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rodham
New Member
65 Posts |
 Posted - 28 March 2005 : 14:35:22
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I have had success with my ecommerce web site using SEO, advertising and excellent customer service which helps with repeats and word-of-mouth.
Now I'm building a hobby site with a Snitz forum and wonder how to build a community of members, enough members to reach critical mass
What would be critical mass, how many members, so that a hobby site becomes self-sustaining?
Do you seed your forum?
Do you use multiple nicks?
Do you advertize?
I'd like to learn early in the game, how to "Care and Feed" a forum. |
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Ghostnetworks
New Member
95 Posts |
Posted - 28 March 2005 : 16:36:17
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Seed the forum? No.. Definitely not.
People will only stick around if you have fresh content. That and only that will keep your existing members and attract new members.
The forum is just a means of communication. There are an infinite amount of boards out there, so unlesss there's something magically special about your forum, there won't be much traffic. The key here is your site... What does your site offer that keep visitors longer and attracts more visitors.
Multiple nicks?.. Also not good. It'll make a huge headache once your forum reaches a good size.
Advertising?.. All up to you, but the most I can recommend are Google ads, since they're the least obtrusive. They'll also get you ahead in the search engines.
There are two kinds of people you can attract:
Those that come in droves post a few posts and dissappear forever. And those who come one by one but stay forever.
You'll get both, but aim for the latter.
The forum alone shouldn't be the focal point of a site, even for a community. Or you'll only attract the former kind of posters.
Offer something interesting to the community, and if they like it enough, they'll stick around and talk about it in the forums. |
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rodham
New Member
65 Posts |
Posted - 28 March 2005 : 16:45:36
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Welcome to Snitz Ghostnetworks - great first post, I hope you will be one of the latter.
No magic here, so it gona have to be
Content, content, content... |
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-gary
Development Team Member
406 Posts |
Posted - 28 March 2005 : 19:31:40
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Catch 22. You need content to attract members, but you need members to create content. Your best/only bet is to somehow recruit a starter group of members to help drive content and make it appealing to new members, but if you don't offer something different from everyone else there's no point in trying. Also, the point at which a hobby site can sustain itself is almost intangible since the more members you attract, the better the advertising income yet the more members you get the more the cost of hosting and hardware rise.
At some point there's a flash over and members drive themselves, but getting to that point and being able to live with that are difficult. My site signs up about 20 members per day, but after topping 10,000 members, 500 sign-ups per month seems like a crawl. The content inevitably starts to take a dive after a certain point when every other response from any member that's been around for more than a few weeks is "search noob".
Ultimately, you don't "care and feed" a forum, it does it itself. If you try and take a heavy hand in it's direction, most likely it won't succeed.
-gary, who’s been contemplating the future of his own forum and how he got to this point in the first place. |
KawiForums.com
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 29 March 2005 : 00:09:38
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Having a hobby site is great but the question is "Will your forum be compelling enough to get a bunch of hobbyists to register?" And are there other similar forums to compete against?
Not sure if there is a magic number or not. Content is important as everyone has said, but there has to be the right balance of content and frequency so that a community develops. Seems like no matter how many members you have, it's common to have an 80/20 rule or even 90/10 where there is a core of active members really driving the posts. This can be both good and bad.
Just speaking from my own experience, I created a very focused music site. With no existing direct competition out there, people signed up since a need was there. My goal has been to create and maintain a friendly place where as long as people respect each other - let them do their thing. I never had "500 sign-ups per month" kind of activity. Don't think I could have handled that. In 3 years, I'm up to just over 900 members which, honestly, is 9x larger than I ever thought my site would be.
No multiple nicks. No advertising. No tricks really. I did install the poll mod to poll members about adding new forums, classifieds and other features. I do listen to new ideas and implement some of them. This also helps build community and keeps people coming back. People who like the site tend to steer others to the site from other forums that they participate in. That's the best advertising.
I too need to comtemplate the future of my forum. Really need to find the time and inspiration to update the look, function and content of my site. |
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sr_erick
Senior Member
USA
1318 Posts |
Posted - 29 March 2005 : 00:42:58
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My site is still small by most standards. Right now there are about 8000 members. The site operates on a seasonal basis, winter being more busy than summer...for obvious reasons. In recent winters I've seen traffic practically double every winter. The key to this...everything the rest have mentioned here. I think content is the most important. I've been trying to fill my site up with what I think people want, and it's starting to pay off. I feel I have a good advantage over my competitors sites. It's just "easier" to use some of the features on my site. Things like image uploads, limitless attachment sizes, video uploads of any size as well as an extremely functional media gallery and a personal website system. People can do more, explore more, and tend to stay at the site more.
We usually rule with a slightly heavy iron fist around the site, but I feel it IS taking it's toll. I don't want this kind of super strict moderation to limit the site, so I am working to reduce what is being done. There is a need for rules and procedures, but you can't be picky about everything. If people can't do what they want and not feel like they are being babysat to some extent, they will leave...and that is that.
Right now I'm working on perfecting my design, improving speed, adding helpful FAQ and information to my articles database. I want to focus on overall usability and user experience. If they like it, they will return. With that said, I also offer two different color schemes, this widens the audience.
