| |
| |
|
Forum Information |
|
|
|
LifeHealthInsurance.ca Forums: How DO You Get People to Post!?
Running a web forum is no easy task. If you own one, you know how labor-intensive it is. You spent hours perfecting your forum. You thought up dozens of categories and topics. You customized the interface, set user permissions, sent out welcome emails. Tons of members signed up and logged in. Time for the payoff, right? Wrong. People log in to your forum daily, yet no one posts. Why? 1. People are lazy. They'd rather be entertained than contribute. Don't get discouraged because nothing's happening on your website forum. The time has come to take matters into your own hands. How? You're going to have to do some marauding as other people. "What? Sneak around and pretend to be a random forum poster?" YES. As an experiment, I set up a posting forum "just to see what would happen." I chose to make it a rant and rave forum; everybody's got something to complain or cheer about, right? It took me the entire Memorial Day weekend, minus time out for evening social events, to set this thing up. Within two weeks of putting it out there, I had ninety members. NINETY! That's a pretty decent-sized group. You'd think there would be lots of chatter, right? No! No chatter. Out of ninety, want to know how many people took the time to post? FOUR. One of them was a friend of mine, who I begged to help me out... and even she only posted twice. So, that was when I committed the dastardly deed. I began logging in as other people, posting fake stories and perspectives. This got confusing after a while. Was Jenny the all-lowercase poster, or the girl with bad grammar? Was I logged in as Joe D., but telling stories from some girl named Mitsy's perspective again? It didn't matter that much, as this was only a test anyway. But it did work. Once I got the conversational ball rolling, other people joined in. I even had to be controversial, pass some remarks that would incite people emotionally and jar them to action. That got folks posting as well. Here's a related story, but with an unfortunate ending. A girlfriend of mine joined an online group of adoptive moms. The forum leader, an experienced adoptive mother herself, generously offered an information exchange forum where all the moms could converge and discuss. A few months in, members noticed some weirdness on the forum, so they went snooping. What they learned was that the forum leader had multiple forum personalities! She would log in as one person, ask a question, log back in as herself, then answer it. All hell broke loose. A mass of email back-and-forths ensued. The forum leader cracked under the accusations and started spamming every member, begging for forgiveness. It was utter pandemonium. My friend relayed the scandal to me. "That's so dishonest!" she said of the marauding forum leader. Dishonest? Well, maybe a little sneaky, yes. But in rating Shameful and Admonishable Networking Behaviors on a scale of 1 to 10, how much of a sin is it to incite constructive discussions for the betterment of a group? When you consider that, 1. the woman wasn't being paid, and 2. she only wanted to help other moms along in the confusing process, it really wasn't such a terrible thing that she did. I pointed out to my friend that this lady had smartly tapped into a marketing and communication tactic that's widely used and really works. Who do you think sought advice from Erma Bombeck, Dear Abby and Emily Post before they ran well-known columns? No one did... because no one new who they were yet! So with each new release of their respective publications, internal writers had to pretend to be advice seekers, fabricate dilemmas, and then solve them. Now, if your public forum is clearly a conversational hot spot, yet you're still logging in as five different people because "you're becoming attached"... well, I'd say that's a problem. Consider getting out more. But if things are totally stagnant on your forum, this is really your only alternative to get it going. I know a woman on one Ryze forum who asks nearly every day, "Why aren't you guys posting?" No one ever answers her. That's because she's not giving anyone an incentive. That incentive must be emotional, and it must come in the form of riveting conversation. If there isn't any existing conversation, well, you're just going to have to invent some. I wish I knew that adoptive mom with all of her imaginary forum friends. Because if I did, I would tell her, "Hey! You did a good thing." Who knows, I might even have hired her to run my web forum. Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved. Find out how crisp, targeted copywriting can make a world of difference for your business. Dina Giolitto is a Copywriting Consultant with ten years of experience. Visit http://Wordfeeder.com for free tips on branding, copywriting, marketing and more.
