Hi all, I recently launched a forum on my site at www.smsbucket.com/forums I launched it on July 18, 2008. It is a general discussion forum. When I launched my forum I thought people will just join it without wasting time because it is a general discussion forum and all about fun so people will like it, but may be I was expecting too much from it. Now around 20 days have gone but I got only 2-3 members who joined on their own, the rest of the members are invited by me, but no one is posting that much. Sometime I wonder that may be the niche "General Discussion" was not a very good idea , or I am expecting too much from my forum in the beginning? I am trying my best to make my forum a better place to enjoy, trying to learn phpbb, editing the template, creating fresh content, adding new features... should I just keep working hard and slowly the forum will pick up? Also, to serve the international market and NOT only Asian or Urdu speaking community, I made the rules on my forum that only English is allowed and there is a separate room for Urdu speaking community. Is it a good idea to serve to a big internet? This way English speaking people will also come to my forum Any suggestion/feedback for me please? Thanks
You have to GIVE people something in return for what they give YOU. Digitalpoint does not survive on just the forum. Remember that and work on a business model.
Yes, my MAIN site www.smsbucket.com is giving LOTS of mobile sms (family-friendly) I have a HUGE collection of mobile sms and people are liking it very much. You can see how the traffic is growing every month click here Additionally, on my forum I am allowing one active link in the signature where members can put their site link and promote their sites.
It takes YEARS to build a forum. Your regulars will change once or twice a year. My experience is about 1 in 100 (or less) members will actually post and of those, maybe 3 will become regulars. General discussion is not a "niche." Almost every forum has a "general topic" or "unrelated topic" discussion forum. In my opinion it's the hardest of all site types to make successful in both membership and income.
The look is nice. I think over time you could get significant success. Nothing wrong inviting other people yourself, thats how you build a community.
I think your site is nice and useful also. I see some activity in your forum. Just give it time and promote the site. Good stuff
General Discussion is too wildly used. In the case of forums, bigger is not always better and having a specfic topic shared is better.
Thanks Onera, I just created a "Guest Forum" where guests can post (if they are having any problem with registrations or if some other issue is there). Hope it will work I understand, but you can see it is under my smsbucket site, so the topic/niche of my forum should relate to the MAIN site, I cannot make a webmaster forum under smsbucket.com right?
More content and features for the site would be good. I think you could monetize on the sms niche more.
IMO, you really need to be focused to make a website work. You need to focus your forum on a particular need, and you should try to get some experts on that topic to share their knowledge with others.
Maybe you can create contest to promote your forum at the same time. Attract more visitor to join by providing freebies. There's one forum that I know has its own currency that is awarded based on the number of posts. Decision is still up to you.
Yea, I do have a contest running http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=967901 But no one seems to be interested
You are right. Since the content of my site is all about mobile sms and English quotations, I should have that on my forum too. I have added a New category called "SMS Zone" on my forum. Where members can post and share their SMS collection Thank you for your suggestion. Me too was thinking about it but I needed a push from someone
site looks nice.. but I think people just read the sms's but don't spend any time to register and post.
Yes, but when we will have lots of content then people will surely join us and they will share their collection with the community Will you join me there?