How Do Forums Become Successful?

[Lost Soul]

Everytime I create a forums, and I created many in the past, only one had been successful. I'm lucky to get a few members.

I created a forum on naturism, a few on Zelda and some on autism.

What made this forums successful? How do I get members and what am I doing wrong?

I really admire how I go on different forum sites and see they have hundreds or even thousands of members, most of them active members.

 

[VanillaCreme]

-Should be a forum of interest. If people aren't interested in whatever forum, they won't join, no matter how much you may love it.

-Pulling in traffic to the site. Advertising and linking to your forums for those who may be interested in it so they can access it. No point in having a diamond surrounded by coal.

-Being easy and attractive to use. And what I mean by that is, they should be easy to use, and simple enough to look at. I was Admin on a forum, and goodness, it was bloody awful to look at for the longest time. My ex finally changed how it looked, and you could change the skins to it.

 

[Yukhi]

Hi Lost Soul if we're talking about the same Zelda, that's actually Zelda on my avatar. Mind giving me a link to your forum?

 

[Lost Soul]

Hi Lost Soul if we're talking about the same Zelda, that's actually Zelda on my avatar. Mind giving me a link to your forum?

This is my latest Zelda forums, I created the name myself I've got a few people on it but they haven't posted in awhile.

http://triforceofcourage.forums-free.com

Some people told me they wouldn't join becuase there was hardly any members which was dumb, I forum has got to get members. If no one is going to join because of lack of members, then there never will be any members. What they expect, some members to magically appear out of no where? Maybe some bots for members just to make them satisfied, lol.

 

[Yukhi]

Well Lost Soul alot of people are interested in the Legend of Zelda games. That's a good thing

 

[VanillaCreme]

I used to love Zelda.

 

[evanescencefan91]

I think the problem with forums like for books or videogames, is that people lose interst.

Like there will a peak before and a little after the new game or book comes out,

like OMG I'm so excited it's great or they should've done this instead.

But after awhile when there's no new zelda games or harry potter books coming, there really isn't as much to say,

I was on a book forum for a while last summer, but then I lost interest.

With forums like these they're are quite often lonely people with an internet connection, regardless of the time of year,

although we always seem to see a peak of new members after Christmas and new years which is kind of sad.

Also I enjoyed some of the miscalenous thread, like what are you thinking funny pictures and ect

 

[eris]

You could try submitting them to search engines.

Here you can do a bunch of them at once

http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html

 

[csmswhs]

i agree with all the other posters, and your zelda forum is nice to look at. i know there is info out there on the web about community building for cyber communities.

good luck

 

[Lost Soul]

I also made an autism discussion forums today, hoping to get people to join.

Here is my old one: http://autismnetwork.forums-free.com Couldn't get anyone to join that.

and my new one: http://autismdiscussion.freeforums.org

 

[JamaisVu]

It can take years to build up a large userbase. It's not always practical to just create a blank forum and hope users show up and start talking. First, make sure the forums you're creating are genuinely necessary. Look at competing sites and see if they're well done, and popular. If so, then most people who are looking for discussion will go to the already-established forum. ALL is unique, it's a site for lonely people but it's decidedly not a dating site. It has a high Google rank so people stumble upon it frequently when typing depressing phrases into Google. Being #1 on Google for certain key words and phrases is extremely useful. If I type "autism" and "forum" into Google, am I going to get your forums?

Associated content helps alot also. To get people talking you need people to visit the site, and to do this you must entertain them or inform them in an interactive manner. You know those viral quizzes and whatnot that make the rounds on the internet? It is entertaining marketing. Half of them are completely stupid, but they have cute graphics and funny results and let you paste the results onto profiles. Most of the popular forums are tied to sites with extra content that are the initial draw for users.

Creating a successful website these days is hard work, it's big business so there's alot of competition. It takes alot of advertising, content creation, dedication and luck.

 

[Lost Soul]

I don't mean a superior site, just a good one where I have a lot of members.

 

[Brian]

A forum must have a reason and an audience.

Let me elaborate.

A forum must fill a niche and have a good target audience or topic to keep going. To compare a forum about Zelda and a forum about Loneliness is a good example. People can only talk about Zelda for so long, really, and they're probably more likely to find a general video game forum to discuss it on. This forum, on the other hand, is one of very few for the audience it caters to. I haven't really found anywhere else where I can come talk about my problems or just BS about my day to day life from the perspective of someone lonely, and have people relate to me.

Subsequently, the more of these forums crop up, the less successful they will be. I'm established here, I like it here, I'm not going elsewhere unless this one disappears. Think of it like a cafe: There's a restaurant here called AJ's, barely more than a hole in the wall where I like to go and have a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll or maybe breakfast, and they open really early. The waitresses and the owners know me by name and know I need frequent coffee refills. They know I will almost always order biscuits and gravy. I might try other restaurants, but it would take a landslide to make me start going and having coffee there instead of AJ's.

A forum must be accessible.

This forum is accessible because it shows up easily under search engines and it has a dedicated '.com' domain; bjarne has been good to us by not invading us with advertisements. MyBB is also a pretty simple, clean forum to use. It's easy to go create an EZBoard or something for a topic, but it's difficult to find even with a good keyword search, and then if you do find it you're plastered with pop-up ads.



Beyond that, simple time is necessary. A lot of your initial audience usually disappears...when I first got here and looked through the early pages of the board I noted that a lot of the people made maybe one or two posts. It's a lot like a Stalactite in a cave; it forms slowly from a series of water drips, and most of the water runs off.

 

[sadface]

Honestly forum creation is less about subject matter and more about the people that go there.