Causes of inactivity
“Know your enemy” as an old saying goes. If you want to use the right tool to counteract downtime, you’ll first need to find out what’s causing downtime and in what area. An example: if your clan members rarely visit your clan’s website and forums, countering this by organizing an internal ladder is not the best option: they will not read the ad. Better would be to contact a few randomly selected members on an instant chat program, ie MSN, ICQ and the like, and see what their personal interests are. With that knowledge, you will be able to group your clan members based on common interests. So starting with a few forum topics that are related to your common interests usually cures forum inactivity. The fact is that you will have to be creative to find the cause of a downtime. There is little chance that a member will approach you with the message: “hi, you can cure my inactivity by setting up a blog for me.” If it were so easy… 😉
10 tips to keep your clan active
This is probably the part of the text you are really looking for. However, I would suggest reading this entire article as I cannot guarantee that the following 10 tips will work if you simply use them as the wrong missiles.
1. Organize internal tournaments or ladders
A members-only endless staircase can usually be used as a preventative measure against inactivity. It keeps both the clan’s activity in the game and on the site, i.e. the clan’s website, stable. This is because members will play ladder games whenever they want, upload the match result as a recorded game, and comment on each other’s performances, strategies, and the like.
2. Have weekly meetings with members
Many clan leaders underestimate the power of common conversation. Having a weekly or bi-weekly meeting with your clan members in a chat room can do a lot of good for morale, not to mention a sense of unity, among participating members. Of course, you must invite your clan members on a voluntary basis. Try posting the invitation for such a meeting in a place that your clan members visit frequently. Meaning, if they don’t check the forums often, use word of mouth instead: tell a member you’re hosting a meetup, and they’ll spread the word to any clan members they find. Have such a meeting in a chat program or a TeamSpeak program. Personally, I prefer TeamSpeak over a chat window with my clan members, as it adds to the “feeling of communicating with another human being” rather than reading a text from a full chat window. weird.
3. Have ongoing threads on your forums, i.e. “forum games”
Having one or, if you like, a few ongoing threads on your clan forums usually keeps both site visitors and clan members coming back. Just google the words “forum games” and you should find an ocean of examples. Just to pick one for the lazy – the never ending story. One person posts a few lines of a made up story, the next post continues the story with their own lines. This goes on and on. This move is not only considered fun by forum junkies and spammers, i.e. people who post a lot, but it also gives your clan members a chance to work on something together.
4. Conduct polls and debates
Not all clan leaders are as talkative as your aunt. For those who have no idea how to start a conversation in a chat program with their clan members, a survey can be the solution. You can use a survey or survey to find out what your members like, dislike, love, hate and the like. All you have to do is create the poll and design the voting options. If you’re new to creating an effective survey, I suggest keeping it basic. Offer your voters three options: black, gray and white. Black is hate or dislikes something, gray is neutral on the issue, and white is a fan or agrees with the matter at hand, respectively. With polls, you can usually start a discussion to find out why someone voted for a certain option. This deepens the survey and can give you valuable information as a clan leader about the likes and dislikes of your clan members. Make sure the discussion stays on topic!
5. Encourage the creation of interesting articles
This one sounds harder than it sounds. Basically, it is about rewarding the members who are active in the game that the clan is participating in. Active clan members have their own style of play: they have considerable knowledge of the game they play, they know strategies, cheats, and the like. Why not design a system that rewards those members by sharing their knowledge with clan members? The reward can be a small token of appreciation; usually this is enough. It’s a bit hard to describe, so basically you’ll have to see for yourself. For roman legion, I have such a modest award system in place. I combined the guild list with it. A member receives a “badge” next to his name for forum posts, articles written, and other in-game achievements, depending on the game his clan attends.
The rest of the article can be found at the Legio Romana guild website.