Getting members to post?

can anyone help me plz i cant get my members to post on my forums not even guests yet a few signup and dont post how can i make them post plz? Any help would be apreciated. thanks, site is in sig.

You don't get them to post. You get them to come back every day to feel part of something - then they'll post.

Mob Gangster is right, you need something on your site that offers something unique that people want to come back to.


Well like on the freebsdforums.com, the admin has really really good news stories updated daily on his front page, and that keeps me coming back all the time.

He then has a link to post comments on the news stories.

Currently I am in a flame war with another guy regarding Microsoft, so post lots of Microsoft stories and you can get lots of responses.

It's like gun control or religion on every other board!

Hey, I noticed your board IS about Microsoft, and you are posting lots of stories.


Say, your board has a nice clean look to it.

I would suggest just being patient, these things often have a snowball effect. If you're passionate about your site it will show, and the site will grow. It looks like you care alot about it, so it will eventually do well.

The only criticism I have is that the stories are too long. They should be teasers, like one short paragraph that entices the reader to read more.

On your board I only see 1 1/2 story in my browser window, so if you shortened the stories, you can get more stories in.

Just my opinion.

Well, Mitch and the guys over at DevArticles has a nice system going. What I am reffering to is the discussions on certain news topics. This is not a new technique by far, but it is a very very very effective technique in making people believe they are part of the site in a whole. A model site in which you can follow (or try to follow or mimic) is the news section at zdnet. When you view this page you will notice a bunch of news articles on the first page, shortened (as Ted Striker has suggested) and fills in the page really nice. Once you view these articles you will notice a seperate discussion for each article -> and on some of these articles you will notice that 100's of people are involved in the discussion.

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Now, if some of your members of your site currently run their own technical sites, or sites simular to yours, you can always ask a link back from them and you also link to them. Better yet, create yourself an xml content feed from your site and see if you can get some of your members to post the content feed on thier site.

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To get people to post to your forum, that will take some time. But your first step is to follow AlCopones post, then follow Ted Strikers post(s) and mix them with a little of my post, and you will eventually get your board some legitamate traffic.



P.S. Ted, was'nt Ted Striker the guy from Airplane the Movie <- Man, what a hilarious movie.......






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EDIT:::
LOL, I just noticed that Striker posted 'He then has a link to post comments on the news stories' in his post. Anyways, that is pretty much what I was getting at also........

My forum is just starting out, and like said above just been patient, not all features work on mine yet as i am writing it myself, but feel free to look (or even post )

(Link in Sig)