Korex

In all my years of managing forums I've found that seasonal awards can be fantastic at driving and fostering an active community. While activity drop off does occur, I've always noticed you snag a handful of people that continue to actively post on the forum, which is a huge plus in a world where forums are falling to the wayside.

How I always handled them was by having an event window where people must post X amount of times to be eligible for receiving the reward. You have to actively discourage and decline those who opt to spam, otherwise they'll try to fulfill the requirement with spam. Holding scavenger events can be a good way to get people onto the forum as well, hide holiday relevant imagery around the forum pages, in posts, and threads. Once people find all the images and can link them to you, they get rewarded! Another good one is an ARG (Alternate Reality Game), though this is a bit more in depth and requires more effort on the participants part - though it can really inspire the community to come together to solve it.

Just an idea since the holiday season is upon us. Sometimes it's just about getting people onto the forum and then letting them naturally become involved with the community.