Sometimes it can be hard to get members from your server/website/channel into your forum to participate in clan discussion. In fact, many of them feel like there is no reason to visit the forum at all. Your job is to curb this feeling, and help members (especially new members) understand that at times the forum is the bread and butter of your organization. A few things I did to populate my clans forum were:
Advertise it on my website
I put a link. I made news posts. I bolded my link. Changed the links color. ANYTHING to get your members to take notice to the forum. It is much easier to spread ideas through a forum and keep them on record than it is to do so through ventrilo or a chat channel.
Invite New Members to Join
When you recruit a new member, always inform him of the forum. Let him know that the forum is where most official decisions are made and where most members interact on a daily basis with one another. Make them feel like joining the forum is required for joining the clan.
Bot Spamming
This mostly applies to BNET/RTS clans, but in your channel make sure that your bot spams your forum link and the importance of joining the forum. Make the bot give the same schpeel as you would to a new recruit.
Encourage Active Posting
No one will post if there is nothing to talk about. Make sure that topics are created daily for new discussion.
Offer Rank for posts
Offer your clan members an upgrade in rank for so many posts. I realize it’s not conventional, but it has helped me in the past.
02 Apr
How to create revenue for your gaming clan
Posted by JohnnyLocke as Articles, Website Managment | 1 Comment
A Big problem alot of clans have (especially FPS clans who have to worry about server costs.) is coming up with enough money to support their clan. This can be a daunting task when you factor in all the probable costs of any serious clan. There’s web hosting fee’s, advertising, server fee’s, scripting fee’s, and any other web design fee’s a webmaster may come across that he himself can not deal with. Below are a few strategies that I personally have found effective.
Donations- If you are able to provide a fun, stable gaming enviorment for your members, there are usually at least 3-4 older members who don’t mind donating a small amount of money to help you out. Place a paypal button on your page with big, colored, boldened letters above it that say “DONATE.” Perhaps even ocaisionally make a forum post reminding everyone that donations do in fact go to the clan, and not into your pockets.
Make sure your clan members know what their donation is going towards. If they know their $15 are going toward website improvements or an expansion into a new game, they will probably be more likely to donate. I’ve spoken with many clan leaders that have paid for all of their clans fee’s with donations alone.
Adsense – Since Clans (usually) don’t draw huge amounts of unique visitors outside of the memberbase, Adsense usually doesn’t generate all that much money. However, it can’t hurt to have it. A few points about Adsense:
http://www.adsense.com
There are numerous other advertising agencies, but if for some reason Adsense is not suiting you (AKA you are banned from it 
), then I would suggest using http://www.adbrite.com
JohnnyLocke
