How do I get more activity?

[Lacrosse Boy]

Hi.

I have been trying to build up more activity for my site. It is hard though. In other places that I post I have a link to my forums, and so do my moderators. A few people have spread the word, but the site hasn't been growing. I hope that it is not form the numerous changes it has gone through since April. In the beginning, I opted to run Ikonboard . Someone eventually sweet talked me into Invision Power Board about a month and a half later. So I convertd to that. But, my experience with IPB was not trouble free. I experienced SQL problems galore, and I decided to switch to vBulletin, after getting permission from my boss to use the company's license (we decided that we didn't need community software for our site).

I hope that these problems have not caused confusion for people.

The site is located to http://www.todaysmusicforum.com

Please feel free to criticize, rip apart, or compliment, and igve me some ideas for growth.

Thank you!

[bahawolf]

In my opinion, the colors are just way too bright on the eys. You litterly.. need to squint. And, you have too many forums for such a small userbase.. Possibly trim that down. And one last word of advice: Communitys never grow if they don't go about things in a unique way. Members will not signup, if they have seen the same thing repeated 20 times.. Yaxay went about it different, as did many large communitys that you see today. Try to be unique in a way... and do something noone else has ever done.

[vB3Dev.Com]

bahawolf is right.

[BillaBongUSA]

Maybe you should add a more visible link to the forums. It took me ten minutes to figure out that all you needed to do was click on the banner.

Oh, and it doesn't look too bright to me, but I have my brightness turned way down.

[Lacrosse Boy]

I made it because there weren't any music forums on the internet that were active at all. I am committed to make this work.

If you do a search for any sort of music community, you'll either come up with something weird or specific types of music. I wanted to make a site that would encompass all parts of the music industry.

[vB3Dev.Com]

Oh, and it doesn't look too bright to me, but I have my brightness turned way down.

I have my brightness on normal and they are too bright IMHO.

Max

[bahawolf]

Maybe you should add a more visible link to the forums. It took me ten minutes to figure out that all you needed to do was click on the banner.

Oh, and it doesn't look too bright to me, but I have my brightness turned way down.
Heh... another good point. One last word, before I go for the night: Getting a community to be "big".. is hard. No one here can honestly say they didn't have to think, and work, and think some more. I have occassions where I'll sit down for hours... just thinking of ideas for the members. You must remember to also keep the site noob-friendly. Portals can sometimes turn members away, expeccially in your case, because they can't get on the forums. To run a "large" community you need:

1) Patience (ALOT of it..)
2) Ability to work more than you'd like to..
3) Ability to think uniquely.

Good luck to you and your community.

[DirectPixel]

Maybe you should add a more visible link to the forums. It took me ten minutes to figure out that all you needed to do was click on the banner.

Oh, and it doesn't look too bright to me, but I have my brightness turned way down.
I have to agree with BillaBong on this one. If you have a "portal" page, the most important part to getting more traffic through it is to have a very visible and easy-to-find link for the forums.

It took me a few seconds extra to find the forum link as well. Some users wouldn't have the patience for that.

I would suggest adding an extra "forum" button to your nav up top.

[Lacrosse Boy]

I just added a link in large text on the right hand bar. I hope that this helps. Ever since I installed a portal we've gone down in terms of posting and registering (although I installed it as soon as I got vBulletin.)

I suspect that it is because it wasn't easy to get into.

Do you think that the "big text" link should be on the right or left hand side?

[DirectPixel]

It's probably better to put it on the top-left because of the way the eye reads things.:)

[bahawolf]

I just realized... make sure it does not break Invisionboards' TOS to use their graphics, while not using their forum.