A community is only as good as its members. The members need to be energetic, participative and loyal to the forum. Which is why a community like the one at DP is so full of activity. So how do you ensure that there are new members joining everyday and existing members actively participate in the forum? This is especially difficult in a new forum since members would love some existing conversation to participate in. Without the members participating how can there be conversations? A classic example of ‘which came first - bird or the egg’.

If you are a forum owner, what is the way out? One of the way it seems, is to provide incentives to the members to participate in discussions and to refer other members to join. This kind of referral scheme can work well only if properly and fairly implemented.

Take a look at this domain name forum. Even though the forum is active, who hates a little more traffic? Namesalot.com has launched a referral contest scheme to attract new members to the forum. For details on the contest itself, visit this page. As you notice already the members are excited about this offer and are referring new members to the site. As an incentive, they are getting the ‘Membership Site manager’  package. Earlier the forum started a posting competition and 5 members were given free domains and hosting. It was also reportedly a great success what with more than 3000 posts in a single week. The details of that competition can be found here. In fact, namesalot.com regularly starts off new contests that they call tournaments.

What the above example shows is that using referalls and contests are good ways to build up regular activity on your forum. It is not really very necessary to give away large amounts in cash as rewards. If you note in the above example, the cost of the reward itself was not huge but their percieved value was. The members felt good to get the reward from the admin of the forum. This is what you need to do. Build up on the goodwill that your forum generates. Ensure that your members bat for you. Look at your site as something beyond a business and a money making venture and you would know the secret to success.