I run an education portal called www.gyancentral.com, we get quite a descent amount of traffic however the user engagement seems to be low. It is a vbulletin forum linked to joomla and php melody and joomsocial with single sign on and administrative panel. Your inputs would be appreciated.
I learned this from @cpvr, you should have a general discussion board on your forum, and try to have fun with your users in that section, and it encourages them to get more involved in the community.
Are you asking your users questions? Such as when they introduce themselves? Are you providing them unique content that can't be found anywhere else? Have you ran a contest?
This and this. Contests are a surefire way to get more people in and active...as well as a General Discussion forum. At the end of the day, people make sick of taking about ontopics and the general discussion allows them to kick back and relax a bit
Are you putting up new posts to try to get people interested in joining the conversations. A agree in the importrance of having general talk sections and a section for people to provide introductions. I also agree that contests can really get things going as well if things are a little slow for a time.
Asking a question and seeing if your user base can answer it, is another way to create engagement among the community. Also, seeing what they're hobbies are, what are some are their favorite Youtube clips? How do they feel about the current US economy? Let's see, did you ever have a favorite teacher? What are some things you wish you were taught as a kid? Threads like that, really, I think are quite powerful.
