "advert" which you can see on the desktop version in the site info. Mostly for XMAS stuff.

I am talking with some staff right now to draft some ideas for membership perks. I wish the Monetary Shop was an "automatic" thing so people can buy display name and avatar changes, username styling, signatures and all that but we gotta work with what we've got.

[Chrissiest Chris]

Nov 10, 2016 11:33:47 GMT -8 Legendary said:

Hopefully you and I will have luck rub off on us. I don't want to give up on it.

I'm not worried, I have a popular enough topic and there little to no other forums dedicated to it. What you gotta do is find a way to reach people.

Pebbles said it, it happens on every forum. But I wouldn't mind if mine had 100 or so members, but with only 17, I need as many posts as I can get. It's disappointing when they don't return. I've been thinking of sending out an e-mail too, or maybe get some sort of gimmick. The scavenger hunt plugin is released, maybe you could try that, see if people would find it fun. I'm gonna try it out.

[Pebbles]

no problem
and i also mass email sometimes
but mostly mass pm to all to let them know about changes and stuff that got added

also, another thing that is very important, which may not apply to you guys but to others often enough
people will not post around as quickly IF YOU not bother creating interesting threads for them to reply to

sometimes i see people creating forums and they just wait and expect people to create many threads themselves... which does not always happen and that leads to empty or inactive boards and that makes your forum look bad too

its like inviting people to a party and then freak out nobody is dancing.... maybe turn on some music first?
if you know what i mean

[Chrissiest Chris]

I try to make enough threads for the forum to look active and interesting, but not too much so it seems like I'm the only one posting. Most of them only get two replies, I've been trying to engage in discussion but it's difficult with so few people.

[Kami]

this is a problem that every forum faces like... my forum is 12 years old and while people post it's by no means the entirety of our population. it just happens. people are busy, they're forgetfull. all you can do is to keep on being as active as you can be yourself.