MORE RESOURCES:
Games - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Join A Songwriting Forum - Its A Good Idea! If you are a songwriter looking to get "plugged-in" to where the action is, consider joining a songwriting forum. This is a great way to meet other songwriters, share your ideas, promote your songs and/or lyrics, find resources and much more! As the Good Book says:"iron sharpens iron," which simply means that we grow and learn from the exchange of new ideas with others. 5 Proven Techniques to Build a Profitable Web Forum You may have heard that having a web community is a great way to increase sales, customer loyalty and word of mouth for your web business. In fact a web community itself, if large enough and targeting an affluent demographic (or one that advertisers like to target), has the potential to bring in revenue. Forums - Why You Might Want One And How To Get One... Several people have asked me about setting up a forum on their website recently, so I thought it might be helpful to cover this topic for the benefit of all my readers.But before I explain how to set up a forum, let me cover some of the reasons as to why you might want a forum in the first place. Five Tips to Launching a Successful Message Forum Forums a.k. Internet Forums - Six Ways To Avoid Disaster Internet Forums are highly popular, they cater for all tastes and deal with every topic imaginable. People visit Internet forums for a variety of reasons, the most common being the search for information or entertainment. Forum Traffic - How to Get More Members on Your Forum Getting more traffic on your forum can be hard. But don't get discouraged yet! Here are some ways that you can increase traffic, or better yet, keep the people who are already going through your forum from closing out their window. 5 Reasons Why Participating in Forums can Benefit Your Business Did you know that by simply participating in various forums and posting your various views and ideas, can potentially bring new growth and life to your online business?Let's look at some of the positive aspects that forum participation can bring to your business.1. Whats The Deal With Discussion Lists? (Part Three) Why Do People Start Writing Discussion Lists? Angela Gillaspie, who owns Southern Angel, says she created her list for a very simple reason. "I started the list because there were so many folks that wanted to read my writing, and I had a hard time remembering everyone's addresses. 5 Reasons You Should Market Online If you've got a website you'll need to let the world know about it. This is called internet marketing. Make Money From Forums If you have a website about a topic you enjoy, you can make money from discussion forums. Talk, post links to your site, get traffic. Intro to Health Forums Health forums are great for gathering information, resources, advice, tips and tricks, business names/information, product reviews, expert advice and much more. Many forums have experts on health subjects that are monitoring the forums 24/7 and are very quick to reply to your post(question). Milton Keynes - A City For The Future? The two main features of Milton Keynes which distinguish it from older towns are:1)The town was built with motor vehicles in mind and so has a structured road network.2)A significant amount of land was set aside for green space, from the extensive network of park land to the sizeable margins planted with trees and shrubs by the side of the road system. Marketing Via Messageboards & E-mail Discussion Lists - An Alternative View One of the most suggested means of getting traffic to a site in the early stages is to get involved in messageboard and e-mail discussions on your topic of choice. The idea is that you can show your expertise and therefore get traffic to your site via your signature file (most discussion lists allow you to include your signature file with your post - a few lines with your name, site address and maybe a very brief description). How to Build a Forum That Doesnt Fall Apart Two Months Later, Part 1 If you can get a big enough following from customer lists and newsletters you might want to start your own forum. But I always see people trying to start a forum and it falls flat on their face, mainly because they make it too big and they never promote it. Business Forums Forums are a community where a group of webmasters can post a discussion on different topics, like running an online business, web promotion, marketing, web design, etc. You can post questions asking for advice and learn a great deal of knowledge from others who participate. How To Get Free Advertising By Participating In E-mail Discussion Lists Posting messages to e-mail discussion lists is a great way to get free advertising. An e-mail discussion list is a group of people connected together via e-mail that can communicate with one another. 10 Commandments To Maximizing Your Time In Forum Participation 1) Gain an idea/keep in touch of what is happening in the Internet Marketing scene (strategies, product, news).2) Help others as well as yourself to solve a 'how to' problem whenever it crops up. 11 Ways To Increase Forums Activities Getting people to post in your forum is probably the hardest thing to do. First, not all of your readers will post messages. The Benefits of Hiring Forum Posters There are many business benefits to be realized by including a forum on your website. A forum is an area where individuals can converse on a regular basis about different topics and ideas as well as discuss your services and products. The Demise of EZBoard For years, EZBoard was a community that offered relatively cheap and easy to maintain forums for managers. Virtually anyone could register, design, and layout a site and invite their friends to participate.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
