How To Turn Lurkers Into Posters

4. Use Conversation Starters

If it's a slow day in the forums, so why not seed a few discussions?

Of course, you don't want your entire board swamped by chatter -- you need good posts that are related to the subject of your Website.

But you also want you users to talk about other issues. When they begin to talk about their favorite movies, songs, or books, they start to make online friends and form relationships. And relationships are really the key to a strong community. (Pgowder)

So, create a couple of fake accounts and seed the board with interesting topics. By baiting the users, you encourage activity -- they'll starting to post more frequently.

You can actually buy books of questions and conversation starters. Select a few interesting questions and post them in your forum, then mention them in your newsletter and on the front page of your site. (Divamissx)

Of course, target the questions toward your audience... younger posters might not be easily baited with politics, older posters won't care as much about video games. (Samsm)

The controversy card works. Not only does it get members to chime in with their own opinion, but it proves to your members that the board is used a lot, and gives them an incentive to start their own threads! (Gladding)

5. Make Membership a Must-Have

There are many ways to tap into the immediacy of community -- ways to convince lurkers to bite the bullet and spend a few moments signing up and getting on board.

For instance, consider adding the last 5 posts from the forums to your site's main page. This way, every time someone surfs to your site he or she is confronted by the postings from the forum. As they encounter something they find interesting, they click through... and what happens? They want to react and start posting! Instant membership! (Bruno Delpierre)

Or, if you're using vBulletin, there's a hack at vbulletin.org that will allow you to display ads to guests but not members. Next to the ad there's a message that says "register now to remove this ad". It's an easy way to provide a "member benefit" that's real, tangible, and appeals to the vast majority of today's Web users. (Kilcher)

Turn that Lurker!

Lurkers are a lot like "the new kid in school" -- they're standing around on the sidelines, watching how their classmates interact, and trying to find a place where they'll fit in and have fun.

Of course, each time they approach a group, the new kid risks the threat of rejection, and "seeming dumb". Online, lurkers can watch from a more distant perspective, but the basic dynamics are the same.

You have to show lurkers that your forums are a great place to be, that this is the spot where they will have their questions answered, and be welcomed and respected. Once you've achieved this, you might need to kick-start them with a few incentives that make them take the time to sign up. And of course, be sure to have a good strategy in place to encourage repeat posting: once you've got those valuable members, you'll want to hang onto them!