How to get members?

[kuyenmotdivad]

Hi,

I have had my site online since the 1ST of September and no one as joined yet, I have followed the advice here : http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=275800 to stop spam and registration bots and still no one joins.

Anyone got any advice in how to get people to join?

Thanks

[Wayne Luke]

Do you have traffic that isn't referred by this site? The first goal is to build traffic through any means necessary. Once people start visiting then you need to have content to engage them and get them interested in your site and want to join in.

[MRGTB]

Hi,

I have had my site online since the 1ST of September and no one as joined yet, I have followed the advice here : http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=275800 to stop spam and registration bots and still no one joins.

Anyone got any advice in how to get people to join?

Thanks

Some people here won't agree with me on this, create a few "fake" accounts and then use them to post under different names. It may sound silly, stupid, and a little sad. But to guests coming - it looks like you have active members. And you can get much more content posted under different names, instead of everything being posted under just your name. Others do it, they just don't admit it!

And as far as I can see, thats the only way to kickstart a forum. Because nobody is going to be interested in a forum with a handful of threads posted by just one person (the owner). You could of course go the other route (article writing), but thats a very slow process and your site in a general discussion site anyway not suited for article writing.

[kuyenmotdivad]

Do you have traffic that isn't referred by this site? The first goal is to build traffic through any means necessary. Once people start visiting then you need to have content to engage them and get them interested in your site and want to join in.

At the moment I have it so guests can only view the announcements threads, do you think I should make it so they can view all other forum threads as well?

[Wayne Luke]

At the moment I have it so guests can only view the announcements threads, do you think I should make it so they can view all other forum threads as well?
Yes... You cannot restrict content on a new site unless you have a guaranteed purchasing/registering audience. Content is what is going to sell your site and get people to visit. After you have that initial viewership and people start to register then you can introduce "premium" incentives to get them to keep registering.

People should be able to view all content but not contribute until they register. There is no need to contribute to your threads about the vB Blog or welcome.

[MRGTB]

To be honest, at first I would also create a Guest Board as well. And allow guests to post messages there. But control what they can do on that board using the permissions to limit them. vBuleltin has great permission options to control guests very well.

The aim of the game at this point is to try and get some messages posted, be it from guests or whatever. It's still content from guests, and content is what you need!

I agree with Luke, the way your thinking is you think people will join your board because they can only see the annoucement. It doesn't work that way, and most people will simply bypass your site because of that. I for one hate sites that don't show you content unless you join first to see it. Sites that normally do that kind of thing are file sharing sites etc. People can always view a cached versions of pages anyway, if the permissions are not set-up right without having to register.

[kuyenmotdivad]

Thank you for the help guys, I will make the contents available to all. :)

[pk698]

Nice looking site. It's clean looking and easy on the eye.

Sometimes I see new admins have a lot of forums like 20-30, with hardly any posts in those forums. From a visitor's perspective, this looks "empty" as if no one wants to post.

What you have going is fine, I probably wouldn't make more forums, until you get more members.

Instead, start topics in those forums so as to get something in there to get the ball rolling.

You can also register multiple accounts and reply to your own topics, this will make your visitors know that your forum isn't completely dead. This is hard because you're replying to your own post, and sometimes you don't know what to say.

Link exchange with other similar sites might also help, as well as adding your site to directories. You can also get friends to help you post, just to get the initial activity going. You can also post on other forums and put your site in your sig (as you're doing now).

All in all, content is mostly king.

Good luck.

[cheat-master30]

I forgot to add something to this topic that may be of use... this month is a pretty bad time to start a forum, since a lot of people will be just going back to work/school/college/university and won't have a lot of time for online forums. This does often cause an inactivity period in many forums, and one reason for very few members may be because you started the forum at a bit of a dead time of year.

