void — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:46:46 +0000

Yea skint that is actually true in real sense as any forum won’t look good without any members in it; at least there must be someone whom a visitor can converse to. It is better than having no genuine members at all in the starting phase which could also affect the credibility of the site/forum.

stick around

skint — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:37:22 +0000

It overcomes the problems of no members at the beginning though, If your site interest them surely some will stick around.

andy206uk — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:23:29 +0000

skint;213575 wrote: Theres a site called member generator where you can pay for new members or you can sign up with on other sites and they sign up on yours.

Don't even bother... these users never stick around because they only sign up to get whatever reward is at the end of it. Total waste of time.

Member

skint — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 17:39:08 +0000

Theres a site called member generator where you can pay for new members or you can sign up with on other sites and they sign up on yours.

alhefner — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:54:42 +0000

Thanks folks! I value the opinions I receive to posts in forums such as these. The wealth of experience is beyond price.

Since both responses are from admins who have taken the issue face on, that lends a great deal of weight.

Other than forums, there are many niche market type of sites that rely heavily upon having a membership of regular users. The lessons learned by forum owners can often be applied elsewhere or adapted to bring a membership type site into a good position.

Megan — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:05:50 +0000

And to provide much needed content to the community!

The first thing I think you need with sites like this is a unique value proposition. Market yourself to a specific audience, or use some sort of theme that will set you apart from the competition. Other sites have the general markets covered - the way to differentiate yourself is to corner a specific market that wants soemthing more tailored to their needs.

Take Facebook as an example. When they started out, they were only available to students attending certain universities. They gradually expanded, but remained exclusive to university students. This was attractive to students who only wanted to interact with other students. They had more privacy and less creepy random strangers looking at their profiles. So facebook built up a loyal following among students, became really popular, and was then able to open it up to everyone.

JeevesBond — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 10:23:21 +0000

Personally I wouldn't bother setting up a forum unless there's a companion content site that already has a strong user base. The competition in forums is massive so chances of getting through that initial period of no users is very difficult, if you already have an established site with lots of regular visitors then this isn't a problem.

Many people want to setup a forum just for the sake of it, this never works, they need to have a solid idea that no-one has had before to make it work. When this forum started in 1998, there were no other Webmaster Forums (maybe one or two) so it became successful, now webmaster forum competition is fierce.

Even we are having to create a content site to remain successful and competitive. Well, we're also doing it for fun of course!