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5 Ways to Revive a Dead Forum - AdminFuel
by
02 May 2010
Most forum administrators have got to the point where their forum has become dormant and dead. No one wants to visit; there are no new posts and you see little success from what had potential. It is a great task to revive your dead forum, you may give up after its collapse, but you should try to get it back up and running. Here is a basic 5 step guide to helping you, hopefully, revive a dead forum: Realise your mistakes The first thing you should think about is why did your forum get this way in the first place? What faults did you make? Were you not active? Wasn't there anything worth talking about? It is important you realise where you went wrong, as you want to avoid doing the same thing again. Dedication is a key factor of a successful forum - you have to be there for the peaks and troughs. If this is where you went wrong, make sure you spend a good amount of time updating and being active on your forum. The members follow you as you are the administrator. Ask other people what put them off your forum - their words should be improved upon. Content, content and more content The main reason you have a forum is provide some kind of discussion or content. There is no point trying to revive a forum that has zero content. Again, being the administrator, you should look to injecting tonnes of related content into your forum. You should post daily, with new information and some new discussions. Try some debate topics, as these tend to get people involved. It is vital, that you post in the on-topic areas of your forum. There is no point in posting about general chit-chat, when your forum is about sports. People will visit for content which they won't find anywhere else. They can chat anywhere, add unique content for forum's niche! NOTE: Adding content is not just for a dead or new forum - you should do this ALL the time! Spread The Word If you wanted a successful forum, you should have done this from the start. This involves promoting the best aspects of your forum around the internet (and your daily life if possible). One simple way is by placing a polite link in your signature at other forums - following their terms! One of the most effective ways is by word-of-mouth. Tell friends who are interested in the topic of your forum. Tell them to pass the word on, and keep it going. You could even introduce a contest for the most referrals etc. This would motivate any current members into passing the word on. Update your forum Update your forum from what it previously was. There could have been something missing before, try to correct this. Give your forum a new identity and look. Change the style and add some modifications. You should aim to make your forum as unique as possible. Get opinions from other people on what they think of your forum - feedback is the best way forward. Add some new features and then promote these. Make the features specific to your forum and something that the members would be interested in. This would create interest among the guests and should bring your more members. Once you have made all these changes, send an announcement to all the members you have - inactive or active! Every member is vital to your forum, and these new changes may encourage them to visit again, so why hesitate on informing them about the changes? Link Exchanges, Post exchanges and any other exchange This could tie in with promotion and content, but another effective way of getting your forum up and running are by exchanges. This means you have to do some extra work, but it should help you. Get involved with some link exchanges, improving the promotion of your forum to other related websites - getting you some more targeted traffic. Post exchanges can increase the content in a somewhat 'natural way'. You will have a variety of other people posting, instead of just you, which is slightly harder. You could, if you feel the need, carry out paid posting - but you should be prepared to pay your poster at, usually, around $0.1 per post. You may also choose to carry out banner exchanges which are another form of promotion. Anything you do will help. Reviving a forum by your self is a hard task, but this basic guide should help you somewhat. Try not to get in the same position again, it will get harder and harder to get back up. Make sure you keep your members happy, get some loyal members and are active yourself - these are very important. Original article can be found at http://www.adminfuel.com/ |