Ever open a forum and have no activity for months?

[Grant]

Have you ever opened a forum and ended up with no activity for months before finally someone joined? When I started making forums, way back when I was a kid I set one up and let it sit there for months thinking that Google automatically ranks my sites and helps draw traffic to it. I soon realized that is not how it works, and I had wasted months hoping the site would get some users.

Ever since I've learned a lot and have gotten forums to work, but that first one of mine wasn't great haha. What about you?

 

[Monster Masterpiece]

It happens because to convince people to interact you need to order some posting packages or rewards for comments or hire paid posters in the beginning that not any admin owner could afford for the cost for example to resume the situation.

 

[Ja Sa Bong]

If someone's forum after it was launched never had any traffic or activity for months, it means he didn't promote the forum well before launching it or the forum niche isn't interesting for people to join it. I've never experienced no activity for months in my forum.

 

[Monster Masterpiece]

If someone's forum after it was launched never had any traffic or activity for months, it means he didn't promote the forum well before launching it or the forum niche isn't interesting for people to join it. I've never experienced no activity for months in my forum.

The required promotion is engaging in activity not just simply visiting the forum won't reflect for signups that is what is required is getting people commenting on your forum not just visit the forum only.

 

[JoelR]

Something that most forum owners don't learn is that you really need to have an existing audience before you launch a forum. It can be your own group of followers or an existing audience, but opening a forum without first conducting a market assessment on your initial audience is bad strategy.

 

[Ja Sa Bong]

The required promotion is engaging in activity not just simply visiting the forum won't reflect for signups that is what is required is getting people commenting on your forum not just visit the forum only.

Yes, this is true. Promoting a new forum isn't by being active on other forums. It takes more than that and for the promotion to yield positive results, the new forum will be very interesting to lure in new sign ups.

 

[Nomad]

This happens to me all the time. Whenever I open a forum there are no activities until I start buying posting packages on webmaster forums and get involved with post exchange service. It is really difficult to get activities on your new forum as people are no longer interested in joining forums voluntarily.

 

[Monster Masterpiece]

This happens to me all the time. Whenever I open a forum there are no activities until I start buying posting packages on webmaster forums and get involved with post exchange service. It is really difficult to get activities on your new forum as people are no longer interested in joining forums voluntarily.

This is because a person is engaged on a lot of old forums so adding new ones to the list will become an additional task for him so this is the reason behind not joining new forums.

 

[Kennysplash]

You don’t expect your forum to start bubbling immediately you start it, you need to put in some hard work first and you should be patient. As long as you do what is necessary you will definitely see the results. Continue putting in your best.

 

[Henrywrites]

Have you ever opened a forum and ended up with no activity for months before finally someone joined? When I started making forums, way back when I was a kid I set one up and let it sit there for months thinking that Google automatically ranks my sites and helps draw traffic to it. I soon realized that is not how it works, and I had wasted months hoping the site would get some users.

Ever since I've learned a lot and have gotten forums to work, but that first one of mine wasn't great haha. What about you?

That must have been a funny experience. I never had such an experience as I would always get the forum with creating content and also telling my friends to join my forum in order to help improve the activities on it as well.

 

[Timgab]

Yes I have experienced similar situations in forums. Initially I thought google will automatically drive traffic, but I realized that active promotion and community engagement is what boost a forum.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

Both my forums didn't had a target niche. It took time to promote and build a dedicated userbase. But no, I never went months with no activity. I probably would have thrown in the towel if I did, lol.

 

[Grant]

It happens because to convince people to interact you need to order some posting packages or rewards for comments or hire paid posters in the beginning that not any admin owner could afford for the cost for example to resume the situation.

True, some forums will need help to get the start it needs, but there are ways of gaining traffic from social media promotion and other such things. But as an admin, you could also start topics and start discussions.

Something that most forum owners don't learn is that you really need to have an existing audience before you launch a forum. It can be your own group of followers or an existing audience, but opening a forum without first conducting a market assessment on your initial audience is bad strategy.

That is true for the most part. Most forums won't move unless you have something already, like a popular website, a popular YouTube channel, to go along with it. Just starting a forum won't get you very far.

Both my forums didn't had a target niche. It took time to promote and build a dedicated userbase. But no, I never went months with no activity. I probably would have thrown in the towel if I did, lol.

That's fair. I know people who have started forums and did no work to get it out there, so they ended up closing the forum soon after. Work needs to be done before anything can happen, and if you don't do any promo, your site will just sit there.

 

[Dismal_Bliss]

That's fair. I know people who have started forums and did no work to get it out there, so they ended up closing the forum soon after. Work needs to be done before anything can happen, and if you don't do any promo, your site will just sit there.

Yes, a LOT of work. When I started my first community in 2006, I had to be there participating constantly and push our referral system (we were referral only then, which I will never do again). Eventually we went public in 2008 and started trying to poach members from Facebook, lol. It worked and we have a bustling community today.

My new pet project is still in it's relative infancy and is the focus of a lot of my attention now. I make sure there is fresh activity every day. It's growing, about on par as the first community, which took a couple years to become something very large and popular.

 

[Mike30]

Yes, it takes some time, but don't wait for google or search engines lol...
It's best if you have a previous following as mentioned before. A product or service you are already selling, or some cash to pump into marketing. Including all of the above, it requires constant dedication or it will die in front of your eyes.