[peterska2]

Another thing that you can do is look for other sites that are just starting up and offer to post on their site if they post on yours. Sometimes people will also drop by and make a post or two if asked. You can also go down the hired posters route if you have the funds to do so and wish to have an instant influx of posts. Of course with this you have to remember that once they have done what they have been paid for that they will stop posting and probably not come back again, so you would need to keep up posting some other way after that if you still don't have many real members posting.

[Chousho]

How to get members?
Have you considered chloroform?

[MRGTB]

You can also go down the hired posters route if you have the funds to do so and wish to have an instant influx of posts.

I know that's an option, but my feeling are why bother paying people to come and post new threads when their never going to return and remain active after you stop paying them. They then just become dead accounts that they started. The same way you can create hundreds of fake accounts and do the exact same thing for free, with the same end result.

Inactive accounts!

For example, there are thousands of free article directories out there to take content from legally. Then just use fake accounts to reply to them. Thats one way to do it quite easy and get loads of content going. Just use your imagination a little.

And if your worried that members may moan that you have fake accounts, just tell them your not sure if they where bots that registered and got access to post.

[Floris]

If you have an empty forum, with no posters, with no active staff, and without online users .. it looks dead empty to the visitor. This results in them going 'uhm, this might be a boring place, why would I register?'.

So post on your site every day. Perhaps post as a non staff member too.
Ask your staff to post every other day.
And perhaps consider exchanging posts with other sites, or advertise on other web sites to drive traffic to yours.
Don't forget to submit your site to search engines, to social networks, and to public directories. This creates traffic, back links, and more importantly. Direct hits from users running into your site.
You can consider hiring posters from sites like forumsfirst.com.
You can also find out if there are competitor sites who offer public RSS feeds you can use (like news or other fun data) that you can import as new threads into your own site to start discussions (use partial content + give credit to source and author of course).
Invite your friends over to check the site out. And ask them if they're interested in the topic to come and register and post.
Don't email your members every week. Do a bi-monthly (for now) newsletter out to provoke them a month later that there's new content for them to check out - this creates return traffic and regular users.
Don't put up too many forums, and do not restrict users too much.

On http://wetalk.tv I have lowered all registration blocks the first two months, so everybody who I invited only had to enter a name and password and email, and they were registered, they could instant submit content. Once the spam started we turned on one restriction. And once that got worse we turned on captcha too, etc. Until we're now a year further down the line with over a thousand members.

Do not open with 500 forums, don't start with 1 for guests only.

Remember, when you get spam, that still counts.. You still get members+1 and thread or posts + 1

9 posts and 9 members, and 9 online users, still looks better than 5.

You can ofcourse move the content to the private archive forum, and ban the spammer. But the spam bots also help you make your online stats look more active than it is. This provokes people to 'oh, it looks busy here, if I register and post too, I can have a fun time'.

Don't open up all your features in one go. Do not overwhelm your visitors with arcade, with groups, albums, forums, chat, galleries, cms, portals, newsletters, advertisements, etc, etc, etc. It's too much.

They have to spend 1 second on the site and instantly see what is going on. What is this site about, what is going on here, where do I find content I might like, where do I submit content I don't see posted yet.

And when they come back, oh look .. I can live chat, or I can blog too... etc.

Over time introduce new features which helps the first members to come back and try out more and become return traffic/ regular members.

There's also a mod I created on vBorg that lets you set fake statistics. Your online stats could look a bit more active. Which helps in the beginning.

If you have 10 posts, set it to +3 so you have 13 total. If you have 5 online users, add 4 more, so you appear to have 9 online users. It will look a bit more active than it is. And of course, be subtle. And over time when you get more real users you can lower the stats .. 50 online users? Perhaps stop faking this amount of only add a few more. This point is very debatable. But it is up to the admin to consider. Think about this: If you have 5 threads, 6 posts and 2 users online. Versus having 9 threads, 20 posts and 15 uers online .. The latter has proven to be more appealing to visitors to come and register. Someone will complain about this in the following post, but I am not going to discuss that. Of course don't say you have 100,000 posts when your forum only has 10 posts.

