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Brandon
Posts: 432
Joined: 7/13/2004
From: Indiana, US
Status: offline
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Forum Advice - 5/24/2005 16:01:10
Hello,
I'm looking for some advice on starting a forum....The trouble I’m having is getting people to join......Its only been up for a week so Google hasn't had time to find it yet. Other than that how should I go about telling people about it and getting them to join? It’s hard for people to join when there are only like 2 members right now. I thought about going to other sites/forums about the same topic and posting but I didn't think they would like that. Any advice will help thanks 
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Thomas Brunt
Posts: 6118
Joined: 6/6/1998
From: St. Matthews SC USA
Status: offline
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RE: Forum Advice - 5/24/2005 16:45:21
I'll tell you how I started OutFront. Not sure if it will be helpful, but maybe.
I started out (1998) with a simple contact form instead of a forum sofware package. I did that because I wanted to make sure I had some questions to answer. I wanted to get to a traffic level where I was receiving 3 questions per day before I put up my forum. I believe that a forum with no posts (or only a few old ones) tends to discourage visitors.
I tried to be as fast and helpful as possible with every question that I received from my contact form, and I asked every site visitor to sign up for my newsletter.
When I got up to the 3 question per day level I put up a single forum with no registration requirements, and I sent out an announcement to my mailing list. I tended the forum as closely as possible. I made certain that every qustion was responded to, and I sent sincere Thank You notes to anyone who came and answered questions.
It took several hours per day for over 2 years before the place was working such that it could continue to function if I didn't touch it for more than a day or so. I didn't even think about making any money with the forums until years after that. I think it's very tough to make forums work if you have any kind of near-term profit goals for them.
You can always upgrade to a more sophisticated sofware package, and there are lots of packages that will do a good enough job. The important thing is to make sure that eveyone who posts feels that sincere attention was paid to her/him.
t
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Nicole
Posts: 2854
Joined: 9/15/2004
From: Nambucca / Kempsey, Australia
Status: offline
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RE: Forum Advice - 5/25/2005 5:47:55
Hi Bran,
I recently talked a client out of including a forum on their site until way further down the track. It was for a group of community services located in a local area, with plans in time to spread their site to incorporate the entire city and eventually the state. They had 6 initial member groups and over time (several years i guess), they planned to incorporate 350 member organisations in their site. It seemed to me though that a forum was too much a part of their plans at such an early stage, rather than, as i'd be inclined to think, just a thought at this stage.
Even though it was an in-house forum to promote events and share thoughts about their organisations, i could see that the 6 initial groups would be writing a lot on the forum, after a while they'd realise that with only 6 of them they may as well call each other instead, leaving the message board with outdated posts after a while and nobody posting anything new or maintaining the site.
To me there's nothing worse than seeing a forum who's last post or reply was made in 2003.
The plans for expansion for these clients may have been great, but i encouraged them to wait with the forum until they had enough member groups (say 50), before starting a forum.
Anyway, that was these clients, my quote is still in but the site has been put on hold. Now what does that tell you about their grand plans?
Thomas has said everything i can think of and more, he has the experience and obviously went about creating this forum very thoroughly.
I've probably not said anything useful to your situation, but anyway.....
Nicole
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Brandon
Posts: 432
Joined: 7/13/2004
From: Indiana, US
Status: offline
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RE: Forum Advice - 5/25/2005 10:34:58
Thanks everyone, a lot of good idea's......I think I will try opening the forum up to guest like you did Thomas. Here is another question how did you go about picking moderators?
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Thomas Brunt
Posts: 6118
Joined: 6/6/1998
From: St. Matthews SC USA
Status: offline
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RE: Forum Advice - 5/25/2005 10:50:40
I think the single forum was 2 years old before we upgraded from FP disc groups to a format to this one.
By then we had a number of well-known regulars who were answering questions every day. I invited all of them to become mods.
We have never had a scientific way of determining how many mods we need or who to invite.
One huge asset we've had from the beginning is Spooky. I met him on my forum early on. He has the coding abilities to keep the technology behind the forums moving forward, and he has the interpersonal skills that a forum leader needs to keep the place from degenerating into a war zone. I can take the credit for seeing his talent and finding a way to put it to work, but I cannot take credit for the success these forums have seen in the last 3 or 4 years. Many have had a hand in it, but the driving force has been Spooky.
t
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