Introduction - As a webmaster my experience is very varied compared to that of most, I have run general forums as well as themed forums and service related forums. I have been mostly based within the Harry Potter community during the last 2 years, only very recently branching out. I originally ran RoR (a general HP forum), I then founded TPP (a graphics forum), I took over the running of HPIA (a general HP forum) and I now run my own business, Hertz Web Solutions and I work at Audentio. All of the above websites have provided me with a wealth of experience and now I aim to impart some of it to you. I don’t claim to be an expert on running a forum, nor do I intend you to use this article as an instruction book; more a resourceful guide. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it! Chapter 1 – The beginning – Most people today have the internet, equally a large number of people are fans of various film/book series within the fantasy genre. This is where it begins, if you’re passionate about a subject (any subject) and you have the internet you have the ability to run your own forum. There are many resources and services open to you as a perspective administrator; these can include remotely hosted forums or free forum hosting however they do give you that first break. More about those later! So you have an idea. Now what? Well first you need to decide whether or not your idea is unique enough to draw in members, if not then you need to brainstorm ways to make it more unique. Look at other forums within the same area as your potential forum, use these as a guide to what has already been done and what ever you do please DO NOT steal any ideas, it’s just not fair! Once you’re sure your idea will stand up as a forum you can move on to choosing a forum software. Very little technical knowledge is needed to learn how to use Invisionfree and Proboards (the most popular remotely hosted forum softwares, you don’t have to worry about handling important forum files as they are hosted and looked after by the service provider. These can be an excellent base to learn how to run a forum in general and quite a few people have actually built very large and successful communities on these. If you’re unsure as to what you’re actually doing and whether running a forum is what you’d like to be doing then this is a great place to start; totally free, quite simple to setup and run. If you’re feeling more confident then perhaps you should try getting a hold of a free hosting account (awardspace.com) and use one of the brilliant free forum software solutions available such as MyBB or PHPBB. MyBB and PHPBB are available for free and are both very easy to use, using one of these as your forum software and on ad-free hosting will give you a more professional appearance from the start. Perhaps you would rather jump in at the deep end, certainly my recommendation, and purchase one of the premium software solutions; IP.Board or vBulletin. You’ll need money for this route but it will give you a jump start in the professional/sleek/cool looking areas! Hosting will be needed, I recommend hertzweb.net, and you’ll need to purchase the software from invisionpower.com or vbulletin.com. Once you’ve done that you can install the software and setup your forum, you’ll have the latest and coolest looking version of your chosen software and your community will be safer than less secure free software solutions. Chapter 2 – Making a forum – Right so now you have a forum, a very basic and bland one with default areas all over but it’s a forum none the less! You will need to enter your Admin Control Panel (ACP), this will be the HUB of all technical activity for you as an Administrator. You need to delete the ‘default’ forums and categories created when the software is installed and start adding your own in. Creativity is key here; the more you can make your discussion areas look interesting and appetising the more people will sign up and have conversations with each other. Okay so now you have areas for members to discuss your chosen subject... Now you need members! Getting members to join a forum initially is actually quite easy, asking friends both offline and online to join up is often an effective way to gain members. Once you’ve exhausted your own social base why not ask everyone to bring along another member, offer them a reward or incentive for their efforts to sweeten the deal! Then you need to begin an advertising campaign, the best way to do this is to find large forums discussing your chosen subject and advertise within their designated areas. Affiliation with other forums and websites is also a really great way to gain visitors to your forum; this also spreads your forum as an online entity further across the web. The initial advertising should gain you a respectable amount of members, brilliant? No, not exactly. Very few of those members will be ‘regulars’ therefore they may be active initially but they will soon get bored and leave. Finding regular members can be a lot harder, however even the non-active members can be enticed into being regulars if you are willing to put in the hard work to find out what they want from your forum. Remember you can’t please everyone, some people may want one thing and others may not; you need to make the executive decision and decide which road your forum is going to go down. Chapter 3 – Running your forum – By now you will have a forum with a few members and you’re pretty happy with yourself. Eventually though the honeymoon period of everything being okay will wear off, member disagreements with each other or even the administration will begin to surface (they always do). Any arguments or disagreements need to be sorted diplomatically, maturely and in a way that doesn’t make you come across as condescending towards your members. Remember you are equal to your members, without them you are nothing. Equally though don’t let them boss you around too much, sometimes a stern hand is needed and you will have to put your foot down. As your forum grows you will need staff to help you with the day to day running both behind the scenes and in public. Finding a staff member you can trust is hard, look at the dedicated members of your forum and consider whether they would be suitable for the job. Advertise that you are looking for help with your forum; there are often a large number of people willing to help out given the chance. You may also need a co-administrator, you shouldn’t be afraid of sharing your power as this can often be very beneficial. You may meet a more experienced or diverse administrator to partner with, you can learn from them as they will learn from you, you do however have to be slightly more selective of whom you choose to share your adminship with. Giving someone Admin privileges is a very big responsibility and with this responsibility comes the power and control over the public and private aspects of your forum, generally speaking as an Admin your co-admin will have the same ACP access as you and therefore has the fate of your forum at their fingertips. Be very careful. You should always enjoy running your forum, no matter how hard things get. Once you’re not enjoying it anymore that is, in my opinion, the time to call it a day and either close your forum or hand it over to someone else. Chapter 4 – The long run – As I have highlighted above you will need to keep your forum looking fresh, after the initial burst of members your forum activity may begin to dwindle. As soon as you see activity dropping and average signups falling you need to act, often finding new affiliates or new places to advertise your forum will be enough to remedy this problem. However in the longer term you will need to evolve your forum to comply with what is ‘in’ or cool, what prospective members want from a forum but whilst also trying to keep your current members happy/interested/active. Running a forum isn’t as simple as it looks is it? Don’t give up or be daunted, you just have to take on a creative and innovative role to evolve and improve your forum, also try and keep a level of continuity and consistency, so for example add extra areas or features to your forum but keep the skin the same. Don’t be afraid to be individual, be the one to set the trend rather than follow it! Following the ‘it’ crowd all of the time by adding features to your forum that are being used by everyone else can actually be a way to drive away members. Be creative and different, this may help you in your quest for activity. All forums are going to have ‘slow’ periods, you can’t always be a full success; learn to recognise these and not worry about them. Obviously if every time you go for a few days without any members signing up you begin calling a state of emergency that could put people off. You may think I’m contradicting myself but once you’re running your forum you’ll begin to see exactly what I mean. The best teacher isn’t articles and ebooks, though do keep reading mine, it’s experience. You should always keep your initial and original goal in mind, don’t forget what you originally set out to do/achieve, On that note I end this article! -© Copyright Richard Myers 2007, written for Audentio.com & hertzweb.net-
looks good. could be very useful to people looking to start a forum. What do you recommend as forum software? I think I'm going to link to the post from my blog
Personally I'd recommend IP.Board all the way, it may be a little expensive on initial investment but as a forum software it's well worth it. If that isn't an option then I'd say use vBulletin, again not all that cheap but still a good value for money software. In terms of free forum software I would recommend MyBB