Simple ways to improve a forum
I work at a <a href=http://www.design4um.com/>web design and development company</a> that maintains its many clients' product social media. This is a summary of what I know are the most important things that can help a forum like this to grow its community. I am not trying to tell anybody how to run their forum ;) just sharing my knowhow.
1-Enable the the community leaders.
You need to select the most active users in your site and make them have the ability to moderate. This helps your forum by making it easier for you to keep it free of spam and also gives the community a sense of belonging. An enabled community will talk about, share and +1 your forum more and this will help the community add more users.
2-Encourage topic diversity.
Deleting off-topic subjects angers the poster and such off-topic pages could be indexed in google and bring you some search traffic from search terms that you would nototherwise get at all. Keep off-topic posts or move them to an off-topic section, but do not delete them. In my experience keeping such posts can increase your google visitors by up to 25%.
3-Encourage the loyal.
You do not need to give expensive gifts , all you need is to say kind words of appreciation to the specific individuals by name in your posts or replies to them. Words such “Thanks, I agree with you, your many posts here all echo your excellent ideas” or such make a big difference.
4-Not all trolls are trolls.
Sometimes a user has just had a bad day . Sometimes certain terms will bring out the worst in a person. Do not judge by the first time, give a guy a chance and do not revoke their membership from the first sign of trolling.