Advertising always helps. I plan on getting stickers out soon so people can put them everywhere. Just simple things, word of mouth, etc...really help. The main thing to focus on right now is NOT to make money, but to become a useful site that others want to visit. The comments of appreciation from members is enough to keep me going, spending countless hours on the site. The very little side kick of advertising bucks I make (about $2500 this year) only sweetens the deal, although a lot of this just recently went into new server hardware, etc. Also, using up 200 GB of bandwidth a month can get expensive, if you aren't in on some good deals. It's a win/win situation. Like Gary said, the more you make, the more you spend. |
Erick
Snowmobile Fanatics
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Edited by - sr_erick on 29 March 2005 00:45:22 |
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rodham
New Member
65 Posts |
Posted - 30 March 2005 : 08:14:40
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Easily the most disheartening topic I have ever started with crushed dreams of instant success  .
Yet it has forced me to think clearly about the goals I would like to accomplish with this hobby site:
- Have somewhere to play
- Create a legacy
Vanity, be somewhere where I'm the one!
- Vanity, be somewhere where I'm the best looking!
- Realize critical-mass for self-sufficiency
To get there I'll need a mix of creativity, lots of content, some originallity and regular traffic to ignite the site. Some steps that I hope to use to accomplish my goals:
- Entice content from businesses in my hobby area
- Entice content review by members
- Create unique tools for members and business
- ... more to come
... anyone, more ideas?
[editing]typo, never meant to imply supreme ruler...[/editing] |
Edited by - rodham on 30 March 2005 17:13:36 |
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weeweeslap
Senior Member
USA
1077 Posts |
Posted - 30 March 2005 : 10:56:58
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| I've had a hobby site for the past 3 years, it has gone from 0 members to 9160 members as of today. I have been in those 500+ member registrations months as well. The turning point of my forum of being lame and memberless to cool and tons of members was when the sucky layout and design was taken out and replaced with a nicer design and the focus was driven away from the hobby itself to the member's interest in the hobby. Since then I have seen rapid growth of the site. It is seasonal as well, after all it is rollercoasters I deal with most of the action during April through end of October / November after that it is real slow and have to push even more content to get the members coming back. We also have a really light hand on moderation, pretty much let them dual it out but after a while they do tend to get out of hand and then we step in and set them back in place and they are ok for a while. Also what helped us out immensely was the advertising we did at another site which was fairly popular. After a while we basically took all their members. With other competition on the lights, people would mention us on such sites and voila, we cotinue to grow. We no longer advertise but we still get many members a month. Jan 440 members, Feb 228 members and this month so far 240 members. Anyway, for success aim for a nice easy to navigate layout, good fresh content, make it fun, not uhmm instructional and have fun with the members, let them treat you like any other member rather than you feel supreme over them http://www.weeweeslap.com |
coaster crazy |
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Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 30 March 2005 : 11:33:36
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Very important is that last point WWS mentioned, your membership should see you as one of the guys or gals and not the supreme overlord of your site. Be careful not to be too easy-going though or you'll loose their respect and havoc will reign on your forums.
To answer the question at hand, the way I built up my community was to offer my membership something in return for posting - the more people post on MeTV, the more downloads they get per month. If you do do it that way, you will initially get a lot of jackasses posting nonsense just to get what you're offering but once you weed them out, you'll soon build up your core community. Don't let them get too "cliquey" or you'll alienate newbies and growth will be slow. I've never actively advertised MeTV anywhere, it's all been word of mouth and, in the 3 years I've been using Snitz, I've managed to build a userbase of over 45000 members. Not all of them are active or even posting on a regular basis as the majority of people are there simply to download themes but my core group of posters has been growing steadily over the past 18 months.
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 Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
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taropatch
Average Member
USA
741 Posts |
Posted - 30 March 2005 : 11:55:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Shaggy
Don't let them get too "cliquey" or you'll alienate newbies and growth will be slow.
Hey Shaggy,
As Admin of a site, what can you do to discourage or prevent members from getting too cliquey? I have some of this and was not sure that anything could really be done about it. For me, there is a hard core group of posters which is great. But on the otherhand, sometimes newbies do not feel welcome by the guys who seem to "know it all." |
Edited by - taropatch on 31 March 2005 00:25:18 |
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MarkJH
Senior Member
United Kingdom
1722 Posts |
Posted - 30 March 2005 : 12:01:30
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quote:
Advertising?.. All up to you, but the most I can recommend are Google ads, since they're the least obtrusive. They'll also get you ahead in the search engines.
Not true. Two completely different and unconnected robots. |
Bandlink.net - http://www.bandlink.net/
Bandlink Music Forums - http://www.bandlink.net/forum/ |
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Ghostnetworks
New Member
95 Posts |
Posted - 31 March 2005 : 00:43:08
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Before I had the Google ads on my site, "Ghostnetworks" wouldn't get any results for me. Now, even a search for "GN_Portal" will show my site first.
It may be two different bots, but it does have a very dramatic effect.
_edit
No I didn't submit the site to Google's "addurl". I just registered for the ads. |
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Edited by - Ghostnetworks on 31 March 2005 00:44:26 |
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MarkJH
Senior Member
United Kingdom
1722 Posts |
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Shaggy
Support Moderator
Ireland
6780 Posts |
Posted - 31 March 2005 : 04:49:37
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Taropatch, it was mostly luck that I ended up with a friendly group of core posters who are very welcoming to new members. One thing you can do, though, is lead by example, welcoming the newbies and helping them to get familiar with your community, introducing them to your members, etc.. Get your moderators to do the same and you'll soon have your existing membership doing the same, especially if you and your moderators are seen as "one of the guys". You'll still get the existing members making in-jokes and references to things that have gone before but, hopefully, with their new attitude and approach to the newbies they'll be able to ask questions without fear of getting their heads bitten off. As a last resort, in the rare cases that someone intentionally tries to make a newbie feel unwelcome, I will publicly reprimand that member.
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Search is your friend
“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the
fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had
taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.” |
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