Hi,
Ok everyone who starts has a 'target' in mind - or maybe they are just doing it for fun. But either ways, my questions in general to everyone is:
1- are you happy with your forum? (im not talking about software or themes here, im talking about ur memberbase and activity level)
2- did you achieve your targets if you had any? (activity level, number of members, traffic, making money, etc etc)
And finally the most important question....
3- IF you did or did not reach your targets, WHAT or WHY do you think that happend?
Looking forward to some replies here so we can discuss strategies for improvement...
Aku
(PS: my answers in next post)
1 - I am not happy! Even though my membership level is above 1000 now, but the activity level is very low and amounts up to about 30 to 40 active members a day at different times. Most online can range from anywhere between 4 to 14 depending on time of the day.
2 - NOPE! My target was based on activity level more than anything! Even though currently my website is offring far more services than any other website of its kind, but the activity level remains low and I cannot pinpoint the cause of this and it really agitates me!
3 - I just cant pinpoint the reason why! Maybe its the flash stuff I use on my site? But I doubt that cos people seem to love it, but then again it also hampers users with flash not installed.
At one time I even started thinking maybe its SMF? But then I soon realized SMF is actually far better and easier to use than most forum softwares available.
The real reason continues to evade me, but I have a very high suspicion that it could be because I have a huge downloads section and most people sign up to get to the downloads and then leave.... I'm thinking of restricting downloads by a post based membergroup currently to see if that helps boost activity on he forums.
The End
Looking forward to other peoples replies - maybe common points may help each of us pinpoint issues.
Aku
Good question Aku! :up:
Here's my answers:
1- are you happy with your forum? Most times I am. I was actually surprised that we even had 30 members the first 2 month. For a local truck club that's all I was expecting for the first year. But it's been a year now and we have 314 members and nearly 80k posts. But relatively speaking, only about 10% are active posters. Which brings me to the next question. My goal would be to strickly admin the forum instead of being the top poster.
2- did you achieve your targets if you had any? I was hoping that at least 30-40% of total number of members were 'active' members. Our club doesn't generate any revenue, it's a free club. We get a lot of guest and spiders and I think as of late our traffic numbers have increased. I account that for the TP. 0.9.6 upgrade which allowed me to add more Google AdSense code in different boards. I believe that we might double our member base by this time next year, at least that's what I hope.
And finally the most important question....
3- IF you did or did not reach your targets, WHAT or WHY do you think that happend? We did reach most of our target goals and I account that success to our members, our unintentional spamming on similar sites, and of course word of mouth.
Compared to other Chevy Avalanche sites, except for MidWest Avalanche Club, which also uses TP, we provide unique features, are less restricted as far as policing the threads, and we have special member only sections, which keeps those members on our site. We have special badging for different goals and a Member of the Moment recognition to hot members.
Of course to keep our member base and targets, we leverage SMF and TP and continually add/update features to keep the site fresh and exciting.
Not sure what we can do to increase activity/member base. There definitely is a trend for us. Most members post Mon-Fri, however, on Friday nights people are out and about and posting is much lower. Saturday and Sunday is hit and miss depending on weather, events, etc.
Good to hear u got ur targets made :D
Quote from: RoarinRow on October 27, 2006, 06:18:20 AM
Most members post Mon-Fri, however, on Friday nights people are out and about and posting is much lower. Saturday and Sunday is hit and miss depending on weather, events, etc.
Completely opposite for me here - my site gets swamped during the weekends (this weekend is an exception, cos we have a Muslim celebration called Eid goin on, so everyones busy) and during week days you could actually count the dust particles in the air, its that slow lol
Acording to my estimations activity level for me is a shameful 3.75% ( 40/1078 * 100) thats why im so unhappy :(
Quote from: Aku on October 27, 2006, 06:25:26 AM
Good to hear u got ur targets made :D
Quote from: RoarinRow on October 27, 2006, 06:18:20 AM
Most members post Mon-Fri, however, on Friday nights people are out and about and posting is much lower. Saturday and Sunday is hit and miss depending on weather, events, etc.
Completely opposite for me here - my site gets swamped during the weekends (this weekend is an exception, cos we have a Muslim celebration called Eid goin on, so everyones busy) and during week days you could actually count the dust particles in the air, its that slow lol
Acording to my estimations activity level for me is a shameful 3.75% ( 40/1078 * 100) thats why im so unhappy :(
Dust particles. Yeah I can count that on my forum right now. Typical for a Friday night. Hahaha, I just used your formula and got about 10% is what I estimated above. That's the number I'd like to increase regardless of the member base.
