How old?

[mikkie]

How old was your forum when you started having active members and large number of people visiting your forum?

 

[djbaxter]

It tends to go through stages.

First stage: you might see a sudden bump in new members as you publicize the new forum.

But because there aren't a lot of members or posts, there tends to be a lag in posting at first. Seeding new threads with posts that encourage others to post their opinions helps. Contests can help.

Second stage: gradual increase in registrations and a slow increase in posts. This may continue for weeks or months. depending on the niche (focus of your new forum).

Third stage (if you last this long): Your forum reaches a "critical mass" of members and threads/posts and the growth of your forum starts to accelerate significantly. You are now established in your niche.

But even after you hit stage three, a forum always depends on the active participation of the administrator / owner. If you slack off, so will your membership.

 

[mikkie]

It tends to go through stages.

First stage: you might see a sudden bump in new members as you publicize the new forum.

But because there aren't a lot of members or posts, there tends to be a lag in posting at first. Seeding new threads with posts that encourage others to post their opinions helps. Contests can help.

Second stage: gradual increase in registrations and a slow increase in posts. This may continue for weeks or months. depending on the niche (focus of your new forum).

Third stage (if you last this long): Your forum reaches a "critical mass" of members and threads/posts and the growth of your forum starts to accelerate significantly. You are now established in your niche.

But even after you hit stage three, a forum always depends on the active participation of the administrator / owner. If you slack off, so will your membership.

I love this part

 

[Mendalla]

Haven't got there, yet. It's picked up a bit of late, but by @djbaxter's post, that's mostly first stage people coming back. We are second stage at best. If we get some new activity happening using the article forum I plan to start, maybe that will pick up.

 

[Harvey]

We had 1000 members in a forum that was not importable. More accurately we had collected 1000 over ten years.

When we moved to XF I sent out 1000 emails and 300 came back undelivered, so 700.

Of those 100 signed up in the first few weeks.

Skiing is obviously seasonal, and I could have done better doing the switch in October or November, but I wanted a slow time to learn XF and try things out.

Our old forum (Nabble) was SEO challenged so maybe XF will help in that way.