What are the best ways you've found to get members?

[Former Member]

What are the best ways you've found to get members for your forum?

[Søren]

Advertise a lot and make the forum seem a fun and friendly place. Most members I have are from seeing adds then thinking the forum looked cool so joined

[adm1n0]

Make sure you post unique content that can't be found elsewere ... Members will come then.

[Kami]

1. Good content and advertising go pretty much hand-in-hand. You can have great content but if you don't advertise, no one will come; on the flip side, you can have great advertising but if you have poor content, no one will stay.

2. A clearly stated purpose is absolutely vital. It doesn't matter if you're a general chat forum, or a more specialised genre forum (RP, tech, gaming, etc), guests want to know what kind of forum it is immediately. If they cannot tell within the first ~30 seconds, they will probably leave.

3. Fair and communicative ACTIVE staff will go a long way into convincing people to stay. Whether it's a solo-admin staff team, or a group of people, guests become members if they see the staff are fair in arbitrating issues and have open communication with their members about most (not all) things. If they see you getting into arguments with members, or publicly humiliating members, and so on, they'll leave. Notice that I didn't say "friendly" or "nice" -- there are plenty of "friendly" and "nice" staff teams that are not effective moderators. Being fair doesn't always mean being friendly or nice. For instance, my forum once had a very combative member who liked to push everyone's buttons. The warning they were issued, and the subsequent message detailing their suspension, were anything but friendly: they were stern and direct. However, the action was fair since their behaviour disrupted the atmosphere of the community.


Ultimately, guests want to join forums that are active (or starting to be active, for new forums), have great staff teams that are capable of balancing a 'professional' moderator tone and their 'member' tone, and have content relative to their interest(s). The exact combination, however, you will have to find out on a trial and error basis as each forum is different.

[Migi]

I find the biggest challenge to be reaching my target audience. Forums with a wide range of topic have more possible targets (although competition is also fierce). Compare them with my forum, which is a specific fan site for a name probably unfamiliar to most people. I do my best to advertise, but it's only possible if I know where to find the ones who may be interested.

[Former Member]

I'm with Søren and Kami on this one, my members said they liked the title, the versatility of having a variety of dark and light themes, the friendliness, fun, and the simplicity.

I have this thing about "little is more"!

Advertise, Advertise, Advertise, is always the key besides patients.

I advertise here with proboards, and at my Twitter and Google Plus accounts as well. 

[Retread]

Oct 25, 2017 10:06:35 GMT -8 ahawkua said:

What are the best ways you've found to get members for your forum?

The best way I've found to get new members for MY forum might not be the best way for you.  Then again, it might.
I don't know what your forum is about and whether what I did, can be of any use to you.

One word sums it up:  Networking.

About twelve or thirteen years ago, I started participating on Guitarnuts2 (under a different user name than I currently use).  I would visit other DIY guitar forums and offer advice when questions were asked that I could answer.  The other forums were generally okay with putting a link in one's signature, but it's considered rude to just blatantly solicit on their space.  And someone who's sole purpose is to get new members for their own forum is not the image you want to project anyway.  So you tread lightly when doing such things.

Basically the concept works like this:  You visit their forum and have the benefit of learning a few things from their staff and membership.  They benefit from some expertise you might supply.  Meanwhile, some of their members might choose to spend some of their time at your home, for areas where you and your membership have more to offer.

It's win-win if you do it right.  Poor form and extremely rude if you do it wrong. 
Obviously, you'll want to be on your best behavior and exhibit your most polite self while doing that.
A polite visitor might inspire others to look at what that visitor does in his own space.
A rude visitor won't.

[logandektin]

I use social media alot.

[voxxdebates]

I link alot of threads on FB. Especially in FB groups with similar content.

[Bubby Aroura]

Try making a good forum before you attract an Audience. Make sure to build it up, add plugins, a wide variety of themes, make good rules.

In case someone decides to join your forum before it's finished, put it in (00ps I f0rg0t the name) build mode. Build mode (whatever it's called) will disable members besides staff from being able to veiw the forum until you turn it off.

Don't forget to do test threads for plugins! If you have a plugin that affects threads, you need to make a staff-only test thread. On sites, Creature Hunt ll may need to get a look-see before you let any members play with it. Same for VSpoiler and ColorSmear. But, these are only examples of plugins that affect threads.

Now once your forum is built, turn Build Mode off. This will allow people into your forum. Go ahead and put up fliers and such, that will get you no fans so advertise online in other forums instead. Make sure your ads are allowed, you may be seen as a bad person if you do not abide to rules. Read the rules of your target forum first-especially on RPs like The Wild Side.

Make sure people stay active-a lot of inactivity will kill your site. Make sure to stay active yourself-inactive admins do much more damage to a site than inactive members and you may begin to lose members. If you lose to many members, your site will die!

Anyway, that's my guide to making a site. PM me if this is flawed.

[saltin]

Registering your site with the major search engines maybe useful to you.

[Bubby Aroura]

Ooh I have never tried that! Can you tell me how?