Once your forum becomes more naturally active you can invest more into advertising your site, and less into hiring posters. And you can invest more time into writing a newsletter, instead of posting on the site. And you can stop using fake stats, and brag about the real stats. And you can stop posting as a fake non staff user, and you can use that time to update your social profiles and submissions and directory listings, etc.

You can also consider becoming a commercial web site instead of a hobby web site. Get sponsors, advertisers, people / companies who can add funding. Or find a financier who wants to invest into your site and own between 1 and 49% and pays the bills, with an option to find a seller to sell the site in x years after building it. Or do what other sites do and acquire competitor sites and merge with smaller boards, etc. It just depends on how big your budget is and how serious you are about your site. and if you have a business plan.

[Andy H]

Dave,

I really like the look of your site and have signed up. I've started a forum myself at http://www.discexchange.co.uk/forums and am having the same problem in getting it going. It's difficult to start posts when faced with and empty page to begin with.
Good luck,

Andy

[kuyenmotdivad]

Dave,

I really like the look of your site and have signed up. I've started a forum myself at http://www.discexchange.co.uk/forums and am having the same problem in getting it going. It's difficult to start posts when faced with and empty page to begin with.
Good luck,

Andy

Thanks for registering I will have a look at yours and register. :)

[MRGTB]

Dave,

I really like the look of your site and have signed up. I've started a forum myself at http://www.discexchange.co.uk/forums and am having the same problem in getting it going. It's difficult to start posts when faced with and empty page to begin with.
Good luck,

Andy

I saw your site and noticed the logo is totally different colours and your menu bar also. Here try these I've uploaded. See if you prefer them

[Andy H]

MRGTB.

Thanks for that. I'm colourblind so struggle a little with these things. I'll run it past Mrs Andy.
Will the banner you sent match the rest of the site if I just swap it?

It's good of you to take the time to send the image.

[Torres]

I have my own forum with forumotion and we keep getting lots and lots of members.
We ask people we can trust and they won't report you and they just join the forum so you should go ahead and ask a few people that you can trust, here's a good idea.

There's three Admins on my site: Me, IWAO and ryanworldleader, me and ryan created the forum but we needed another Admin so I just randomly pm'd IWAO and he is actually a good forum developer.
We started talking and then he started to become friends with me and then I asked him wether or not does he wasn't to join my site.
He accepted and then we started to add lots of things: Videos, sub forums etc etc... and since then we have been getting members.
So you should just take my advice and just pm someone saying "Hey mate, I can't get over you're post bit, you have organised it well and everything" then ask him a question so that he would reply back.(Not about you're forum) You'll then start to talk and then he'll become good friends with you and then ask him to join you're forum.
Works for me, we have got about 11 members on our forum but we have only just created it.

If you follow everything that I have just told you, you'll be fine. :D

[Floris]

What's the URL to your forum?

[cheat-master30]

He said it was hosted by forummotion, which is a free forum host, so he's not using vBulletin, and his forum can be seen via the home page link in his profile. Although I'm not quite seeing 16 members as lots and lots of members.

[Torres]

I'm also having trouble getting mine up and running:
www.gaminggeneration.forumotion.com (http://www.gaminggeneration.forumotion.com)
We need to add more forums but it's too hard.

Are we aloud to advertise? :confused:

[Wayne Luke]

Are we aloud to advertise? :confused:

We do not allow advertising here. We do however let our customers talk about their communities.

[Floris]

Nice header! I was hoping you were running vBulletin though. ;)

[cheat-master30]

I actually made an article about why you should be a bit more patient than this and why not to worry about how your board is doing yet at vBulletin.org:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=190849

Also, try this to get your forum going, unique and people wanting to stay, as the tips may help:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=187596

Sorry if this seems like promoting, just that this topic was the inspiration for the first article to be written.

