Can your forum survive without post exchanges?

Discussion in 'Managing Your Online Community' started by bauss, Mar 2, 2013.

  1. bauss

    bauss Regular Member

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    It would be extremely hard for me to grow my forum without post exchanges, and I doubt my forum would ever get off the ground without doing any post exchanges.

    Would you be able to grow your forum without post exchanges or paying for posts?
     
  2. Jessi

    Jessi Regular Member

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    I think it would be rather difficult to do without some sort of boost somewhere. For example, even if you don't do any post exchanges, you could possibly make multiple accounts to make it look active instead, which is the same idea but a different method. You could also rely on friends to help you build it up in the beginning while you're marketing it.

    I think it would be really difficult to do entirely by yourself, as one account, without any outside assistance at all, though.
     
  3. maksim

    maksim Regular Member

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    Post exchanges are temporary crutches. No different than making 5 usersnames and talking with yourself.

    You need to start finding members who will actually come and visit the forum and stay.

    Now, I have done post exchanges before, however am not active on any of those sites.
     
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  4. webaficionado

    webaficionado Regular Member

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    Agreed. No forum can ever be fully sustained by paid posters or post exchangers only. Once there's no more money or no more time to exchange posts, your forum will die.

    Getting active members is no easy task, but advertising, creating new threads, creating contests, etc. increase the chances of a member becoming active.
     
  5. Martin W

    Martin W Regular Member

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    I think it can help to get some starting content and therefore it would be hard to go about launching sites without them unless you had people willing to help you out or a different incentive to join than content. It can be done, it is just harder.
     
  6. fattony69

    fattony69 Regular Member

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    I remember never using a post exchange on my site. I may try it now to restart it, but you shouldn't need it per-say.
     
  7. iTalk

    iTalk Regular Member

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    I use paid posting for new boards or when a forum is having a bit of a dry spell. But I wouldn't try and sustain a forum using such practices. Effective seo and organic traffic should be any forum owners ideal method.
     
  8. BlckBrd103

    BlckBrd103 Regular Member

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    Depends. I started off quick with great promotional strategies. Pulled an average of 40 posts a day before post exchanges, moved to XenForo and went down to about 5 per day, I did a few post exchanges for a few days and those got the forum back up and rolling, we're now at an average of 35 posts per day again.
     
  9. Bill Hughes

    Bill Hughes Regular Member

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    I don't believe in post exchanges or paying for post. I believe they are temporary fixes. Although I have never tried it. I believe once your post exchanges are gone, they are just dead accounts.
     
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  10. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

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    I have never really been big on post exchanges, and I grew some sites to rather large sizes without them. It is all about your core membership. They are pretty important when it comes to a site. A small dedicated core group can easily fill a site and boost traffic. So, my best advice would be to have loyal friends, who have the same interests as you and your site. You will do better that way than if you used post exchanges. Because I have learned in the past maybe 1 out of every 10 exchanges will become members. The rest are just there to get content for their site.

    The simple answer is that it takes time and effort to grow a community. And in the beginning you are going to have to find people who belong in that community and want to be a part of it. Chat rooms, other forums, social media, use whatever you can to find them
     
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  11. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    I believe it can as long as you have some friends talking back and forth with you. I do post exchanges from time to time on my forums to help with the activity flow and drive a few new members. I think once you get established, you don't have to do them as much. But then again, its always nice to have more content on your forums and post exchanges help with that. As long, as you have standards as to the quality of the posts that you're exchanging.
     
  12. Liam W

    Liam W The best of the best ;)

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    When the forum is first made, then yes - the content will help you get seen by search engines.

    Because I don't really have any money for that type of thing, I would normally just make multiple accounts and talk to myself (it's fun, you should do it sometime). Or I get friends/acquaintances to make accounts and posts.
     
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  13. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    This is the only site I've ever used a post exchange and it was more for the money then anything with my postloop referrals. If I remember and we're having a slow weekend I enable it to collect 10 or 15 post then let it run out. I don't mind them but it comes to a point when your competitors are running them too and you see the same users making similar post on other sites when it really becomes useless in my opinion.
     
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  14. 2dub

    2dub Regular Member

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    I never used any post exchanges or paid posting.

    I started my community after becoming a partially disgruntled member of my competitors. I said to myself I can do this better. I started the forum and recruited members I had gotten to know over the years from the other sites who were like minded, had a good reputation and that was the number one thing to make my site grow.
     
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  15. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    That's exactly why I like doing them on a new forum. You can always ask the post exchangers questions and make them reply to more topics. I also think its a good idea to start off a few topics of your own, then invite people to do post exchanges with you. I remember when PostLoop was just an idea, but now people can do posts on other forums and build links with ease.
     
  16. mVd

    mVd Regular Member

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    To answer your question: no. However you yourself as an owner of a website have a big part to play depending on how succesful your website can get. Its up to you to grow it, not only the members.
     
  17. fermlour

    fermlour Regular Member

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    At the beginning is super important because that's where you win a space on the internet, but then the content is really good and users will get good people really interested in your forum.
     
  18. CM30

    CM30 Regular Member

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    Yes it can survive without them, because I didn't use post exchanges to begin with.
     
  19. limcid

    limcid Regular Member

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    I've never had to use post exchanges. I think it's because I had an active blogsite for a couple of years before connecting a forum to it. So, there was pretty much a pre-existing community ready to move into the forums.
     
  20. Kurt T.

    Kurt T. Regular Member

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    Hey all,... are there other commercial services like Postloop, or is that pretty much it?
     

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