Post by Zimm on Feb 6, 2015 1:48:20 GMT -5
Keeping members engaged on a forum is a hard job. All forum owners dream of running a successful and active forum. In order to do this, you need to keep your members interested and engaged in your forum. There are several ways you can do this. You can keep members interested and engaged in your forum by remaining active on your forum, creating new content daily, and offering something that other forums in your genre do not offer.
Remaining Active
It is important for administrators and staff team members to remain active on forums they own or work on. Visiting daily shows the current and potential members of your forum that support is available to them if they need it. They will notice if you are logging in and if you are posting on a regular basis. It’s sad to say this, but, set the example and your users will follow. This is more of a common sense thing.
As an act of being active; respond to your members posts, answer any questions that your users have and show interest in what your members have to say and or what they do. Always welcome new members to your forum and ask them questions to get them out of their shell. Follow up with your members to make sure they are doing alright.
By doing these things, you will show your members that you care about them and you value them. This will help get the members more engaged in your forum. It’s all about leading by example.
Create New Content Daily
Every day, each staff member, should create 3-5 new topics on your forum. New topics equal new discussions. New discussions equal member engagement. When members see new topics, or content to reply to, they are more apt to continue posting on your forums as they will have new discussions to partake in.
Ask your members for suggestions. If your forum has a debate board, create a thread for member suggestions on debate topics. Do the same thing for forum contests. When members see the staff of the forum is interested in what they would like to see, they are more apt to stay engaged and maintain an active status on your forum.
Offer Services/Options
Another way to get members engaged on your forum is to offer a service or option that other forums in your genre do not offer. For example, you can offer your members a member blog where they can post and share the link with their friends. If your community is a graphic design community, you could offer custom themes, custom graphics as well as fill requests for both.
Contests Promoting Engagement
A lot of forums offer contests to their members. One of the most popular forum contests is posting contests. Posting contests encourage members to compete against each other by posting and creating content on the forums. The member with the most additional posts from the contests beginning to the contests end will win the contest.
When running a contest, make sure you offer a prize that the winners will enjoy. For example: you can offer advertising space if your forum promotes advertising, or you can offer custom username styles, custom titles, more PM space, cash prizes and more. The more appealing a contest prize sounds, the more members will want to partake in the contest.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways that you can get your members engaged on your forums. Though the ideas talked about in this article will help with that, there are several other ways to get your members engaged. Mainly, as a forum owner and administrator, you want to be an active member of your forum and so does your staff. You want to show interest in what your members have to say and you want to communicate with your members professionally and effectively. Creating content on a daily basis gives your members new discussions to respond to which gets your members engaged.
Remaining Active
It is important for administrators and staff team members to remain active on forums they own or work on. Visiting daily shows the current and potential members of your forum that support is available to them if they need it. They will notice if you are logging in and if you are posting on a regular basis. It’s sad to say this, but, set the example and your users will follow. This is more of a common sense thing.
As an act of being active; respond to your members posts, answer any questions that your users have and show interest in what your members have to say and or what they do. Always welcome new members to your forum and ask them questions to get them out of their shell. Follow up with your members to make sure they are doing alright.
By doing these things, you will show your members that you care about them and you value them. This will help get the members more engaged in your forum. It’s all about leading by example.
Create New Content Daily
Every day, each staff member, should create 3-5 new topics on your forum. New topics equal new discussions. New discussions equal member engagement. When members see new topics, or content to reply to, they are more apt to continue posting on your forums as they will have new discussions to partake in.
Ask your members for suggestions. If your forum has a debate board, create a thread for member suggestions on debate topics. Do the same thing for forum contests. When members see the staff of the forum is interested in what they would like to see, they are more apt to stay engaged and maintain an active status on your forum.
Offer Services/Options
Another way to get members engaged on your forum is to offer a service or option that other forums in your genre do not offer. For example, you can offer your members a member blog where they can post and share the link with their friends. If your community is a graphic design community, you could offer custom themes, custom graphics as well as fill requests for both.
Contests Promoting Engagement
A lot of forums offer contests to their members. One of the most popular forum contests is posting contests. Posting contests encourage members to compete against each other by posting and creating content on the forums. The member with the most additional posts from the contests beginning to the contests end will win the contest.
When running a contest, make sure you offer a prize that the winners will enjoy. For example: you can offer advertising space if your forum promotes advertising, or you can offer custom username styles, custom titles, more PM space, cash prizes and more. The more appealing a contest prize sounds, the more members will want to partake in the contest.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways that you can get your members engaged on your forums. Though the ideas talked about in this article will help with that, there are several other ways to get your members engaged. Mainly, as a forum owner and administrator, you want to be an active member of your forum and so does your staff. You want to show interest in what your members have to say and you want to communicate with your members professionally and effectively. Creating content on a daily basis gives your members new discussions to respond to which gets your members engaged.