How to Encourage Participation in Your Online Forum

Forums are a great way to get recurring visitors to your website. Their frequently updated content keeps readers interested, and their interactivity develops a sense of community. When you’re starting out with a forum, it may seem difficult to get things going. But there are some methods you can employ to encourage visitors to actively participate.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Make sure your forum is well organized. Create sub-forums for specific topics, and include descriptions of exactly what will be discussed in each one. This will make it easier for forum visitors to find what they’re looking for.
2. Ask open-ended questions. Starting topics that ask for your readers’ experiences or opinions will give them something to talk about. Avoid “yes or no” questions and ask for stories about specific experiences or have the readers detail how they feel about a certain subject.
3. Have a “post the most” contest in which the member who has the highest number of posts in a specified period wins. Everyone loves to win stuff, and the competition will keep things interesting.
4. Hire forum posters to keep the conversation ball rolling. You could recruit posters in online job boards or use services that specialize in keeping forums active. This is a good option if you don’t have the time to start or reply to topics regularly.
5. Keep the discourse civil. Sometimes debates on forums become quite heated, and this can discourage some people from posting. If you don’t have the time to handle these situations yourself, get a moderator to do it. Active participants may be willing to moderate without pay. If not, you could hire someone to do it.
6. Limit spam. Forum spam is on the rise, and it is a big turnoff to forum visitors. You may be able to recruit some forum members to moderate spam.