[Floris]

Since the link is to vBorg, and they're informational threads, I have no problem with them, specifically since the thread started asked for info on how to improve and grow membership.

[Iwantvb]

Well the best way to get memebers is to do post exchanges. Witch I am personally doing that just for you. And when people here the word Vbulletin forums, your famous lol. I dont know why, everyone loves Vbulletin forums lol. Incloding me! :D

So yes, just find a post exchange site and thats just about all. Witch is what I just found, with over couple thousands of members. You will be having members in know time.

Also, heres a tip. Turn off email varacation, I hate those. I sometimes never receive and email. So I suggest taking that off. So then people will be join. Also another tip is, download hypercam 2 and make videos of your site and put it on youtube. Witch I am also doing for your site.

So I am pretty much trying to get members for you, witch will be in know time. Also, as I said. Post exchanges is the greatest way to get members. Also using a vbulletin forum. Thats what got me to join. ;) So members are on there way.

Tips for post exchanges-

Tip one: Always make your post exchanges like five posts for thirty and that will bring alot of people that will want to exchange with you.

Tip two: Put the link of your post exchange in all of your signatures.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Well thats all the tips I have right now! Contact me if you still need help. :p

[Iwantvb]

Oh, yes one last thing. Always have a good amount of categories and forums. That helps alot with more posts. People end up repling to everything, and then then there isnt anything else to reply to. So keep that in mind.

[Floris]

I disagree.

Start small and only add forums if your content justifies it.

A huge forum with a lot of categories and forums, and no content is too overwhelming, and new users are not provoked to come post in any of them.

[Iwantvb]

I disagree with you. ;)

[Floris]

That's fine. 15 years of building online communities has learned me otherwise, while you have 0 days. Your previous thread "how do you guys build your forums" even shows you have no experience with forum software at all. You can disagree, but I am telling you that you're simply wrong. End of discussion. If you don't know what you're talking about please do not answer questions. It will lead to misinformation.

[Iwantvb]

Hm, well. I was just giving a suggestion. I was answering anything, so I mean what the heck do you mean by keep shut if I can't answer a question? I was just submiting a suggestion. And you come saying no I dissagree. Just a suggestion. So I mean, I dont think you would like to go around trying to help people, and then people come along saying, no I dissagree. No more arguing about this please, I dont want topic to get locked. Thanks-

[Floris]

I mean to consider not answering a question if you do not have the right information.

If I eat a knife, will I die?
You go: "well I never tried it, probably not"
While the answer is "no, do not do that".

I hope this makes more sense.

[Iwantvb]

Hm delete the posts and call it a day shall we. :D Hm, still. I dont like people going around telling me I am not saying its right. AND THIS IS ABOUT A FORUM, NOT KILLING YOURSELF ARE SOMETHONG. LOL!!!!

[Gladius]

LOL indeed.

[Floris]

Hm delete the posts and call it a day shall we. :D Hm, still. I dont like people going around telling me I am not saying its right. AND THIS IS ABOUT A FORUM, NOT KILLING YOURSELF ARE SOMETHONG. LOL!!!!
Unfortn. for you I am a staff member .. we're ending this discussion and you are going to stop trying to pull attitude. First and final warning.

[pranaysanghavi]

Hi,

I have had my site online since the 1ST of September and no one as joined yet, I have followed the advice here : http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=275800 to stop spam and registration bots and still no one joins.

Anyone got any advice in how to get people to join?

Thanks

i can tell u a surefire way to generate visitors, & gradually members quickly. let me know if you interested.

i launched 15th aug, i have 350 verified and 500+ registered by 1st month...

[MRGTB]

what's your secret then, thats a lot of members in a very short time scale.

[pranaysanghavi]

OK sir..
Secrets revealed......right here. (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1624421). for all to see, try, test, criticize, comment and holler. Make sure to follow all of the steps listed to ensure maximum visitors, and even verified registrants.

--'I'm used to not being universally beloved'