10% is excellent!!
If it keeps up then ur in luck cos it means more activity :D
1- Are you happy with your forum? Posting Levels have improved for the 4th straight month, can't be much happier. The membership is a dog's breakfast, not impressed and need help now.
2- Did you achieve your targets if you had any? My target for the end of the year was 200 members and 10 000 posts. Currently 122 members and 8700 posts.
And finally the most important question....
3- IF you did or did not reach your targets, WHAT or WHY do you think that happen? If it reached it, the forum would be running very well and fast. The membership has failed to fire and my saying goes "If you look after the membership, the post count takes care of itself". We have a large amount of posts and Writersmuster works well but the membership threatens the forum's future.
1- are you happy with your forum? (im not talking about software or themes here, im talking about ur memberbase and activity level)
To some degree I am happy with activity level given the membership level, most people post etc!
However THe memberbase I'm not happy with, members I have are great, there just needs to be more of them! I cross post on other brewing sites etc but still can't increase membership, especially outside of Oz!
2- did you achieve your targets if you had any? (activity level, number of members, traffic, making money, etc etc)
No real target other than to not be my only member!! Having said that I would like to increase member base, that was probably an area I wanted to buil, had hoped for around 150 by end of year!
And finally the most important question....
3- IF you did or did not reach your targets, WHAT or WHY do you think that happend?
No idea why memberbase is not still growing rapidly! gained 50 in first 10 weeks, now has slowed right down!
anyone with ideas is welcome to share !!!
Grab
1- are you happy with your forum?
Definately. The site was intended for communications with my friends, both local and abroad. So when someone goes away for work or generally moves away from the area, they can still keep in touch and see how everyone is doing back home. The site has only been up and runnng for about nine months or so, and we have 23 members that are all good friends. In saying that, I do know that none members have been on the site, as they have come upto me in my local drinking establishment saying "Hey, your that bloke who has that website about you and your mates". It' nice to know that people care. ;D
Need to add a few more items to the site before it's perfect though.
2- did you achieve your targets if you had any?
I did have a target. I wantd to achieve 1000 posts by the fist year, which we have done already. I know that this target is a little low compared to the rest of you. But it's quality, not qauntity.lol kidding.
The existing site that I have has been around for nearly four years. There was another site that most of us were members of that was closed and several of us decided that we didn't want the community to die so we opened ours. I think we had about a week between finding out the old site was going down and our new site went up. It still is using a very old version of Invision Board and I'm taking my time converting everything over to SMF/TP so that we can have a better-looking and better-working site all around. With that background in mind...
1- Are you happy with your forum? Pretty much, although activity level has lessened over the past year or so, a major reason for which is the fact that the we're a fan site and the actor we're all a fan of hasn't been doing much onscreen for a while. Not that many of the fans are as obsessed dedicated as we are. But we have a community of people who really care about each other, aside from our interest in an actor. We revel in each other's joys and cry with each other's sorrows. We support each other emotionally and laugh together a whole lot.
2- Did you achieve your targets if any? Yes. Our goal was to create a community and we have done that. In some ways, I'm just as happy not to have huge crowds of people like we used to because it's a much more closely knit group now. But we're still going, which can't be said for a number of other sites that are fan sites of the same actor. With his recent hiatus, quite a few of them have bit the dust.
3-Why did that happen? Because we realized from the beginning that our board was about a comminuty of fans and not about the actor himself. And because we don't have a lot of flashy graphics and animated smilies and colors that make posts hard to read. We're pretty sedate -- more about substance than style. The members who have stayed prefer that sort of site, although I'm sure that others have come by and thought we were too boring and just left.
Quote from: Aku on October 27, 2006, 06:58:01 AM
10% is excellent!!
If it keeps up then ur in luck cos it means more activity :D
It's good, but that's with me constantly posting. I'd like to have that number or higher, excluding me :o
Well today I have started a new campaign on my forum for posting more and monitoring the posts made more closely.
As you guys already know my forum is a religion forum - and unfortunately for me being mostly busy with the back end development of the site I was foolish enough to be unattentive to whats going on in the forum itself.
Well needless to say we have 40 page articles in a single post in many of them which I doubt anyone will ever be reading! And also misbehavior by people in general in many threads towards newbies who they chased away.
So now I'm gona start being more strict and giving the old members some spankings where necessary lol
It really sucks that u cant even trust ur own staff nowadays! What is the world coming to!!
