Getting a forum from zero to something takes effort. A lot of you seem to be willing to invest in getting the ball rolling. Please pick in the poll how much you have been willing to invest in your forum in terms of paid posts, marketing etc.
Currently I'm somewhere in the sub-$500 category, though since it's an ongoing process over at least 12 months I'm expecting it to end up a lot higher than that. Currently the forum has around 4000 posts and 250 members. http://www.marketingchat.org/forum/index.php <<--Shameless Plug Cost Breakdown so far in 5 months, $160 forum software $150 paid posting $150 AdWords advertising Add to that in the near future contunued advertising costs and posting incentives the it will probably continue increasing at the current rate. I'm expecting to recoup some of the costs though advertising, though these will be reinvested. I'm not expecting to make a profit in the first 3 years
Thanks for the comprehensive break-down! No worries about the shameless plug for the marketing forum I'll soon be launching a forum so I'm trying to find out what people do to start the snowball effect. I also have an innovative idea for getting those first posts which I'll share/sell so polling to see what people's budget could be... Anyone else? Had the paid posting actually paid off? Were the posts quality enough to get others to join in voluntarily?
With paid posting my experience has been to avoid the paid posting companies as the posts tend to be low quality and/or cut and pasted from elsewhere. I spent more time cleaning up the mess they made than I did posting myself. Paying individuals to post seems to be of a much better quality and is easier to manage.
Time, post exchanges and probably over $500 in all sorts of stuff. I really didn't track it. Forums are very hard to kick off.
So considering it costs a fair bit of money, a lot of effort and loads of times, I wonder what people's motivation is to run a forum then. It's not like they're actually making a lot of money!
Just over the last few days we have been having quite a frank and open discussion about this at TWT - the owner, Fabio, has spent $13000+ so far on setting up and promoting his forum!!
$0 when I started my forum in 2004. It was hosted freely and I used phpBB. Then I purchased a domain from my adsense income, a $6/month hosting account and moved over there. Eventually I switched over to vbulletin & signed up for a vps because my host kept suspending my shared hosting account for the same good `ol resource abuse reason. So yeah, it's more about luck than money.. I believe.
Heres My view, 1) Paid posting sucks...I have tryed them more that once and there are very few that actually post quailty, also when you stop payimg it looks weird 2) Motovation is to have your own little spot to chill / hang out with people that can share some good info..and with that as the golden rule the place will grow on its own 3) My advice is to just annouce it , get some knowledgable people there,keep out the haters.....and it will do awesome I am part of a few forums and a Mod at one as well.....so thats were my views come from I will Join when it gets going and bring some people along as well, Edit : Just Joined Joe
Cool! But where? I don't have mine set up yet and it will be specific to a medical condition Anyways, good feedback ladies, thanks! I had a look on Big Boards to try and see what marketshare phpBB and VB have together but there's no exact stats like that. Am I about right in guessing together they've got about 2/3s of the market covered?
- ~300$ - vbulletin + vbseo - <100$ p/m for forum posters found from freelance sites who can post high quality posts most of time - A separate site on forums topic having 3000-5000 visitors per day Placing a sitewide, catchy link to this site will allow me get at least 1-10 registered users per day This one required me to spend lots of money and time to move it to its current stage. - (Optionally) 100$-200$ p/m for a competition. I dont plan to have a competition in the first stages. We will see..
Yes, and so is a "beer arm" (like tennis arm) - not so much the liver failure but the muscle strain in mostly the right arm due to repetitive pint lifting. Still curious to know where Sundaybrew signed up...
You should switch to Sambuca, it's not so heavy Over at Marketing Chat Casperl - do you recommend any?
A right, that poxy little forum BTW my kick ass forum will be on a certain EU medically-ish type domain
Oh yea Tops...Over at your buddy Matt's , Figured if you were plugging him , that the site was worth the sign up Also what type of health forum will it be ? You can pm me with the topic if you prefer not to post
I'll reveal it soon, along with some wicked forum promo tools. And yes, Matt's forum kicks ass - though I have yet to log on since signing up
I've spent about $600 on vBShack as of yet, and am looking to invest another $200 or so in the coming month. I wouldn't really call it a large or outstanding investment, more just covering the basics I guess. I've paid for the web template, the vBulletin License, the VBlogetin License, a few back end products, some staff to help out behind the scenes, and of course some back links. I've also got some competitions running which have a cash prize up for grabs, and will need to spend a lump sum on them too. It all adds up pretty fast.