New Forum "Rebound"

When you first launch a forum and finally get off the ground, there is an initial burst of activity that you may be able to sustain for a while. But before too long, this activity dies down fairly rapidly.

It seems that after a period of time, members begin to lose interest and just stop visiting - and they all do it at the same time.
This can obviously kill a forum, as activity will die down very quickly.

So what do you do to get out of this mess? Post new threads? Create contests? Send invites? Add new features?

Share your techniques and experiences.

 

If you feed the members, they'll devour nearly everything provided to them - leaving no crumbs and/or leftovers in the process.

It's true - providing a continuous flow of fresh content will keep 'em coming back. Let's say that you run into a sudden burst of inactivity, yet there are many active users online at that very same moment in time. By creating (non-stop) new threads, - or opportunities of discussion - you're kindly reminding and/or inviting these individuals to join in on the fun.

 

True, indeed. But what happens when you run out of fresh content to deliver? You literally have fried your brain creating a thread for every thing there is to talk about in your niche, but you'll eventually run out of ideas.

Then what?

 

Then you advertise, to bring in people to respond to those threads.

 

Additionally you shouldn't be the only one making the threads. If it's a community, then everyone should be involved. Invite those members to start threads about subjects they want to talk about.

 

New forum excitement is great, but I think that things have gotten better as people put more time and effort into their posting.

 

Just keep posting and recruiting...eventually it'll pick up again.

 

My traffic comes and goes in 3, 4 or 5 day burst. There might be an increase for almost a week, then a decline for a few days, then an increase for a few days, then a slight decline.

But over the course of a month, the increases are always greater then the decreases. so its like a roller coaster ride with its ups and downs.

 

I've also found that during the beginning stages of a forum, the activity levels can reach phenomenal heights. Weeks later, these levels will slowly begin to fluctuate up and down, and eventually, the actual "activity level" of a forum will be found, whether it be calculated by the number of posts made or unique visits (per day).

You could be receiving thousands of posts at the start, but as the forum ages, you'll "fixate" on a specific number of posts.

 

That's if you have effective advertising; if you're relying on word-of-mouth and friends, things will probably start slower and hopefully build up.

 

I've actually found "word-of-mouth" advertising to be one of the more effective methods of promotion (via signature links comes in a close second).

 

"Let it be".

Did you ever try to grow a plant? Too much water or fertilizer will kill it as quickly as no water or fertilizer.

If you planted a good seed with great care, it will grow.

 

Oh how I love this post!

Actually, I am a victim of having high activity levels in the beginning and then weeks later, the forum dies. Bird is the Word is a prime example. Launch day and the week of the launch, we reached five hundred posts- now, weeks later, nobody is visiting. We are having plenty of visitors a day, but none of those visitors will register.

My technique to getting activity levels up, well, I don't have one. Like Abomination, I let it be.

 

Well, letting it be isn't that much help. You have to do something to make the plant grow healthier and faster, no?

With out the sun the plan wouldn't grow, without constant care the plan wouldn't grow, with out some fertilizer the plant wouldn't grow stronger.

Letting a plan be, let alone the forum.

You have to constantly market your forum, make it look appealing to the users. [Here we go with the candy!]

When some one goes to find a brand of chocolate unknown, no matter how much care and effort you've put to create that chocolate, letting it be wouldn't help sell. Now advertising your brand, making some giveaways and making the package look modern attracts clients more and more, and clients that once bought when you didn't advertise/first started the chocolate production, will come back seeing as how popular it got.

 

I wish Abomination would come back and respond to your post, FMB. I'm really interested in hearing what he has to say. This thread has become very interesting and helpful ever since Abomination's plant example.

 

I did not realize I was supposed to, sorry!

Good point on the candy/chocolate, but the inside 'scoop' on what is the best usually spreads quite quickly.

When there were pauses I continued in the same direction and I worked on fine-tuning the technical aspects of the forum. I did not change my marketing strategy and continued to focus on the same customer base.

I'm suggesting that AA is a fine place, with good admins which will bring other good people. It is extremely difficult to find admins with good caring attitudes on forums.

 

Another example would be external events out of a forum owners control.

When 4.0 comes out I'm sure this forum will get even busier.

 

I have it in my strategy to always upgrade features and what-not. But I tend to always keep the forum categories the same, I only add to them. I think if you to start changing all your forums and what-not you may aswell consider your current content a lost-cause as the members who posted it could be confused by the change.

When one of my forums gets a bit quiet I can only really blame myself for not looking after it as much as others ones that are busy.

I tend to tackle the issue in a couple of ways. One is to use the high-posters, clearly they liked the place at some point, asking them why they're not to active can give you lots of info, usually member-related-problems and what-not, so then I'd manage that somehow. And off the forum I'd be trying to promote it more, perhaps on related websites, perhaps more optimising on some of the threads not ranking so well, or something of that nature.

Members make forums work and the content. Constantly encouraging members to increase to a 'higher teir' usergroup, whether to a moderator, or some other group with 'special rights' or something can help get the existing regular members active again and encourage new members to join in.

It can be hard on some forums though, some just seem to never take off well. But when one does take off I'm sure you're all aware that it isn't always easy to keep them all. You have to keep your forum better than all your competitors in some way and keep going at it 110%. The moment you leave it a couple of weeks, months, whatever, you're risking your competition getting ahead of you so to speak.

I think members having problems with other members can often loose you activity. So I tend to make sure I'm pushing the friendliness a lot, and try and join in threads getting a bit heated to tell them all to calm down a bit or log off for an hour and have a brew (cup of tea that is). The personal touch usually works better than hitting some temporary ban button or dishing out infractions. Doing those IMO looses you member trust. That said you just have to with some members.

 

@ Abomination. ^_^
True about the inside scoop, but marketing your forum would create people to get interested on what's inside, specially when competitors become aware of your existence, which leads the users to believe that there is something interesting going in the competition therefore WANTING the "inside scoop".

Sad to say, the generation evolves and tastes do too, therefore to satisfy everyone, plus to satisfy ourselves, change will come eventually.

Again, just like a chocolate. Snickers could have gone F I N E selling that only bar, no? But the generation changed, and so did their clients, they have almonds snickers too, dark chocolate snickers, etc. Same as starbursts, you got the normal kind, tropical, sour and so on.

Just as the liking changes, a forum should...eventually anyways. Which that could lead to a "rebound". Specially if the change is good and the administrator has a "new old plan", basically sticking true to the topic of the forum, but just changing some things about it.

When a forum is "dead" and you would want it to "revive" nothing better than some aesthetic changes and advertising.

 

Great thread guys!