PlaxMacaws
03-18-2015, 04:07 AM
I thought it might be interesting to post a list of the things we've tried that haven't worked well (or at all) as far as increasing forum participation and/or membership on this message board. Here they are:
1. Holding a competition with a high value prize giveaway ($500 gift card) - we had very low participation despite plenty of promotion ahead of time.
2. Creation of a Facebook fan page representing this website - FB users with birds typically will not come here and register.
3. Implementation of a chat/shout box for real-time conversation - most members seemingly have no interest in this.
4. Implementation of an IRC chat channel - this seemed somewhat popular at first but activity faded to nothing fairly soon.
5. Implementation of voice chat for PP members (via Zello) - virtually no members have shown interest in using the voice chat system.
6. Creation of certain focused bird-related groups (e.g., MOA) - I think our member base is too small here for groups to catch on and become active.
7. Implementation of a personal blog system - few members have shown interest in maintaining blogs here... my suspicion is that, as with the groups, we don't have enough active members to keep the blog section active.
8. Various forum software function additions and modifications for member convenience - these things can never really inspire greater participation and thus have nothing to do with how many active members we may or may not gain.
I'm sure there are a few more. But those are several off the top of my head. And by the way, the purpose of this post isn't necessarily to generate new ideas that may increase site participation. I'm mainly posting about this to show how difficult it is to build an active member base on a message board like this one. If anyone wants to comment, that's fine. If not, that's okay as well.
1. Holding a competition with a high value prize giveaway ($500 gift card) - we had very low participation despite plenty of promotion ahead of time.
2. Creation of a Facebook fan page representing this website - FB users with birds typically will not come here and register.
3. Implementation of a chat/shout box for real-time conversation - most members seemingly have no interest in this.
4. Implementation of an IRC chat channel - this seemed somewhat popular at first but activity faded to nothing fairly soon.
5. Implementation of voice chat for PP members (via Zello) - virtually no members have shown interest in using the voice chat system.
6. Creation of certain focused bird-related groups (e.g., MOA) - I think our member base is too small here for groups to catch on and become active.
7. Implementation of a personal blog system - few members have shown interest in maintaining blogs here... my suspicion is that, as with the groups, we don't have enough active members to keep the blog section active.
8. Various forum software function additions and modifications for member convenience - these things can never really inspire greater participation and thus have nothing to do with how many active members we may or may not gain.
I'm sure there are a few more. But those are several off the top of my head. And by the way, the purpose of this post isn't necessarily to generate new ideas that may increase site participation. I'm mainly posting about this to show how difficult it is to build an active member base on a message board like this one. If anyone wants to comment, that's fine. If not, that's okay as well.