What makes a forum popular?

ok here we go...

I run a forum for 1 year now. My stats are growing every month. I now have 40000 visits per month. I think this is a good number for a 1 year old forum.

However, I only have 850ish members and maybe 20-25 of them are active.

According to my numbers... is my forum having a normal growth ?

 

Hard to tell if your forum is growing at a 'normal' rate. Perhaps that's just how many people are interested in the topic, especially given how your forum tends to be about a fairly niche one.

As for the general question of what makes a forum popular... it's extremely hard to tell. I guess good content, design, etc all have a part to play in that, but if we knew what made a forum successful immediately, then admin sites like Admin Talk wouldn't need to exist.

 

I think any active members less than 10% of your total members means something is up. Your able to get members to sign up which is great but it looks as if they aren't sticking around very long!
How are you promoting your forum? Are new members not finding what they came for at your site? Did they sign up originally due to a contents or promotion and then leave?

You have to find out what's causing your Retention rate to be so low.

Have you checked that none of your 850 members are not spam or bot accounts?

It's all about researching the problem area and implementing a fix ;-)

 

Maybe 250 accounts are from spam/bots from the early months when no anti-spam was installed.

I ran many giveaways to attract members, I guess this is why they came for the giveaways and never came back

 

Answer this....

Why would someone come to your forum?

Why would someone participate on your forum?

What would someone come back day after day?


Figure that out... and do more of it.

I am on an ipad right now, and do not see your forum... but how is the content?
Do you do a newsletter?

Send out an email to all the members. Get them talking.

 

Those are the questions I've been asking myself during all the last year... LOL

 

Great list of questions to gives us forum masters something to work towards. We need to give users a longer list of answers to these questions to ensure we have a good activity and retention rate.

How soon would you guys suggest sending out a Newsletter out with a new forum? I mean 25 members, 50 members 100+ members or more?

 

You shouldn't really be worrying about the member counts, just make sure it keeps going up. Make sure your forum is unique, and keep promoting it, so it can get more popular. Any progress is progress, so just keep making progress.

 

This is an awesome list - and if one can get the answers, there are great chances of success. I think I should try out with the newsletter thing on the forum.

 

I would say that the number one thing that attracts guys to your forums is the topics that are being discussed, the informative or hot the topics are the more people would be coming back to your forum. Also, giving away free stuff like eBooks and software can be a real magnet.

 

The number one thing that gets members and keeps members is having people on the forum who care what they have to say.
Genuine interest in what the member has to say, not feigned interest and half-assed participation.
Members have to be engaged by someone or preferably several someones who share a like interest.
People aren't stupid. They know when someone is posting just to post or replying just to reply.
That more than anything else will drive members away.

 

Friendly, helpful community. Plenty and interesting posts/topics.

 

Provide them something they can't get anywhere else. Keep an open mind about what that something is. Could be unique content, unique service, or as simple as a sense of belonging. I think it is as simple as that.

 

I think content and interest are key. if your forum is known as either an authoritative forum on your subject or that you have a constant stream of informative news and views, then people would return. The problem would seem for me at the moment is generating initial momentum to achieve a satisfactory level of interest to attract new members.

 

I should also add that a reason why my forum in particular has got off to an easier start is because I "poached" members from another forum. Long story short, but the forum I used to belong to died recently due to poor administration and many were looking for a new home, which I provided. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive in regards to how well a community we've established (the old one had a lot of arguments etc).

So yeah, good management and engagement is an integral part of a forum and it's success.

 

I ran a forum for a long time and still do run a current one but what seemed to boost my activity was daily events like posting events to win donator or to win like real money from paypal it seemed to boost all my activity

 

There are many reasons for this that "why one comes to your forum"? it is a good question but there are many answers to this question and some comes for discussion and some comes for business.

 

I'd keep my eye on other RC related forums and see what you think they are doing well then find a way to do it better. Find what they are lacking and give it to your members.

Also use sites like this one and see what others are doing in their forums that you like see what you might be able to incorporate into your site even if not in your niche.

 

You're right. I look at others forums and take notes of what they are doing well or wrong. As long as my stats grow I'm fine but I definitively like more members.

However, I consider my forum popular...Not the most popular but popular

 

One method of gaining active members is to develop friendships with your members. Can you handle having a lot of friends? If yes, then start emailing them asking where they have been (individually of course) and start getting to know them, befriending them and giving them that oomph to want to come back to the forum to be around you and your company. Practice that and more of them will become active.