Hey all,

I've started working on a forum for students doing their GCSES. It has been online for just a week and has 16 members, it's going ok.

I basically want your advice on how to get members, how to advertise, etc, etc any hints welcome.

I am also planning to make the move to VB if we get 50-100 active members, but that's for the future.

Cheers!
Jack
Link: http:/wwww.gcse-pass.co.uk

Well, this is honestly one of the harder things to acheive. I have started a few forums in the past and they have taken off alright but it really comes down to your target audience and how you sell it to them.

To be quite honest, who wants to join another forum? My current project site is a real niche market and it has been growing very very slowly but then again, I have started up forums for friends based around things like Counter Strike or X-Box games and they have taken off with barely any prompting.

In my experience, the best advertising comes from the members you convince of your forums value early in the piece. They will take ownership of the forum and feel pride in seeing it expand. Creating a good forum heirachy that rewards the most active, valued and reputable members.

Both the Web Squeeze and the Web Squeeze Lead Teams former project, Webforumz, have a great system based on the latter part of my above point, they identify and reward the members that are contributing and instill upon them a sense of responsibility in the well being of the forum. These staff (or whatever title the forum bestows upon them) feel compelled to return regularly and also send like-minded friends and aquaintances the way of the forum.

As with all link building and advertising, it is good to get your name out there in a way that will also help the area you are selling yourself to. (The URL you gave does not seem to work) Based on your description, it would be a good idea to track down reputable blogs and message boards of a similar area and post useful information, adding a tactful link for discussion back to your site. This sort of researched posting will not only gain you qualified, relevant link-backs but also show those reading your given material that you know what you're talking about and this discussion board you have could be good place to come and hang out.

Another good idea that I have found form previous forums started is encouraging referrals. Put an option on the registration page for the joining user to say which member they heard about the site from and find a way of rewarding the referring member; Extra PM space, site link-back, special member badge etc.

There's no getting past it, member retention can sometimes be simply based around how you reward their post count It seems such a trivial thing but the human instict to collect and obtain things ( just look at pokemon) exists in forums as well. If you have post based member groups, make them fairly regularly spaced and relatively easy to obatin at the lower levels. If a user sees that they are gaining "credibility" based on their continued participation, they are like to stick around and see what else they can get. Added benefits such as extra PM space for spiffy badges helps in this way as well.

Make the site as usable to guests as it is to members. This may seems like an oxi-moron, and it is possible to fall into the trap of having a locked up forum that one cannot access without registering but I can say with certainty that this will deter potential members. By making as much of the site accessible without a login, you encourage a user to browse around and it is very possible they will find a topic they wish to repond to -- it is at this point they register (Obvioulsy, a link or advertisment to register is available on all pages so they are in no doubt where to go to get registered).

Don't be shy about selling the site to friends and family -- a great way to get some early registrations is to pop a link up on facebook or myspace (if you use them) and pop the URL in the tagline of MSN messenger. They may not be the most relevant members but if your family is anything like mine (that is, they know nothing of the web) they will proudly talk about the site that (son, nephew, brother) has created and encourage their own friends to have a look.

As your site is focussing on exam results, consider approaching schools (if you no longer attend one yourself, contact the local principles) and advise what your site is doing, ask them to pop a link in the school newpaper, school website etc...

I could go on but I think that the above is a solid start for getting some members, I hope there is something new or helpful in there for you.

Cheers,

I take it you're in school yourself? Make little notes and pass them on to classmates, put them up on noteboards, put them in the cafeteria/lunchroom.
Put some reward on the note, like "Post the following code on the website and receive [whatever you want to give away, like Rakuli said]"... The code can be all the same. It's just to get people to the site..

When I started my dutch motorcycle-forum I made notes and put them under seats of bikes I saw parked on the street, I emailed the administrators of biker-clubs to ask for a link etc. Now it's a pretty big forum

This post has been edited by delusion: Mar 9 2008, 11:57 AM

I started a forum once. I had around 1,000 people opening day. Then after a week (reality was 6 months.. but seemed shorter) the forum died and hasn't had a member since then... But anyhow I got members by printing black text on yellow card stock and just handed it out and posted it on the school's bulletin boards. All colleges have them, just some are electronic now. My forum was a game though Entitled Red Vs Blue. No I didn't copy the title from Red Vs. Blue.com my forum had died a full year before they came into existence

Surely word of mouth would come in good here. If you go to school yourself put up a poster in the hallway.

Make members moderators if they can recruit 10-20 people.

What does your forum offer?