I’m sure many of you are thinking right now, “Have you gone mad? How can closing your forum help it at all?” Why no, I have not gone mad, but I come to you with a very interesting idea that I have seen work on many forums. Closing down your forum may not be as bad as you think… but only if you do the right things.
A Risky But Proven Method
I have to tell you right now, I have never done anything like this, but I have seen others do it with amazing results. Results that beat almost every revamp of a forum I’ve seen because of how it is implemented.
What these administrators did was not necessarily on purpose, but the end result was similarly the same: an extremely active forum with a revitalized “new forum energy” that exceeded a “traditional” revamp.
So what did they do? Well, they closed down their forum and opened it weeks later with huge updates and a lot of hype.
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How Is This Different From a Revamp and How Is It Better?
Good question. After analyzing why others had such great success with this method, I started to realize a few things:
This is better because it creates more hype than a normal revamp
A normal revamp traditionally consists of an administrator that probably closes down a forum for a few hours to a day and applies a multitude of modifications to their existing forum. This can create hype, but it’s not as much as weeks of it. When you close down your forum and you don’t mention about opening again, you can expect that many of the members will receive a re-opening very well. This is why I mentioned that most of the administrators that did this, did not necessarily do it on purpose. They probably had no intentions of opening the forum again, but when they did, the results were quite phenomenal.
It allows you to take a break and re-think your forum
Taking a break from your forum is very healthy and recommended. Taking a long absence like this could revitalize your motivation on that forum and allow you to work more efficiently than you ever did before. It allows you to take all the time you need to think about what worked and what did not on your forum. No need to worry about staff problems, moderation issues, member issues, etc. Its a nice break that allows you to work with your forum at your own pace.
Motivation is higher than usual
Staff seem to be more motivated to re-open a forum than to work on one that is already open. There might not be a simple answer to why that happens, but it does happen. When your staff are motivated and you are motivated, then you can expect great things.
So How Would You Plan Something Like This?
First of all, planning something like this can be difficult, because you can’t make any sort of suggestion that you are planning on re-opening any time soon. You also need to literally take a break from your forum and allow others to do the same. I would probably suggest waiting at least one month before you plan on re-opening. This allows enough time for people to “miss” your forum, which is important.
First Step – Contact Potential Staff Members
After waiting a month or more, I’d suggest you look at who was the most active on your forum before closing and contact those members. You want specific individuals to know that you are planning to re-open. Contacting them directly also lets them feel special about being involved in such a project. You can imagine how happy a member will be that their favorite forum is coming back and they are helping to plan it all. You will probably find very motivated and dedicated individuals if you ask the right people.
Second Step – Organizing, Planning, and Ideas
With your new hand-picked staff members, you are ready to brainstorm ideas for this re-opening. You want to be very organized. Figure out what worked on your forum, what did not. Why? Figure out what you can do that other forums are doing well. Find the best possible environment for your community to grow in and create that with your new staff team.
Make sure to go over key issues that occurred in the first round, and how you plan on dealing with them this time around. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Third Step – Have A New Theme and Look
This is actually very important because it is a visual representation of your “new” re-opened forum. If you open the forum the same way you closed it, you will not be greeted with as great as a reception. Please make it a rather big deal to find a good and fitting look, re-arrange your forums and categories, re-post the old rule threads, create a new logo, etc.
You want your forum to feel completely new and this should be something you really work on.
Fourth Step – Hype Your Opening
You want EVERYONE to know you are re-opening your forum. You want to set a date to open and STICK TO IT! Don’t even think about setting a date until you are 110% that you can meet that deadline. Now go out there and make sure every single person knows. Ask old members to help spread the word and have signatures telling about the opening date.
Final Words
I just want to emphasize that this is a pretty risky move. Only do something like this when you have almost no other alternative. It is risky, but with proper planning and execution, you can really revitalize your forum.
You also should be aware that a certain activity level before the closure is also helpful. If you closed down your forum because absolutely no one was posting, then getting people to post might be difficult at first, so this requires you to plan and execute this extra well. If you had a few golden members, then you are in good shape. Remember that you still need to make sure people are going to post on the first day and that is part of the planning.
I hope that if you are planning on doing something like this, you share your results with me. If you have any questions regarding this method, or you possibly would like to talk to me about some of your plans for doing this on your forum, you know you can always contact me.
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