If you run a message board long enough, eventually you will encounter the phenomenon I call “lookatme.”

A member of the community, whom is a prolific poster and spends way too much time on your forum, suddenly decides that their time is better spent in other areas, or is feeling depressed and is going to “leave the board forever.”  In one “last” posting breath they tell everybody how they will miss them, and to still keep in touch and how they might check in from time to time.   It was a hard decision, but its best to go….

Yeah right.

Everybody likes to, well, be liked.  Unfortunately, the way some people try to get attention on active boards is to say they are going to leave.  They really have no intention to leave, they just want the mass of messages telling them how much the community will miss them, and begging them not to go.  Sometimes they will stay, sometimes they will leave for a day,  whatever.

I have long had a policy that if a user posts they are going to leave the board, I disable their account and help them with their decision.  I figure it is the least I can do, since if they can not help themselves by not coming to the board, then it is my obligation to help them refrain from being a member of the community.

This is usually followed up by an angry email from the user, asking why their username was disabled.   When I explain they said they were going to leave the community, so I removed their privileges, they give another sad song and dance about needing to keep their account.  Most of the time I end up reinstating their account and explain to them that “Im leaving” posts are not appropriate.

How you handle  the “lookatme’s” can mean the difference between a clean and cluttered forum.  Their amount seems to increase when you have forums targeting teenagers, but can happen on any forum regardless of demographic or topic.

However you choose to handle them, be sure to handle them all the same way, or you will be accused of favoritism.

Do you have another way to handle “lookatme’s?”  Let me know by commenting below.

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It happens to many bloggers who don’t feel like they are getting the attention from the blogosphere they need or deserve… suddenly out of nowhere, they go on a rampage and publish an incredibly controversial or berating article just to try and get attention.  Similar to  mentioning names you know people have alerts for, this type of “community baiting” can bring in the numbers for a surge of visitors to an otherwise fading blog.

But can it be sustained?

After the initial flood of visits and comments, how do you keep those people coming back?  One way not to hold their interest is to continue your blog as if nothing ever happened.   Even better, don’t reply to criticisms about your post, just let people come in, tell you how wrong you are, and then leave.  By baiting people in this way, you will dig yourself a hole you may never recover from, and your reputation will be known for baiting, and your regular visits will start to diminish - guaranteed.

People involved in social media are smart.  I mean, really.  As I mentioned in a previous post, people can tell if you are using multiple personas to fake message board posts, and they can tell when you are creating a post for shock value or for attention.  Failing to address the comments/criticisms of your post is truly a tell-tale sign of baiting.   If you are going to go off on a rant, follow it up in the comments or with another blog post.  Don’t let down, stick to your guns!

Or, the better way, don’t use this tactic at all.

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When launching a new message board forum for a site, or launching a new site from scratch that includes a forum, it is easy to assume that the millions of potential visitors to your site will want forums for every conceivable option.  For instance, if you have a new web site dedicated to the Nintendo Wii - your first inclination may be to create a separate message forum for every game available.   Or if you have a site FOR video games, to have a separate forum for every version of a video game (PC, XBOX, Wii…)

Too Many Choices!

Upon visiting your forums for the first time, a new user will be intimidated by the sheer number of forums.  In addition, coming into a message board and seeing 100 forums, all of them with 0 posts could scare off even the most enthusiastic poster about your topic.  You need to lighten up.

Start your new community out slow, with a few condensed forums.   If I were to start a site about the Wii right now I might have only a few forums such as:

Wii News
Wii Games
Best Deals
General Discussion (Anything non-Wii related)

Once the community gets going, you can break out individual topics into their own boards if they show enough traffic.  For instance, if you find that conversation for Super Smash Brothers is taking up the majority of the Game discussion forum, you then make a Category called Games and create a forum called Super Smash Brothers.  Take the time to move topics from the previous forum (your users will thank you later).  You may meet with some requests to move other topics into their own forum, but use your common sense and look at post numbers, frequency, etc.

By keeping your forum count at a level that can support the community, your users will not only feel like a member, but you will also avoid the dreaded “0 Posts”  labels on your forums.

Filed under: community, community, forums | Post a comment