I run a forum that has quite a few members, but lately it's been quite inactive. Does anyone have any tips on how to jumpstart the activity on a forum having a slow period?
Word games are fun, and keep people on the site if they're good, so then they'll look at other things. Starting discussions, and polls and the like will also catch peoples interest. I'm not sure if you're running a free forum--or what--but if you can send out an Email to your members and tell them to get active. It's hard to get members to be active if the site isn't big yet...
What's the site? Maybe I'll join!
“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Contests might be good. Adding new features is also good, even if it's just a new forum. And if you bring in new members, that might encourage the older ones to become more active as well.
Advertising and finding affiliates helps a lot. I run a board myself (for writers) that had been kind of slow in activity (until we got a couple few members who started posting a bit more), but one of the things we ended up doing that was awesome for us was affiliating with YWS. Try sites like rpg-directory.com that have sections for non-RPG link submissions. Find other message boards (like mine! Which is here) to affiliate with (specifically ones that are active. Hope that helps.
Thanks for all the suggestions! I have it listed on one or two sites already that pertain to its subject (It's a Sailor Moon forum [Sailor Moon is an anime/manga] that has members from a lot of different countries). It's an InvisionFree forum, and I'm not sure if you can add things on the side like Nate does here (like when we had Sudoku and Chess). The site's called Sailor Moon International Forums. Again, thanks! *scurries to rpg-directory.com*
If it's a free host, which I'm guessing it is, the chances are that you won't be able to add anything like that without having to pay some ridiculous amount to do so. It really sucks, because there are some things I totally need on my own board that I can't have without paying. Although in all honesty, I probably wouldn't pay a cent to my current host, just because it's not really worth it, but that's just me. I would need to get my IW board onto a better host that offers more, like sub-forums.
New features would definitely help. Even if you're using a free forum, there are lots of other free services you can take advantage of. For example, you can sign up on a quiz-making site and make some quizzes related to Sailor Moon. Or make a section for posting relevant videos hosted at Youtube.
The Admin Zone is a forum I've found to be really helpful for administrators. This link is to their web traffic forum. The top sticky thread there links to a lot of articles on this sort of thing:
http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/foru ... y.php?f=19
Which is here) to affiliate with (specifically ones that are active. Hope that helps.
