Forum Traffic Slowing Down... Help?

[watsonly]

Hi everyone!

I am a moderator on a small forum, & lately traffic has been slowing down a ton over there It all started a while ago when a very popular member of the board created their own forum, were demoted & then banned (they were not banned for creating their own site... they were advertising on our forum & since they were angry at the staff they started saying some rather rude things & trying to harm the place, so that's why they were banned). A few more bans followed, when the member's friends started spamming our forum, & since then the traffic on the website has slowed down incredibly since those persons were some of our most active members. Usually we'd get about 100 members a day, which wasn't that much, but it was okay for us since our forum was small & it was progressing at the time...
but the last few weeks we have only gotten about 60-70 members every day. & all those members don't even post very often. A ton of our members are now over the banned member's site (which is about the same topic as the one I moderate, lol)

So I was wondering if you guys could give me some suggestions on how to bring back or get some new members. I don't think I should give out a link to the website But the website is about an online game, & we have different Off-Topic sections for those who stopped playing the game or haven't played the game. The forum's well set-up & the rules are pretty reasonable imo... We have also been planning to upgrade to a newer vBulletin version & see if that speeds things up, at least a tiny bit.

So I'd love some suggestions. Thanks in advance

 

[Joshuad]

As long as your boards content is superior, and the community itself is stickier, things will balance out. Those banned members creating a new forum is merely a fad. As long as you guys don't get discouraged and stop producing quality content, it will work itself out and old members will come back.

 

[wynnyelle]

If this were me, and if things had got this far, I'd do an analysis of both sites. "A tonne" of members doesn't really tell me whether their site is now more populous than yours or if it's "just" 10 or 20 people. Or how long it has been since this little war got started. You say a while and a few weeks; do these trends coincide or could there be another reason? Is that other board populated almost entirely by people from your forum? Are more of your members continuing to convert over to their site? If that is the case I would take a serious look at your site's management. Something got them pissed off to begin with and you need to know whether it was a one time deal or if there really is a fatal flaw in your site that is now costing you members. While even reprehensible people often have a few loyal friends, if new people are continuing to gravitate to their site while yours bleeds members, you're doing something wrong.

 

[gogoblender]

If this were me, and if things had got this far, I'd do an analysis of both sites. "A tonne" of members doesn't really tell me whether their site is now more populous than yours or if it's "just" 10 or 20 people. Or how long it has been since this little war got started. You say a while and a few weeks; do these trends coincide or could there be another reason? Is that other board populated almost entirely by people from your forum? Are more of your members continuing to convert over to their site? If that is the case I would take a serious look at your site's management. Something got them pissed off to begin with and you need to know whether it was a one time deal or if there really is a fatal flaw in your site that is now costing you members. While even reprehensible people often have a few loyal friends, if new people are continuing to gravitate to their site while yours bleeds members, you're doing something wrong.

+1

Loved that post. And you really brought it in sharp... both sites are completely involved with each other, and you'll have to constantly keep an eye for rise in the other forum's memberships, speed that content is going up, quality of content...

You have to become an expert on your competitor's methods, because you have to better than them.

Even if your own house is clean, someone could have a house that has a larger tv and a pool table.

So guess where the party could probably be more often ^^

Good luck!



gogo

 

[wynnyelle]

Thanks. I don't always hit the mark, but I try to help people get out of the jams that I've been in and had to do damage control on myself.

...The big question is, is that competing site drawing in new members from OUTSIDE your site, as much or more than your site is? If all they seem able to do is get members from yours, I'd say the problem is more limited. Osmosis will nearly always pull a few people from a large site to trying out a small spinoff site, but if it continues to pull people in to the point where the large site really is breaking down as a result, you have yourself a situation where the reason for it is some kind of failure on the part of the original site. People may try out other sites, but they will usually stick with what's familiar. There has to be a large draw to get people to leave a comfy, familiar site in favour of a totally new one, even if that new site DOES contain many people they already know. You say they aren't just trying out the new site, but leaving yours. That's a large concern. Now if it's limited to the circle of friends that this banned member had, then it's not nearly as serious and that site will likely not be a leech on yours for any length of time.