Developing A Forum

[Jonathan Bahr]

I thought I'd share my experiences with starting a forum (not that it's a success yet) in case anyone else was thinking of starting one or trying to promote an existing one.

I think most people would agree that it is difficult for a new forum to gain any momentum when it doesn't have any members or content. Aged forums are often full of members who post useful comments and new members are quick to jump on board and contribute.

I've never a run a forum before and I've started one (Diablo 3 builds forum) on my Diablo 3 gaming website (dedicated to theorycrafting and build discussion.. a nerd thing, non-gamers won't get it).

After 48 hours.. this is where my new forum stands. (no bots or spam.. love Xenforo!)



It launched better than expected and I didn't need to resort to sock puppeting services.

I did 2 things

1) Reached out to other webmasters with similar sites and offered them the chance to link back to their own site in return for guest posts and promoting my new forum.

2) Gave new members a reason to join by starting a competition that puts 3 copies of the game up for grabs. It gives a good answer when new members ask themselves "what's in it for me?" when joining.

Given sock puppet forum posting services cost more than 3 copies of the game and I have some genuine members who might stick around, I think it was a much better choice.

It's by no means a success yet but with the launch of the game coming up soon, it might just give it the momentum it needs to flourish into a solid community of gamers. Time will tell!

Hopefully this might help anyone else having difficulty in getting new members and posts.

Thoughts/opinions?

[zhenjie]

Good tips. I'm thinking of starting a new forum too for a specific car model.

What platform did you choose and why? Do much customization?

[Jonathan Bahr]

I'm using Xenforo ($140 for 1 year) which was created by the guys who originally developed and then sold VB. It's like they've taken everything they learned from developing VB and put it together in Xenforo.

The default theme is simple and a bit plain but there are plenty of people creating free and premium themes. You can fiddle with the settings to style the theme yourself but it's easier to spend the money, import the theme and be done with a few clicks.

[spacey]

No spam is a big plus !

What happens after one year ........ pay again ?

[Shane]

Originally Posted by zhenjie

Good tips. I'm thinking of starting a new forum too for a specific car model.

I started twincam.org way back in 1999, although back then it was on a different domain that I accidentally let drop! Mine was specific to the Toyota Corolla and Sprinter.

I built mine up through signature links in other car related forums, and I must admit that many of the early discussions on the forum were between different users that all happened to be me!

It worked though, and when I sold the forum two years ago for $x,xxx it had around 8,000 members and 500,000 posts. Unfortunately many of the members have moved on now, as the new owners made a real hash of things...

They key for me was being right into the scene and having a passion for the subject. I've tried to build a few forums since, but without the passion for the subject I found it difficult to have any great success.

[Jonathan Bahr]

Originally Posted by spacey

No spam is a big plus !

What happens after one year ........ pay again ?

Yup, they have an annual subscription model like most paid forum software. It's significantly cheaper than the current market leaders though.

[snoopy]

Originally Posted by Shane

They key for me was being right into the scene and having a passion for the subject. I've tried to build a few forums since, but without the passion for the subject I found it difficult to have any great success.

That is what it needs.

The vast majority of forums never seem to get any traction, I suspect it might be a 99% fail rate. Whilst forums are easy to get going they are difficult to build up and the economics are poor. Would only be considering it as as add-on to an existing site.

[htweb]

Thanks for the tips.

[findtim]

i have a client that requested a private forum for franchisees ( its to late in t he day to correct typos) LOL

well they WANTED IT, and i produced it for them all password protected etc and i think in the last 7 months there ahas been 6 posts !

i think what people don't realise is that it takes TIME, i'm a member of only 3 forums, dntrade, studiopress and oscommerce........... thats enough for me, its not about chatter and I HATE facebook but am seemingly forced to be a part of it which makes me HATE it even more

i think the reason why i am in htese 3 forums is that there is active involvement and feedback, neds great, oscommerce has a huge following and studiopress is by far the best forum i have ever experienced. the only thing better the studiopress is actually the service i get from hostgator for my hosting.

this isn't adverts for them as ned knows i'm a straight shooter but they simple have gained that momentum you talk about and then it works but you need to PUSH through the threashold to get to the other side and it take commitment a LOT of commitment but everythign is possible.

but what i am seeing these days when i make decisions is " whats the exit strategy? "

I've been in the process for the last 2 year creating my own charity for something i beleive in ( and i am not going to pitch it here as i just want to talk about the processs)

the reason why the charity is just still an idea , that has a half finished website and no memebrs other then myself, wife, children, various family and absolutely no money IS because i haven't achieved the exit strategy in my mind, what i mean by this is for something to TRUELY gain momentum it has to be self suffiecient, so the creator exits and it goes on, if the creator ALWAYS has to be a part of it then the idea will not go forward, this is one of the biggest mistake of people with good intentions not succeeding past their involvment.

thus why my charity hasn't started YET, but i'm getting there, for me a bad thing is to not start it, a worse thing is for it not continue without me.

SO, my startegy is to create a situation where i am only in control for the first year, and that year is totally used for me to teach the successor of responsibility how to continue, that person then chooses the successor for them immediately, this creates a mentality of completion and progression, and hopefully that will mean success.

sorry for the long post but maybe somebody got something from it?


tim

[Jonathan Bahr]

Sorry findtim, the charity:forum ratio is way off :P

Here's an update anyway.. not a bad start so far.