How do you encourage posting activity?

[0xym0r0n]

SO my forum has got a GREAT number of sign-ups in the past week. I've got a great ability at attracting lurkers and not attracting talkers...

HOW do you convert your sign-ups into conversation? I've managed to gain some introduction and classified's style topics via a notifications. My posting rate went up after I used the notification system, but now I've had about 30-40 sign-ups in the past few days and about 10 new member posts to show for it -.-

Many more are awaiting email confirmation.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

Give them a reason to signup and post.
What incentive to they have to sign up?

 

[Liam W]

Have you tried disabling email confirmation, but requiring their first posts be moderated? It might get more posters...

 

[0xym0r0n]

Hmmm I might try that Liam. Thanks!

Brandon I'm working on something now, I was just expecting a better activity to sign-up ratio.

 

[MagnusB]

I just try to think of why people would want to sign up for my site, and then make that process as easy as possible. Got limited success with it so far, but at least my post count is increasing, albeit very slowly.

 

[dvsDave]

These are technical solutions to what is a content solution. How do you engage your visitors once they become members? Does your welcome message encourage them to post in a New Members forum and prompt them for info, like details about the common interest (for example: "Tell us about yourself, what RC cars do you have?, how long have you been ______?" ), or prompt them to share a story about something related to the topic of your community? How did you become interested in {topic of your community} ?

By doing these steps, you can help ensure that they feel more connected to their community, that they build a sense of common identity. This will dramatically help with member retention.

 

[DRE]

They joined to get peeps for their crew. Just like I tried joining a Halo forum to get peeps to play Spartan Ops with. That failed. Oh snap I just had an idea. A trophy promotion and usergroup promotion that grants an extra privilege or so, for replying to a noobs thread and quoting them.

 

[0xym0r0n]

I know that but some of these guys are joining because the crew leaders want them on the site, but the crew leaders are telling me they're having trouble trying to keep them coming back lol!

So I'm also trying to cater to those folks

 

[Russ]

Maybe Crew of the week depending on a specific crew's activity

Crew Points(banking/credits plugin) which users could use to purchase some rockstar swag you got

helpful guides what not to keep folks coming back.

 

[0xym0r0n]

Yeah what I've got so far is a the crew of the week/month *we have decided*. I wanted to take some in game screenies to get some graphics going with it and GTA Online was down until this morning.

We're also starting a crew council and it'll require a minimum amount of participation in the forum.

I'm installing a points system today and the plans are to start some competitions and contests.

Guides I've got to work on. I'm treating that like homework and I'm being ever so lazy about it. I got a a vehicle guide saved to my desktop and I never updated the wiki like I was supposed to