That's a case I have problems with, trying to post and trying to improve the forum design. I have my moderators, reviewers and posting padded down. So I can try and get this design improved.
what really sucks for me is that my team is just taking a permanent vacation lol
theres loads of them but - they just chill out with the exception of a few who work pretty hard.
My numbers are abit low at the moment. However only 9 new members this month and we rose in posts by 1000. Writersmuster is a odd ball lol.
1. yeah, i am happy with it so far. i basically put it together for a personal site so a group of us could communicate and not worry about the heavy axe that some forum admins swing wrecklessly. ;) others are always welcome to join, but it wasn't put together for the sole reason of large member bases.
2. yeah, i achieved my goals of a pretty easy going place to post stories, upload pictures, tell jokes, play games and so on. we get a little emotional in the sports boards, but when it comes to nascar and football most of us there are pretty passionate about our teams and drivers. ;D
3. i think a lot of the problems with building a member base is the fact that there are so many forums out there. i belong to probably 20 different outdoor sites and mainly read in most of them. i am active in maybe 5 or 6 but there is a lot of competition when trying to start your own boards up.
Seeing how my site is mostly for my sisters and myself, I have hit 100% I have a cousin and two friends and two nieces and two nephews who participate occasinally. Plus, my grand daughter and several great nieces and one great nephew, who play along with help from their grand mother. It is where we role play, tell stories, write poetry, shared photos and gossip and I am pretty happy with it. I have one member from Taiwan who I have made an honorary sister because she is there every day.
I work hard to keep it up and I pay for everything and I make nothing and I don't want anything, I just enjoy doing it.
Quote from: Aku on October 27, 2006, 06:26:04 PM
what really sucks for me is that my team is just taking a permanent vacation lol
theres loads of them but - they just chill out with the exception of a few who work pretty hard.
We use to have a quick turnover with the reviewers and moderators but now it's set down for good which I'm happy with.
Its good to see that people are fulfilling their targets :up:
But ive noticed in most cases the results achieved are for sites which are targeting smaller audiences.
I'm totally beat on why my forum dosent pick up - Ive got a google rank of 3, daily visits are between 2000 to 3000 and returning people vs new visitors is nearly equal standing at 46% (new) to 64% (returning) - data taken from google analytics.
I'm also having an issue that a LOT of people are contacting me via e-mail to ask questions which could easily be addressed on the forums. I have asked these people to sign up with no results. AAAhhh...I'm beat!
Aku, ones thing for sure you have an awesome site! Not just religious content, but everything else under the sun to keep one busy for many moons.
It's really difficult to read people. You can put polls out there as far as that they'd like to see on the site etc. but that doesn't always help either.
I notice that when members have caught up reading the posts on my site, they go to another Avalanche truck site to catch up on their posts there, then come back and continue posting where they left off. It's not that they're bored necessarily, they just want fresh content, or they want to be helpful to other members on other sites, or they just like showing off their truck.
Is there a similar site to yours that share the same members. Maybe you can track their similiar behavior and go from there?
i think i just recruited the wrong team....
i mean a person giving a 100 line reply to a simple question like "how do i do this?" is obviously gona chase people away :2funny:
ive also monitored people on other site and to be honest it totally boggles me as to why they would wana stay there! lol With the exception of 1 site which i also frequent and it truly is a good site - most others are just TERRIBLE! Ah well I gues its just not in my destiny...i think ill just chill out lol
Quote from: Aku on October 28, 2006, 06:57:37 AM
Its good to see that people are fulfilling their targets :up:
But ive noticed in most cases the results achieved are for sites which are targeting smaller audiences.
I'm totally beat on why my forum dosent pick up - Ive got a google rank of 3, daily visits are between 2000 to 3000 and returning people vs new visitors is nearly equal standing at 46% (new) to 64% (returning) - data taken from google analytics.
I'm also having an issue that a LOT of people are contacting me via e-mail to ask questions which could easily be addressed on the forums. I have asked these people to sign up with no results. AAAhhh...I'm beat!
You are doing very well compared to others. Your membership growth is great compared to mine. However some interesting stats...
