I started a forum more than 1 week ago. Starting forums are very hard to do. You need active members that will post. And they need to post some quality, not just spam or the boring "how old are you" topics. I decided to start a $ 200 contest on it, which is not extreme high, but is above the little bucks. I promoted the contest on several forums and announced it on my blog. At this point I almost have 800 posts and almost 50 active members. The contest will end in 2 weeks and after that I sure will start another contest, The url = www.9mb.com (webmaster forum) It is not impossible to start a forum, it just needs some work
Good idea on the contest, it'll give you forum a bit of a boost. (Which is essential since no one really joins.. empty forums right? People like to join active forums!) so it'll work well for long term. Good investment.
A cash prize contest always helps with a forum. The catch is to have something that will hold the members after the contest ends....
Starting a forum is definitely one of the toughest task for a webmaster - I know because I'm in the middle of it Actually I haven't put it online yet, still researching for materials and testing the site. Hopefully someday it will appear in my Sig. Good luck with yours.
You have a nicely designed forums. Good luck with this anyway. You now need to get good rankings in the search engines and you should do well.
wow i like your forum,keep up the good work. Hey are you looking for a partner or know anyone who is,to get into creating a site or hosting biz?
I believe you should refer to this: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34036 I am a senior member there.
Good research zinruss !! Yes, I know I need to keep the members active after the contest. But I think I will throw in another contest. With a prize, not only money. I am also not sure if I want to try ranking good for webmaster forum, currently I am doing this, but it is saturated I guess... Should I keep trying to rank for webmaster forum??? or go with another term/>??
Thanks KingNomar. Contest is a good idea as a good start. Most of the registered users join because they would like to win the cash or prices and please kindly bear in mind that this is not good for community development. The keyword here is get their interest, not their attention. After you boost the quality post to 500k, you can list your site in big-boards.com. Example of the largest community: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/index.php I have a forum which have 50k+ users, 2 millions post in the past and i sold it. Patient is another keyword here and offcouse, you need a lot of royalty users to moderate the board for you. The old roman rules - give your clients what they want. The new golden rules will be "take the lead".
Thats very nice zinruss !! Great achievement. Currently I am the top poster with more than 250 posts out of the 800. I think I will stay always the top poster though. The admin needds to lead it to the success I guess
That's a fantastic result in one week. Your system has worked really well. Why not write an ebook on "How to populate a brand new forum in two weeks or less"? I've come across a lot of people starting forums and none of them have used this idea.
I've never ran a contest to promote a site, but always thought it was a great idea. I've wondered about the legalities of it though. The site design looks great BTW.
Competitions and good conversation on your forum will help it a lot, just make sure you're constantly posting and giving users something to read, that will bring huge attraction to your site. Very best of luck. I'll check it out.