Anyone else noticed Summer and August to be a quiet time of year for forums?

To me, that's something I really need some advice on avoiding, because it seems like Gaming/General/Webmaster forums have outright died out during this time of year.

Is anyone else finding summer to be a quiet time of year posts wise, and do they have any ideas how to halt the quietness until September time comes around?

 

Hiya..


We never experiance quiet times...mostly down to ours being trade forums...

Try to keep the content going...occasional competitions keeps them interested...you need to make them want to keep coming back, sort of like an addiction..

 

I know what you mean, but it's also a time personally when there are no major video games being announced, at least not for the console my forum actually covers (or any Nintendo system), hence it's caused an activity drop on a lot of such forums. I'm currently posting topics on a daily basis though, and I am trying to find as many unusual things somewhat related to the topic as possible.

 

I find in the winter/colder months my forum is normally buzzing then in the summer it goes somewhat quiet - damn beaches haha

 

Well, anyone got any ideas to reduce this problem? Would sending a reminder email get back some of the members who haven't visited in a while?

 

Not suffering much actually, stats show highest increasing numbers since march. Sure the established members are on holiday, but they will return.

 

There is a tendency to have lower activity from July through August and October is often the biggest month of the year for us.

So I'm hoping to break 4kposts/day regularly this year, maybe 5kposts/day >_>

 

Summer is usually a quiet period for my forum, but I just checked my stats and it appears that this summer was one of the most active periods in my forum's history.

Attached is a screenshot of my forum's monthly post counts, sorted from highest to lowest (the range is my site's entire history); you can see that April, May, June and July of 2009 take up the top 4 spots. Interesting...

 

What about August so far Nick?

 

This is not something you cannot avoid. It happens on most forums. Kids are out of school, and parents are spending more time with them.

Summer is also peak time for work vacations. So there go the members who visit your forum from work.

Then there's summer vacations, summer camps, summer recreation - all designed to keep the kids busy.

It's unavoidable, unless you have a forum with no parents, and no vacationers. :shrug:

 

Not only during the summer, but weeks that important holidays fall on. Such as Christmas, Easter, etc - holidays where members go on vacation, and may not have internet access.

 

I have noticed that holidays are indeed the quietest. I have participated in other forums where there isn't really a quiet time in the year.

 

August 2009 is 10th on the list with 2,375 posts.

 

Usually with my niche, weather, August could be a busy forum season but this year's tropical activities are slow so there ain't much to talk about

 

I think it all depends on your niche some peoples sites are more popular in august/september because things are happening or they may not be popular over the period because nothing is happening.

 

HAAAAAAA, let's keep it that way buddy.

 

It definitely depends on the niche: my ice cream forum is definitely more active then in winter.

 

Because in the summer, Michelle, people are actually out at vendors enjoying the heat and ice cream!

Shawn, it could be the same scenario for you as well. People are out enjoying the weather rather than talking about it.

A lot of forum niches have slow times during the summer. There's a season for everything, I suppose.