The solution to a lot of community problems appears to be to ‘go macro’.
i.e. do things that affect a lot of members at once.
You can do a big promotional push, create more content, host big events, and try to get a large number of members to change their behaviors in a small way.
But if you’ve been in the game a while, you realise that the solution is nearly always to ‘go micro’.
i.e. do things that have a big impact upon a relatively small number of members.
You can build relationships and engage with a tiny number of top members, you can initiate discussions and solicit responses from members to generate the first flickers of activity, you can win over key individuals one at a time and directly invite people to join.
The other benefit from going micro is you learn a lot extremely quickly about what really triggers members to engage in a community.