I hope this is the right topic to post this. If not, I have no qualms with moving it somewhere else.
So, just out of curiosity, I looked through the members list to see how many people had registered but never posted here. The total number of people with a 0 post count was 1148! Which is a crazy high number considering how many members we have.
Now, I'm wondering why that many people have joined & haven't bothered to even make an introduction post. Do you think people find Community Flow uninteresting or boring? Are they intimidated by the members who have been around longer (not in a bad way, but maybe think that this forum is too tight knit & there is no room for them)?
I would love to see new posters around because having the same 10 people reply to every post gets a bit dull after a while. & I would also like to see Community Flow expand & become better than it already is -- which I'm sure most of you want, as well.
I want to know if you guys think this is an issue & if so, what can we do about it?
Message Boards in general have a very HIGH registration count compared to posting count. It's unheard of for message boards to have a higher percentage of active members compared to inactive members.
Livewire, one of the most popular teen forums around has around 150,000 registered users and only about 3000 active members!!! (Less than 2% active!)
The only thing we can do is attract more active posters by persistent marketing, contribution, fun activities, etc.
A forum doesn't become active over night, it requires months of slow and progressive activity.
This is just my stance but I'm looking forward to further comments.
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I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
Oh, I totally agree with you. But (as I see it, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) you're the only one actually making an effort to promote the forum. I know we post & such, which is helpful to the expansion of Community flow however, what can we, as members/moderators & not the founder, do to make Community Flow grow larger (aside from posting)?
Post one of those things on your myspace, signatures in other forums, etc.
Or simply post a text link
2) Refer a friend:
Click the "Refer a Friend" link on the main page
3) Click the "Email topic to a friend" link at the bottom of topics
4) Advertise on other websites and forums
5) GET CREATIVE! Think up your own genius plan, and follow through with it!
A way I used to get tons of active members was to go on habbo and hold a giveaway, and they would only get a free item if they had an account and at least 1 active post on the forums. This usually brought up to 50 active users on the days I did this. I could repeat this if we can collect some furniture up for a community flow giveaway on habbo.
There are other websites and strategies I'm sure you can think of -- got any?
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Quote:
I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
[offtopic] Kris if you ever did that again I have a good set of furni I could put forward
[ontopic] The main reason for the disproportionate ratios are usually because 1. there's bots just creating more and more accounts, and 2. people join to lurk or just look around but just don't post.
I find that people think it's annoying when you advertise to them on Myspace, etc. Maybe if we said something like, "Sign up to Community Flow now & receive x amount of bonus koinz!" & then explain what koinz are & their importance to the forum. That might attract people.
I was thinking of inviting some of my old Habbo friends. But I'm not sure if they'd go for it. It's worth a try though. I had tried inviting people before & no one signed up, haha.
Maybe we could create a Facebook group for Community Flow & invite people to it. I don't know what it is about Facebook groups, but they seem to grab everyone's attention.
It's 8am & I'm too tired to be creative (& I should be getting ready for school!) so I'll try thinking of some other stuff later today.
Maybe like a facebook group or something along those lines if we're thinking about that? Of course my RL friends aren't exactly the types of people to hang around forums lmao.
You know those silly groups people make like "If 1 billion people join, everyone will get a car" or w/e
Maybe if we thought up a silly/creative enough group name, we could include Community Flow into it somehow and then get as many people on facebook to join. Once we get around 100 people in the facebook group, usually the group builds on it's own if people find it funny/amusing enough.
What do you guys think
_________________
Quote:
I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
"If 100 people join they get Laura for free on Thursdays" umm Facebook idea is pretty good though! and Amber stick up CF posters all over your school! hahah.
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