It’s not common sense for most people. I rarely see forums using their mass email feature, I rarely see admins that KEEP posting even when no one else is, I rarely see admins that advertise and network their forum “properly.”

I do see contests and those “Active Poster” groups quite a bit, but even then, many board owners don’t create them correctly. Sometimes they create a contest that does not fit their genre and what I most commonly see is board owners that create “Active Poster” groups that are intended only for extremely active and loyal members. I also usually see only one “Active Poster” group, and in this article I specifically mentioned that for the best result, you need to use more than one to reward each type of member you have.

So, it’s not all that common sense I believe.

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Glad you’re taking our advice.

I have personally used the “Forum Founders” idea myself on every forum I have created and so far it has yielded great results. I’ve seen one company (though I’m sure others have as well) implement a “Founder” idea that has effectively increased profits as well. So I’m really hopeful to see how the Forum Founder idea works for ya. You can contact me via our contact page: http://forumblogger.com/contact/ if you would like to discuss a bit more about anything talked here.

As for the mass email system, try making it a habit to keep your members updated on some sort of a schedule. That could mean updating them once a week or updating them once a month, it really depends on you and how much can be talked about in that amount of time.

But I’m glad you’ve enjoyed my tips and that you’re implementing them on your forum.

Remember you can subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter (@ForumBlogger), or subscribe to our email. All subscriptions will notify you of new posts and subscribing via email will allow me to talk about future plans to my subscribers.

Thanks for checking us out Scott! Hope to see ya around more!

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The threads that get the ball rolling are usually connected to the genre of your forum. If you have a graphics forum, you would create threads about design and such. So it’s not really possible for me to create a list of good “starting” threads on forums. Unless you want general ones, which won’t really help much.

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That is why I tend to answer every comment on my blog, Bantymom. I mean, if a member goes out of their way to post something, the least you could do is respond to it in some way. I try to talk to every person that comments on my blog because I know how you would feel if I didn’t say anything.

It’s quite interesting that you want to be helpful on forums. I am actually the same way, which is why I hardly join forums. I join forums if I feel I can help it in some way or I can help others.

A great story, which some people on here know, is the one about ZBCode. I joined that forum looking for resources and codes for my own forum, but after seeing how great they were, I decided I needed to do something to give back. You know what I did? I learned to code from them and was able to create a few codes as well as complete a few code requests. I also became an active member because I wanted them to be more successful. They were doing all this work for free and I felt the need to give something in return. I ended up becoming staff and eventually administrator where I planned the biggest revival for that forum. Sadly a few issues got in the way, but you can see how you can start off as a member who “uses” the forum to one who “helps and produces” for it.

It all really depends on how motivated you are. I was really motivated to learn to code and help this forum out for all they did for me. It was a great experience overall.

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