Attracting that First Member

Stardust in me
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We're motivated by the stars that we're made of
So you make a site. You're RPing with yourself to create activity. You're advertising. How do you go about actually attracting that first member and breaking the ice so to speak?
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at this, the world's end, do we cast off tomorrow~!
personally? i have an entirely different approach to it.

when i'm opening a brand new site, i don't really worry about "attracting that first member" or even whether we "look active" or not. in the case of the former, well, i'm going to pick up that first member eventually if i've been advertising (especially if i'm hitting up site searches since those tend to be p good at recruitment) and imo if someone's going to hold the fact that a brand new site doesn't have a bunch of posts when it opens against the site, well, they probably aren't the sort who takes chances on brand new sites in the first place.

personally, i more tend to approach it from the perspective of "okay, how am i going to try to convince these first few members to stick around?" obviously people are gonna ghost, but like...... imo i have a hard time faulting someone for ghosting because they made, say, a plucky adventuring commoner on a site where most of the characters on the site are wealthy nobility engaged in political shenanigans, for example. so i more try to have a variety of characters available to rp when i open, so that by the time someone shows up, i can immediately try to plot with them so they'll have an easier time getting invested enough in the site to stay. (and i know i personally appreciate this approach more from a member perspective too because goodness does it demotivate me when i join a site and it feels like i'm pulling teeth to get any scraps of plots tossed my way by the "merciful" deities that are the existing members.)

the approach is also not entirely a bad idea to keep in mind just.... in general, regardless of how old the site is, since uh. so many sites focus on recruitment and not a whole lot on retention, which i find such a shame because honestly, in my opinion, sites should be catering more to the members they have than the ones they might get, as it were. and y'know. it's a lot easier to keep someone who's already interested in what you're selling than convince someone entirely new to hear out your pitch. so. yeah.
last edit on Dec 29, 2020 1:44:24 GMT by Kuroya

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Rawr.
I think there's lots of different approaches. One easy fix around needing that first member is by not creating the site alone. I never do that anymore. I always have at least 1 other person along for the ride with me. What that ensures is that I will at least have 1 buddy to write with. If I'm deeply invested in what we are creating, I try to really amp us both up with this concept of "As long as you and I keep writing together, the site will go on." I've noticed that when I approach sites this way it's natural for people to pop in, see that we're doing things, and join in. That first non-staff member may show up in the first day, or two weeks later, but they always will!

Another idea I've done in the past: beta testing. When I've opened a site I've invited 3-6 friends to come "test" the site for me. It's a soft opening, taking place about a week before I actually start advertising. I send a generic PM to them all specifying what exactly I'm hoping they'll help me test (i.e. plot holes, broken links, typos, etc). I have always, ALWAYS had at least 2 of my testers remain on the site afterwards. Obviously this idea requires you having RP friends.

Those are really my only two methods when beginning something new. Off the top of my head, you could always generate interest via chatting about it on sites like these.

Good luck!
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IMO:

Your literal 'first members' should always be people that are already there. They can be friends or people you've lured in prior to a full opening but you should have at least a couple going into it. Sites do note require a minimum size to be worthwhile but if the site remains small enough you might as well make just sandbox it or something (from a practical standpoint).

After that, just mention and post it on Pixel Perfect!