A question about forums...

[xploit]

This could possibly be directed at K, but look forward to hearing from anyone...

Whats the best method to start a forum and get users to visit and start posting? An empty forum isn't the most appealing so what would you do to a new forum to make people want to sign up to it.

Thanks

 

[bountyhunter]

Give away something that adds value for the user!

 

[T J Tutor]

You will need to build a launch funnel. As well, you will need to do a lot of networking and provide premium memberships for free to say the first 500 or 1000 members. There is a lot of infrastructure as well and will be extremely demanding for the first year while straightening out what works and what doesn't. Use an abundance of social exposure to build up interest long before the launch. I can go on all night. I mean to say, this is a large effort you are suggesting and is not an over night project. Very ambitious, I would certainly do a lot of market research to establish the market parameters, identifying demographics that fit, etc.

 

[crysper]

If I would build a forum/membership site, it will be a private, monthly based one from the start. This increases the perceived value a lot, you keep the inexperienced ones out and creates that kind of scarcity feeling that make people interested.

I would do something like this(the same thing works for products as well):
1) Find top influencers in your market and offer something to them to join the forum. Put their picture on the landing page as "who's in"
2) Build value inside the forum with guides and tools, like The Dojo does. This way, people know that they will get something beyond conversations. Those who are not stupid know that new forums are not active, but we pre-added value inside it's something else
3)Make a blog before launching the forum, create useful content for your target audience and make sure you include viral elements.
4)Do social media.
5)Create a sense of urgency. Tell them you have only a few spots available or only a few hours until it closes or "add here your email to see if there any spots available". In the last case, you get the email of the prospect and even if he doesn't register because of the price, you can still send him a launch notification.
5)When you do launch, contact those influencers that have agreed to get inside the forum and ask them to promote the launch. Give them a discount for their audience.

If you do all this right, you'll have a 4-5 figure monthly recurring revenue from the start. But the key is:
1)pick a smaller niche with low competition(i mean very few private forums/memberships)
2)make sure you get influencers on-board. This means you need to provide value to them.
3)make sure your forum is active, respond to each question, find moderators among early adopters and try to motivate them to follow you


These are my thoughts, but @K is the one who can answer the best in here

 

[K]

It's not as easy as it looks, trust me!

You have to first establish yourself as an influencer or known person in the space on other forums, sites etc.

Then you have to do something different than other forums that exist.

Finally you have to literally NEVER give up, i've personally read EVERY SINGLE post on this and my other forums and posted on them without fail EVERY day since they opened.

 

[xploit]

Luckily (or not) I have injured my hand and on light duties at work - giving me more time while at work when there is no work for me to do so i can concentrate on building info for the forum. The forum is up and anyone can join right now, but not promoting it properly and getting traffic until content is there.

Thanks for all the comments

 

[K]

Link us..

 

[xploit]

Forum is at Devsters - Index page - will mainly be focussing on Incentive Marketing as a forum that many people used to use has recently been taken offline and one of the most populat network sites on that forum is now ready to promote the new forum and direct its users to it instead of the old offline one.

 

[crysper]

As K said, it's not easy. Starting up you'll encounter the chicken egg problem - if you don't have user you won't have posts, no posts, no new users signup. To solve this you'll either create fake users and boost activity with those accounts, focusing on the most active questions/solving the biggest pain in the industry - this is the approach most forums builders use as far as I know, or build a launch list and make a way for people to ask and answer questions individually to build content. When the list is big enough and you have enough content, you can launch.