Contests and giveaways can spike activity, but does the effect last? Have you run contests to boost posts or sign-ups? Have you ever organised contest, did they helpel long-term or only brought short bursts of engagement.
Do Forum Contests Increase Long-Term Engagement?
- Thread starter Dominique
- Start date
Nomad
Moderator
No, they don't. If you run posting contest, your posts will spike as long as your contest is running. Once the contest stops, posting will also stop. During the posting contest most users also make low quality posts.
Hmm, yes and no.
I had maybe 2 posting contests years ago: the first one was pretty short and people would just come and post for the points. Then, as the contest ended, most of them left.
The other one was I think 3 months, with some pretty decent prizes (don't think a lot of money, but a few hundreds bucks, advertising on the forum (which had a pretty decent traffic), I was active like crazy on TAZ, ForumPromotion and a few other forums that now are no longer active.
In those 3 months I got some people who were clearly for the money (and that was OK with me), but also quite a few who loved the community itself (again, posting super-high quality content really allowed us to get noticed) and stayed for years.
So, if I had the time/money I'd consider it, but maybe make it a little longer, so that you can get at least some of them to love the community and consider staying after the contest is over.
I had maybe 2 posting contests years ago: the first one was pretty short and people would just come and post for the points. Then, as the contest ended, most of them left.
The other one was I think 3 months, with some pretty decent prizes (don't think a lot of money, but a few hundreds bucks, advertising on the forum (which had a pretty decent traffic), I was active like crazy on TAZ, ForumPromotion and a few other forums that now are no longer active.
In those 3 months I got some people who were clearly for the money (and that was OK with me), but also quite a few who loved the community itself (again, posting super-high quality content really allowed us to get noticed) and stayed for years.
So, if I had the time/money I'd consider it, but maybe make it a little longer, so that you can get at least some of them to love the community and consider staying after the contest is over.
Nomad
Moderator
I haven't run a posting contest myself, not on my forums or the forums I manage for clients. However, I have participated on multiple forum contests and even own prizes. While contest do not ensure long term engagement, you do get a lot of posts and users during the contest period. This is nice. However, the major issue is post quality (for posting contest) and quality users (for referral contest). People are in such a hurry to win that they create low quality posts. A lot of create multiple accounts for referral contest.
Contests and sweepstakes often attract quick glances and generate significant engagement in a short period of time, but they don't always guarantee lasting engagement. People often participate only for the prize and then disappear afterward. While they can be useful for initial visibility or increasing followers, if there's no loyalty strategy behind them, the effect is diluted.
Forum contests can boost short-term activity by attracting participation, but their impact on long-term engagement depends on execution. If contests align with community interests and include meaningful rewards or recognition, they can can build loyalty.
Nomad
Moderator
If you have users who are genuinely interested in your forum niche and who regularly post, running contests time to time can keep these users very active. If your contest rewards the existing users along with new users, contest can have long term engagement.
Medical-enthusiast
Well-known member
I think that forum contest can be fun. These kinds of contests increase member engagement to a much extent. In return, this can increase the forum activity. These contests could be related to anything. For example, there could be a contests that may involve a participant to complete a specific amount of posts/threads on the forum in a given time period. This may increase member engagement and it nay also increase forum's SEO as well. When member write more and participate more, this might be good for SEO purpose. 