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Once you've tried it, most of you will agree. Getting members that actually post in a community is hard. Making members stay is even harder. Of course it's a lot easier when the subject of your site is original, and if your site has actually something to offer. Today we're going to look how successful communities do it.

First of all, a successful community didn't become a successful community by itself. The creator had to work really hard to make it so big. Mainly because there already exist thousands of sites on every subject. So, make sure you have a good site with fresh content, with a community attached to it. Make some links from the community to the site and back. For example, make people register before they can see all the site content, or organise contests in the forum, and link to it from your site.

Ok, so now you'll get new members, but maybe they just register to see the site content. You need good content and discussions in the forums too. If people just see some spam in the forums and no real subjects or discussions, they just won't post. After they registered, you could also send them a mail to say welcome, and link to a place where they can make their first post. It's pretty important that they see that people actually post, and that the community is alive. If they never see anything new, they won't bother posting either! If you start with a big amount of forums, your forum will look empty, and people will not post.

For a beginning community, I'd recommend the following forums: general chat, (fun forum), welcome forum, suggestions, news, and then some forums related to the subject of the community.

There is enough forum software available, and all of them are different. Choose the software that best suits your needs. I'd integrate the forum design in the site design. This is a great way to give people a good feeling on your site. You can find a good example of this on http://www.tomorrowsdesigners.com

An online community is a big bunch of people that don't know each other in real life, so one day, you will get some troublemakers on your forum, or heavy discussions which become fights/flaming over time. Never just let it happen, because this can seriously hurt a community. People may leave because they *hate* some people in the community. You should make out for yourself what's the best thing to do, but here are a few tips:

Don't be too bossy. People don't like being bossed around. Show them that you are there for them if they have a problem, and help them.

I suggest you just close a thread if it's getting out of hand, and send a pm with more information to the troublemakers. Don't humiliate them in public.

People can differ in opinion, but they should respect other people's opinion.

If there are people who are really ruining your forum, ban them. You could first give him/her a warning or two.

Your forum getting bigger and bigger, you'll have to update your server. Every growing community has growing pains; matters like money and time play a big part in this. These problems can be solved by placing ads on your forums, or by searching people who want to help you moderate the forums.

Maybe the most important tip in this article: Listen to your members' feedback!! They will tell you how to make your community a better place to hang out, tell you what they think of your community, and tell you what you can fix/add/update!

And when you've updated and made improvements, don't stop! It's not enough to do this once, you should do it as much as possible. You should be really devoted to your community. Even if you're not in the mood for updating, just do it. It'll only help your community. Try to search a good average between the time you want to spend on your community, and the result you get.

Remember: Never give up! It's pretty hard, but it'll be pretty cool when you succeed :)

That's it. Hope I helped you out a bit ;)

Good luck!