How do I grow my forum?

TeamF

Steve33 To do this, we use our RSS feed and post on our Facebook page with #hashtags. This means that a lot of people come to our Flarum.

We do something similar. We use RSS to feed all possible platforms. This brings some users to us who stay. Of course, this requires good content ;-) We have only been here for two years. 2K members, 4.6K discussions, 65.5K posts

Prata

TeamF What is an RSS feed?

TeamF

Prata you can use Flarum Syndication for it.

Prata

TeamF Is the fact that I use FreeFlarum a problem?

TeamF

Prata no, why should it?

Yolo

@Prata your site is completely closed. If I didn't know you and what was on offer there, I wouldn't register.

ernestdefoe

Yolo yeah I was thinking the same thing on their site.

Prata

Yolo The site is open, what do you mean?

ernestdefoe

Prata I think @Yolo is talking about the fact you really can’t see any posts without having to sign up or log in.

Prata

ernestdefoe That was removed just recently.

ernestdefoe

Prata ok so you did have the private facade extension installed? The problem is now you it says you have to signup or login to see the full post.

Prata

ernestdefoe Hm, seems I've enabled too many extensions that hide the forum. Apologies, I'll look into it.

Prata

Prata Should be fixed.

ernestdefoe

Prata still says you need to login or signup to read the full post. If there is a setting to show the first post then require someone to login or signup to read the rest of them.

Prata

ernestdefoe Weird... it shouldn't do..

Prata

ernestdefoe Should be gone now.

ernestdefoe

@Prata people are gonna be less inclined to sign up if they can’t see any actual content and are required to signup in order to see what your site has to offer. That’s just my opinion and how I am when I visit a site. I want to explore the content to see if I actually want to join.

ernestdefoe

Prata yeah it’s gone and you can see the posts now.

TeamF

Prata

Our concept:

You need a niche for your topic. If there is too much competition, it probably doesn't make sense.
Convince your community that open source and data protection are important. We also have no advertising
Bring interesting topics every day and encourage people to participate
Hold events. Online raffles or local events where people can meet in real life
Get newspapers / TV to report on the platform.
Spread your topics using SEO or RSS feeds.
Get a prominent name and keep it on all other platforms. Ideally with daily news (YT, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Telegram, etc)

We startet with Freeflarum an had to move to our own server because we went to big 🙂