I created a forum. People are joining that forum but they are no engaging with the forum. Means they only read post but never reply and due to this forum quality is going off.
What strategy should I implement, so that people starts replying of the topics also and start sharing their view regarding this.
Forum Topics are - Science,Economics And Politics
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I can help you with this but it would be useful to take a look at your community first. Are you comfortable linking to it?
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Hi @HAWK, kindly tell me what wrong I am doing. Should I start âin for the giveawayâ or where I should promote my forum so actually users will be join the forum who will be really interested in engaging with community.
I can see lots of potential issues that you could work on but Iâm in a meeting for the day so will come back to you later today.
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OK, just waiting for your arrival again.
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OK, so here are some thoughts.
- What made you launch the community? Did you do some research to ensure that there is a legitimate demand for it? Most communities that fail do so because they werenât properly conceptualised to begin with. You canât just build it and assume they will come. You need to be solving a need for your audience.
- If the answer to the above is yes, then the next question is how and where are you advertising the community? You need to ensure that youâre promoting to a relevant audience. Traffic isnât enough. You need to tell people that have a legitimate interest in discussing the subject.
- If youâre doing the above, then you likely have an onboarding or culture issue. Communities are a slow burn. You need to begin with a beta group â a small group of people that you have a strong personal relationship with, or who are strongly motivated to participate for some other reason. You are missing this. You need those people to act as a âmini-communityâ that seed content and build relationships with each other. Once they are functioning healthily you build on that group slowly. Donât do a big launch of your community.
Now read this:
A Model For Getting People To Join and Participate In Your Online Community
Here are a few things that I notice when I visit your community:
- Most of the content is yours. You need that group of beta users to create genuinely interesting discussions that donât feel fake or forced. Getting others to do it means that the content will be diverse yet relevant.
- In the early days when there isnât a lot of content youâre probably better going with a category homepage, rather than a latest content feed. Channel people into the places where they feel comfortable.
- A lot of the current content is very low quality. Even moderators are making what Iâd consider âfluffâ posts. They almost look like sockpuppets in some cases.
- There is nothing obvious that makes me want to engage. What is the benefit? What problem will it solve for me?
I hope this gives you a starting point. Iâm happy to elaborate on any of the above or answer further questions.
Good luck. 
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Thanks, I missed a lot of things which you have mention. Like
- Beta Group
- Not properly advertisement on right place. I think I should use Reddit for it.
- Removing those moderator whose posts are âfluffâ
Thanks @HAWK
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I read this completely and what I learn is âTrustâ. Trust is the most important thing, which is very important for any community.
What I did, I posted an article on my page, hard to explain completely so, copying complete post here.
" We have learned something today and that is we build followers but failed to win their trust.
I am one of the admin of page, I started this page and grow it but today I feel I failed to build trust among all of you.
May be I did lot of mistake and thatâs the reason behind it.
I build a different community by thinking that you all will love it but everything goes wrong.
I know their are lot of things which I did wrong, I failed to build trust among us,
thatâs why today I want you to criticize about page and community forum.
Kindly tell me what wrong I am doing so that I can remove those things.
Today No Appreciation, Only Criticize here.
Itâs a huge request, kindly mention all the mistake I did on page and also I did on forum.
I want to improve myself.
I want to build a community of trust. Community where everyone believes on each other."
Still people are responding very normally means they are not criticizing. Still they are appreciating. My mind is completely stuck by seeing this.
See these some comments
I only want to understand what wrong I am doing and still nothing happens.
Can you suggest me, What should I try right now.
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It takes time. You canât throw a group of strangers into a room, tell them to trust each other and then ask them why they donât. These people donât yet have any kind of investment in your community (or in you) so what incentive is there for them to try and troubleshoot for you?
The two important factors are time and value. Unless you are fixing a problem or fulfilling a need people arenât going to prioritise spending time on your community. Think about the communities that you belong to. They either solve an immediate problem (here you get technical help to get your forum up and running) or fulfil a need (Facebook helps you stay in touch with your friends and feel connected). You need to have a very clear âwhyâ for your community. Without that you will never succeed. So thatâs the value part.
The time part is one that people struggle with. Communities can take up to a year to reach critical mass (the point at which they become self-sustaining). Start slowly with a small group. Build trust between them (and you) and then grow slowly.
Start building relationships in order to create your beta group.
Actually, this is a slightly updated version of the model I linked to in my last post. It has some extra info.
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Our experience outlined here â slow but steady activity growth over 3 years:
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