Looking for suggestions... (band fan site)

That suggestion probably wouldn't work that well as they seem to only do an album every 4 years or so.

Slight update... still not ready to commit to a portal but added XF mod to display thumbnails of random attachments. [Modified version of the one posted in the XF support forums so that it links to the actual post instead of a lightbox pop-up and also excluding soft-deleted posts, orphaned posts, etc. Still tweaking it a bit.] Next up will be likely a random GGD related YouTube video in the sidebar.

Run some contests if you can afford it. Give away free CDs, live DVDs, t-shirts and stuff like that which are of the band. If you really can afford it, maybe buy tickets to shows here and there and make them into a contest prize

Focus on your niche and deliver something related to it.

I think I may need to seek out volunteers to help out running a contest. Coding I can do, self-promotion I suck at.

Working on it! Had a conversation today with a company that would allow for free legal content on the site (in exchange for displaying the companies ads). I'll likely get the contract signed this weekend but then I need to get busy coding some XenForo addons to use the companies API to retrieve the data. Lot of work ahead but something the other fan sites aren't doing (well, legally at least).

Not that I have much of an audience either, but I'll help when you need it--just let me know.

Thanks! I think I'll be starting to accumulate some band related swag to start using as prizes and possibly have an Amazon G/C as a 'big' prize.

Eh, you can do it It just takes a bit of time and dedication here and there

What I would do is create a separate page on the site for when members first arrive, to tell a little about the site. Any pre made template from themeforest.net would do, although I recommend making or buying your own, but I don't know if that's in your budget or not.

Then for the forums, I would have them as just discussion forums and make things that members would want to come back for. For example, certain forum categories that are helpful, as well as a page of tour dates, places to buy fan items, a place for members to post their fan memorabilia etc.

What you really want to do is just make members interested in the content you have.

It takes months, even years to get very active, but if you get the right content, and have things to offer, it will go a lot faster.

Ooooh... the frustrating feeling when the established site in your genre, that was essentially dormant, kicks up their forum posting activity thanks to reposting stuff that you've posted on your new competing forum that isn't getting posters.

Trying to get a feel for a contest I have in mind....

Would a $100 USD prize, payable either via Paypal or with an Amazon G/C (would be winners choice), be enough to catch your attention enough to participate in a contest that could last a few months and require you to post at least X amount of posts in the forums?

Problem with giving prizes for posts.. You start getting bullshit for posts and it fills the forums with useless fluff (if you're lucky).

Something we did on our site for a while, and it was wildly successful. We had awards for Post of the Month. Users would nominate posts for PoM, and the staff would then select the best out of the month's nominee's (via poll in the staff forums). Site owner would then announce the winner and the prize. Usually a subscription to an on line magazine or something similar.

When vB 4 came out, the addon we used for that no longer worked, so we did away with the program. It's something I'd like to bring back once the site is converted to XF.

Biker, that's more sensible than a regular post count contest. Had such thing and it was a pain to monitor everything, ban the 'spammers' and make sure the quality doesn't go too low. Having a best post contest really pulls your quality upwards, since they'll strive to get the best messages. Excellent idea.

Thanks for the feedback so far, everybody. Just a minor clarification... for the contest I have in mind, the post count wouldn't be the contest but rather just a factor (eg: contestant must be 'active' with a definition of 'active' being having at least X posts in the forums).

Gawd, don't do that. In most minds active=post count. Regardless of the quality of post.

Whenever I think of contests involving post counts, I think of the contest Nick used to put AA on the map. His site exploded with growth. Until the contest was over, anyway. After that, the site slipped and slid back into mediocrity.

I've always wondered what could happen if you quietly did something special for 10 or 15 of the more popular members on a site, encouraging them to post more. It seems like busy sites take care of themselves, so if you could lure those individuals into being more active...

Which contest?

If I could get 10-15 members on the site to get it started, I'd be happy with that.

Back in the early days of AA, Nick implemented a posting contest. Whilst the contest was running, it looked to be wildly successful. But that all ended when the contest ended. Which always seems to be the case with contests. I don't recall the details, but didn't Alan have some pretty amazing prizes for a contest on his IPB site? And what happened to that site? Methinks if you want to use contests to promote site growth, you need to have a big enough budget to be able to run one contest after another.