For those of you who manage or have managed a general forum, how do you stay focused on keeping it active and engaged?

 

I just started my own off topic forum this year. It's been growing fairly well, and we have daily discussions, but sometimes, I lack the motivation to keep each section active with content simply because some of the sections aren't in my passion circle.

 

General and off topic forums are often broad and nicheless in ways.

 

I'd love to hear from those of you who do off topic forums :)

I used to run a general community forum and even had two before it (where one I had for over four years and my most successful), but now I hate the idea... as I'd rather run a forum that's more niche-oriented.

I find it hard to imagine general forums flourishing in the current day because I'd long since assumed social media would have eaten them unless already established and thus operating under a certain level of cult of membership.

 

That said I could imagine a space for a quieter general forum in the modern age where the slower pace is a welcome feature rather than being assaulted by the firehoses of social media 'content'. But I think those would be rare and need to come with a group of like-minded souls from the off.

I do think that people on forums are looking less to general/entertainment kind of forums and more to their interested niche communities. This is because people have less time to just browse around and want to focus where their knowledge and interest lies. But I don't want to discourage anyone though, just because I think this, doesn't make it automatically true.

It is hard to keep activity on a general discussion forum, I've been doing post exchanges to help keep activity up. I've added a blog section for members to post whatever they feel like, though it's just a sub forum and not an actual blog system.

In my experience of running Off Topic Forum thus far, I do agree that running niche forums are better and more fun!

 

However, I have been enjoying OTF. I usually have about a dozen posts a day on there from different members. It's nice to talk about everything, but not always as easy to post new topics about everything.

 

Like you said [mention=79]Arantor[/mention], I do kind of welcome the quieter pace and mood versus social media. I have a FB group with 46,000+ members. It's very noisy and while it's a great group, it's easy to get lost and forget some good discussions because so much is happening.

Imho, politics ruined general topic forums for me.

 

Edit to add: i had this contemplation when I was starting my forum. And i just didn't want the conflict that seem to ensue. Kinda tired of it all in forums.

Edited December 10, 2024Dec 10 by CTS

Managing a general chat forum isn’t easy, as it’s much more competitive than other niches. However, it’s still possible to find some level of success with one.

 

 

I think it’s a good idea to focus on the main sections that you feel you can populate with content the best. It’s okay if some sections don’t receive a lot of activity initially, but I’d recommend posting a topic or two in those areas once or twice a week.

 

 

 

Generally, these areas will start to pick up as well.

 

 

 

General forums tend to thrive on uniqueness and the quality of conversations they offer. It has been proven that these forums can gain momentum quickly, especially those big ‘off-topic’ forums with millions of posts(offtopic.com), and @Nebulous’s general chat forum which boasts over 600k posts.

Definitely keeping a general forum active and engaged can be a challenge, but as I've mentioned in other threads, I've found that consistency and community building make a huge difference. I've created a little list of what's worked for me in the past:

 

1. Regular posts & discussions. If you start interesting threads daily, even if the engagement is slow once members do decide to join and post it'll be easier for them to reply to threads that have open-ended questions or spark conversations.

 

2. Encourage user participation. Now this can be highlighting active members or member contribution, this can be mentioning members in a reply or post, it can be creating polls or hosting events/contests.

 

3. Sharing your interesting discussions to social medias or collaborating with similar communities to bring in new members.

 

Every forum goes through a slow period but it's what you do during those slow periods that count.

I ran a general discussion forum for a period when we decided to split the general discussions on my resource board into its own board. I closed that forum down and moved general talk back to my resource board, so my resource board got a fresh start when we moved them back over since we moved very few topics from the trash can back to the new general discussion forums.

 

I think content is key when running a general discussion forum. You have to generate significant content to keep users interested and engaged. Having consistent contests can help out as well. You have to find a purpose to keep users coming back because general discussion forums mainly re-invent the wheel due to being one of the most common niches you'll find across the web for message boards. It's hard to come up with unique ideas and features due to so much repetition, but the more unique you find your forum, the more likely you are to discover more interest.

 

I closed my general discussion forum down due to not gaining much traction and because I concluded that separating the two boards was unnecessary when it's fine to have a general discussion area on a resource board as long as it doesn't become the focal point.

Imho, politics ruined general topic forums for me.

I was hesitant to add politics and religion (or other divisive topics) to my general forum until I implemented an "ignore" forum feature so that people could hide it entirely.

 

It gives people the power to discuss politics, or to have a place completely removed from politics, but can captivate an audience of both as it's essentially like "changing the TV channel" when something they don't like comes on.

I run a forum, and I try and post on Reddit a lot to try and get people to click my name and go to my profile. That and search engine results help drive my traffic to the forum.

I run a forum, and I try and post on Reddit a lot to try and get people to click my name and go to my profile. That and search engine results help drive my traffic to the forum.

How are you doing on search? 🔍

 

How many monthly clicks and impressions are you averaging?

I am not a fan of general forums but I am a part of a couple of general forums. The biggest issue with these forums is they seem to have identical discussions, you will find similar topics and posts posted on these forums. My focus is always on creating unique topics that are not overly saturated across multiple sites and also the topics that people like to have their say. As long as you have good topics, I think it is possible to built your community a thriving community.

It's a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand you have access to ALL OF THE CONTENT IN THE WORLD. You should never run out of ideas for things to post or have writers block on fresh content. On the other hand THERE ARE SO MANY GENERAL FORUMS OUT THERE. How do you stand out? Its probably both the easiest and hardest 'niche' to be successful in.