Its the “in” thing to create your own forum to talk about topics ranging from lawn-mowers to making money online to rocket science, but most of these up-starts turn into e-ghosttowns with no active members or posts - how can you make your community tick?
1. Find your niche
Its almost a cliche now, but it still doesn’t lose its value - finding a topic that both interests you and is popular makes for the first pillar of success. If the core area of your forum is not popular enough, you would find it very difficult to bring people together and get them to contribute. When potential members come to a forum for the first time, one of the first things they notice is the existing member/post count. Ironic though it is that only if you have members will posts grow and only if there are existing posts/members will more join - a typical catch-22 situation. Now, if you atleast know something about the topic, you could join into the conversation so that it looks like there’s some activity at the forum.
2. Choose your forum software wisely
I see this question asked hundreds of times on popular forums - “Which is better among phpBB/SMF/IPB/vB?” Well primarily, its a question of whether you can dole out the money for a commercial product such as IPB/vB (at the time of writing this post, IPB costs $149 and vB costs $160) or not. If you can’t, you’re reduced to choosing between phpBB and SMF - out of which I would choose phpBB any day - which is just my personal opinion (which means you can’t sue me if you use this information and get hurt!). If you are among the lucky few who can, its a close contest between vB and phpBB - again, I would pick phpBB any day as an overall package especially since phpBB3 is out. Settling into a forum solution before you start the forum is a good idea so you don’t have to change to another forum software after establishing yourself - its a rather painful process and your forum cannot be guaranteed to work top-notch in future. That said, a common trend that I’ve observed is that people start out with phpBB/SMF and move on to vB/IPB if/when they are successful.
Note: Even if you cannot afford hosting your forum yourselves, please do NOT signup with a free forum host that slaps a ton of ads in return for hosting your forum - those days are out with sites such as HostingDelivered offering quality, free phpBB3 forum hosting without displaying any ads.
3. Eat what you can digest
A common mistake that most new forum owners make is to create a lot of forums/categories under the assumption that more forums give more choice to members to post - its one sure-fire way to go down the internet black-hole! It really gives a bad impression to look at a forum and see a lot of zeroes under the Number of Posts column! When you start out, create not more than 4-5 forums. As more members join and make posts, keep adding forums and expand.
4. Spread the word
With thousands of websites created each day, its tough to even get a toe-hold on the internet, which is why you should take the time and effort to market your forum in your niche. For starters, look for similar blogs in your niche and ask them to do a review, do a link exchange with similar websites, you could even consider an Adwords campaign to get that initial burst of traffic if you have some dough to spare.
5. Offer Incentives
Lets face it, there are zillions of similar communities on the internet highway - why would members want to post at yours? What makes you stand out from among the others that would entice your members to post? Yes, you guessed it - give them a piece of your pie. While some offer “One Time Offers” (an offer that you get only once) for signing up, there are other forums that share their Adsense Revenue with their members. Pioneered by Shawn Hogan of the DigitalPoint Forums, it is used by many others such as AuctionCUT which is an eBay forum and is fairly successful in attracting regular posts.
6. Forum Posters
If it still doesn’t help, try using hired forum posters to give your new forum a push in the right direction. As much as it is against “ethics”, its more of an accepted “practice” now - almost all new forums created in the near past would have used forum posters invariably, barring a lucky few. Forum Posting has almost grown into an industry in its own rights as there are established forums flaunting services! If you do decide to go this way, make sure that the posters you hire agree to creating a username of your choice - the simplest way to find if a forum has paid posters is to look for a few names that are popular as paid posters! Although it doesn’t mean a lot, it does taint your brand, and you would want to minimize that!
7. Maintain a “personal touch”
Its always appreciated by a new member when they are welcomed to a forum and are thanked for a helpful post made - it works to create that personal appeal as well as an ego-boost which converts to the member spending more time on your forum which is ultimately good for you.
I think I’ve covered some of the more important aspects of creating a community - if you feel I’ve missed any, feel free to let me know in the comments.
42 comments ↓
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Finding your niche is key. Thanks for the article.
Thanks for visiting Steven, glad you enjoyed reading the article.
Karthik you have any community where you have all this tested ?
Thanks
I have a few of my own and maintain a few others, you can be sure this was written from experience.
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Some useful information. Thanks - will bookmark it for reference in the future if I get to the stage of developing a forum.
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@MDB, thanks for reading
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Now after reading Turismo’s comment, which forums do you run? Which do you prefer/enjoy more, running a forum, or a blog? It seems like blogging would occupy more of your time…is that correct, or does moderating your forums take more time?
I haven’t thought of setting up a forum before and your excellent tips in your post have me thinking about it now, thanks!
@JoLynn
I’m guessing you’ve not checked out my about page yet?
IMHO running a blog and running a forum are entirely different things, a blog requires you to devote your entire time in coming up with articles that may interest your reader - it especially requires you to keep to the niche you are in. When comparing that to a forum, its easier if you have an established forum with a lot of members - even if you stay away for a week, they will take over and ensure that the forum stays active.
To keep it short, running a forum takes a lot of effort to begin with, but once you’re successful, you really don’t have a lot of work to do, except making frequent visits to the bank
While blogging is a more linear experience wherein you keep at it at a uniform pace - more readers don’t mean you can take a week off
If you do decide to set up a forum, do keep in mind that you are making an investment for the future - you need to stay focused for atleast over a year to see some favourable results, but when the results do come, you can be sure they will be big.
Wish you all success and do let me know if you go ahead with it or need any further help!
Hi Karthik, thanks!
You’re right, I read your about page after I had already submitted my comment, then I saw the link to your forum.
Thanks for all of your feedback….with the time investment you’ve outlined, I don’t see myself setting up a forum today, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind once my blog is more established. I’ve also seen a couple of blogs that have launched forums once they had a great deal of traffic (Steve Pavlina is one).
Thanks again, I’ll check out your forum this weekend.
Oh don’t be bogged down with the time-frame I gave you - that was more of a “This is how long it *may* take, so don’t lose hope until then!” kind of a statement. If you are lucky and get into a good niche, you could start seeing results sooner.
And yes, adding on forums to successful blogs and vice-versa is the trend nowadays. Forum owners see blogs as an increase in the SEO material (its relatively harder to rank well for a forum than a blog) while blog owners see forums as a value addition to their readers.
HostingDelivered is not a forum, its a forum hosting service that’s free and has no advertisements. You’re free to check it out though!
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Thanks Karthik . I really enjoyed the post and picked up some new info.
I am about to launch a new community, i will let you know about it soon.
cool
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