Getting Members
 

Does anyone have any ideas on how to get members at my board. I have only have 7.

http://www.pcgaminghq.net/forum

post the link in chat rooms, on any other msg boards you post at, and if youre not too embarassed make flyers and hand them out =)

Enable referrer system so that people promote your board for you.

good, dynamic, updated and required information in a web site is the key to get visitors. Having visitors in the web site is the key to increase board members :D

Mayb you can start by making the colors more appealing. The first impression was the colors are quite boring for a gaming site which shld be bright and vibrant.

There are a lot of game boards around so users may be asking "What does this board has to offer and how different it would be?"

Trying exchanging some links with small gaming communities or perhaps co-brand with similar small gaming boards.

Don't give up dude. It will take some time. Trust me! :)

Thanks... :(

Do you think you could sign up, that would help me :p

I'm signing up now, but I connect from school and after looking my logs, I know that they will block the site and I won't be able to visit again. Anyway, you shoule create a better style set. The colors are not that attractive.

Well it goes with my site at http://www.pcgaminghq.net

Thanks!

How about setting up some more forums? Eg for the most popular PC games. Maybe one for non-pc games such as Xbox/PS2?

Start some threads yourself to give people something to read and think about replying to.

Just a few friendly suggestions :)

Darren.

Ok, thanks. But I've heard that you don't want to make too many forums because then its more obvious that there are no threads.

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe you could possibly sign up and post? :p

Don't make an enormous amount of forums, but make enough forums so that users have something to post in. It goes without saying you are probably not going to fill up the forums with posts in a single day, but given time, they will start to come to :).

I would also suggest making it pleasent for all members and visitors that come to your board. The nicer looking your board is, the more they are going to remember your forum over that of someone elses.

If you are not too good with graphics design (in which some people are not, nothing wrong with that), I would suggest maybe installing some additional style sets for them to choose from. I myself am one that likes a selection, when possible, I would try to give my members the same opportunities I would like. I have a few style sets you can download and customize to your liking at BBAddons (see link below):

http://www.bbaddons.com/vb/pafiledb....=category&id=1

Good luck with your website and your forum :)

- SaintDog

Well I did a search for *Top Site Lists* and joined a bunch of those types of things. You have to vote to keep your banner up on them but doing this I got alot of members that way :D

Advertise wherever you go...

But not blaitently...

Just have a link in your sig, and people will take a look...

~*Julie*~'s site just got a visit from me, because I noticed a link in her sig...

The fact that you have to be logged in to view the board turned me away, but it looked fairly nice...

Satan

advertise to anyone u can, i got around 100 members just by advertising on my IM devices, and a few others on other forums i visit, just joining someone elses forums and advertising is wrong though, so advertise on a forum which you will continue to post on

I got my first 100 members by holding a referal contest. The first member to refer 20 other members wins a item you choose to give away. Worked very well for and rather quickly.

Yeah we changed that, I realized that was turning people off, you can stop by now if you want and lurk ;)

This is a very good idea. It works alot.
Also, setting up a sort of allie system between fellow sites. You can see this alot in the anime community, you may know this as affiliation, not only does this help you get your site out to people, this is a good chance to get the visitors to come to your site, and to impress them.

But how many are active members?


I think the 'quality' (for lack of better term) of the member is more important than the quantity of members. What good is a million registered members when only twenty post?

:disappointed:

A million looks good :-D

Well if you have a million members visitors think that this site is pretty cool since it has so many members and they decide to join.

Anyways I don't really know, FFL has been up for a while but we have to keep restarting because we have the worst luck in the world =\ You really just need to get your friends online that are interrested in the type of thing and get them to join, and get your friends from other sites to get them to join.

After you have around 100 members your site should start going pretty well, whenever FFL hit 100 members we started getting 4-10 members a day, however we keep having downtime and it sucks.

I get my members to recruit other members also, like since FFL is a FF website and we have a gil thing and itemshop thing we give out gil for each recruited member. The members we already have enjoy getting more gil so they will recruit members.

That's all I really do, I don't spend much time recruiting, I just add a link in my sig where ever I go.. except here because I'm too lazy and the forums are down right now anyways.

I am in the same boat, i am just starting my site out. So i should affiliate, sort a referal sytem out, advertise on other forums i post in (in my sig) and perhaps advertise on msn etc ?

Just curious - do u guys make any money from your boards or is this something that u do for fun?

Thanks

I do it for fun.

never asked for money and never will :classic:

Well, mot of us, have boards that are for fan sites, and some of us here have it to offer help. I don't accept money, and I don't think I will be making money with the board.

Drk

Whatever you do, don't spam other forums. :) I always get people spamming forums - they register once, spam it all over, and then never come back.

That is very bad netiquette amongs forum admins.

Inactive members is the worst part about forums, but also the biggest part. On my forum I have a small group of members, although most of them post regularly on a daily basis. I delete members who fail to reach 10 posts and have been inactive for 5 days, because those members usually aren't coming back. It might "look good" having a forum with 9000 members, even though 6000 of them are inactive a great deal of the time (while 3000 of those have a 0 post count).

The only flaw to this strategy is most people like to join see the registered members, and instantly think all members at that forum are active members and post regularly. Which is almost never the case. This is why I'm fairly soon going to devise a system to fix this..

Anyway, to not get carried away from the topic. Putting links in your signatures is always a pretty good way to get attention. Join other forums also, and become a poster there, and if you're liked enough there people will become curious and visit your links to your site.

Going to chat rooms is also a great way for advertisement :P
(even though 99% of time you get banned after the first link)

Also go for affiliate programs/banner exchanges, or anything else that means promotion.

I'm with you Drk (but if you get any money that you don't want, I'll be a real pal and take it off of your hands for you. That's what friends are for. ) :)

Thanks Buddy! ;)

Thanks Buddy! ;)

Thanks Buddy! ;)

Thanks Buddy! ;)

4 "Thanks, buddy" messages? You must be in need of me taking that money off of your hands badly. :) I'm here for you! :)

A dead looking forum tends to drive away potential visitors. In the past, others have suggested that you create a few fake accounts and talk to yourself. Make the place LOOK active and it will become so. Somebody even suggested a fake flame war as a way to entice people to participate.

I never had a problem getting members. We had about 200 sign up in our first weekend of operation. Of course, we were affiliated with a very definite user community and there was a need for the board. If you can manage that, finding members is the easy part :D

Amy