Path to Peace - 1024 Members / 1600 Posts plus
Writersmuster - 124 Members / 2300 Posts plus
I am predicted to get a PR4 soon but I don't think are they that great. But that stat is quite strange.
seems this was my peak season but i must have missed it :2funny:
Monthly Summary-New Topics-New Posts-New Members-Most Online-Page views
May 2006 679 4035 141 26 135787
April 2006 347 3035 137 20 113230
anyways enough about me lol
lets discuss issues which everyone else has and what improvements they would want
how about we all visit each others pages and write a small review?
what could we base the review on? Lets pick some points
Design would be number one for me and how to increase membership. That's all I can think of for now!
how about putting up a sign really big which says
"Hi your PC is not infected with a very deadly Virus - if you try and leave this site, your computer hard disk will be formatted immdiately. Your only option is to signup as a member and make 100 posts after which the Virus will automatically disable itself
PS: complaining about the virus in the posts or calling the administration bad will trigger the virus immediately - so post nicely
PPS: the virus will activate every week automatically unless you visit weekly and make a 100 posts"
:2funny:
Lol, are you on messager. There's a number of things I like to chat to you about. But it's too hard via posting.
As long as ur not micheal jackson and u dont want me coming over to ur farm :2funny:
my id on yahoo is ak44ak
Nah I'm not him, I do know one of his advisors lol.
Suggestion: for those with membership problems...have you tried going to sites as similar as yours and recruiting members? I don't mean stealing them but sites that allow you to post your links there.
Also, try to keep the latest content. They won't have a reason to go to many other places.
Maybe, even create a friendly competition be a similar site for content, etc. You'll both gain be adding each other's members.
For those with cPanel, try the "search engine submit", if your host provides this. :)
Quote from: christicehurst on October 28, 2006, 08:23:05 AM
Design would be number one for me and how to increase membership. That's all I can think of for now!
Design is a good start, but also organization. I've been to some truck sites where I can't find things, or the forum software is not user-friendly, so I don't post.
My replies are
1) No im not really happy because most members just come around to get the downloads. I get many new members every day but not many seems to want to post stuff. I have a special download category only for members who have actually posted on my forum. One post and you have access to some bonus stuff. This has helped alot on member activity. It looks to me that once a member has posted his first post it's alot easier to post one more. ;)
2) Yes i am achieving my target right now actually. Because my target was to have some fun creating the site.. and it is my care for the site that will keep it alive. (i read that somewhere lol)
I will be unhappy if my members dont start to become more active so that a community can be shaped. But it is not my target at all - my target is to enjoy what i do and to be satisfied with my work. I just love it when i get some cool code snippet to work. But i have nightmares that i will put my site offline by installing some stupid mod LoL :idiot2:
These articles helped me think alot about how my site looks.. and i still think alot about it: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=morearticles
Edit: Warning: If you click that link you might be spending your evening reading !
Quote from: knat on October 28, 2006, 09:46:21 PM
These articles helped me think alot about how my site looks.. and i still think alot about it: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=morearticles
Edit: Warning: If you click that link you might be spending your evening reading !
Some good article there for sure :up:
Thanks knat!! Thats really useful stuff :D
ok here are a few tips for bigger board which seem to be working for me!!
I got quite a few newbies with 0 post count active on my forums in the past day by some radical changes.
Step 1: Set restrictions!
In my case I restricted all newbies to a post count of 20 after which their state changes. As a newbie they cannot:
- post links in the links dirctory (take away permissions on mod settings)
- post pics in the gallery (take away permissions on mod settings)
- send PMs (enable advanced post count based permissions and then unclick PM sending for newbies!)
- play any games in the arcade ( take away permissions on mod settings)
- add files or do downloads (will implement this soon)
Step 2: Information!
Get and install the PM upon Registration mod by Jaybertho from SMF.
- Put an attractive and detailed intro PM in there. Explaining the restrictions and how to have them lifted.
Additionally get the "Post count warning mod" as well from SMF and install it - so that a big red bar appears at the top telling the member that they need to have 20 posts before restrictions are lifted.
Step 3: Be Active!
Now that you have the above in place, it is likely that newbies will start making intro posts and other posts, so be active to greet them nicely and help them out so that they feel welcomed! And whatever happens dont let your 'forum bullies' or 'people with an attitude' get rude or sarcastic with the newbies!
Thats all really! I implemented these changes yesterday and in one day 4 newbies have become active :D
Reppercutions
There can be 2 occurances:
A) The new members just leave
B) The new members decide to post to have the limits lifted.
For me the choice was simple - I would much rather see an ACTIVE board as opposed to a GHOST TOWN with 5000 members!
So the tradeof is well worth its price!
PS: this strategy is not recommended for smaller or private family/friends board!
To see my restrictions in action go to http://path-to-peace.net/forum
and login as:
username: test
password: test