Hello Everybody, I have just finished developing a new discussion board that is powered by SMF. I have been doing the infrastructure of the forums for almost 2 months and have tried to make it cover all aspects of interest of the regular internet user. My question is: How to get people to those forums? How to develop the team of moderators? how to get it started in general. I do not want to go register on all forums and spamming with some text like "posters wanted" or any other similar ways.. I want a neat start as for the forums to go neat all the way up (hopefully) The domain name is SEO optimized, contains around 10 main boards and a total of over 300 forums and subforums in one very easy and user-friendly interface. I am not willing to share the URL for now until i am ready with at least a team of 10 people to help moderating the whole system, i will not be able to handle the load of it all if it starts the way it should be starting. Please do not ask for any URLs. If you are interested in vecoming a moderator, please PM me with some (all) details about yourself, your sites, expirience, etc.. and make sure to answer one question in your PM "why should i be accepted as a moderator?". There is a wide range of areas of interest, please feel free to ask.. I am even thinking to make the forums system an ad-revenu sharing one. I still did not make this decision as i do not want anybody to say "he copied the DP" idea.. i did not I am also thinking to have it free for all, where interested individuals can buy shares of the generated revenue. And btw, i have all the capabilities to do the needed programming. I am just unsure where and how to start exactly. Please, feel free to post your suggestions, comments, etc.. I am really "in need" to be hearing what the outworld thinks. Merry christmas all.
Quick question, how are you going to find moderators, or even regular users to a forum that no-one knows about? Btw, I am actually in the same boat as you. I am thinking of creating loads of posts by fake users, and wait for the SE's to pick them up - causing a lot of visits from them?
This actually is my concern. Shall i also post fake thingies, start inviting people using OptIn mails, post invitations on other forums? For the moment, i o not see it to be a good start posting fake posts and so.. i want it to start the good way from the begining, any ideas?
I find it interesting you say, "I need traffic for my forum, but I don't want to give you the URL because I'm not ready for it to receive traffic." I don't think you need to worry about finding the moderators until you get the traffic.
nah, why are we so strit judging others? I can just start an adwords capmaign that will guarantee me some 200 posters to start things up.. ut i am asking the public here of they know any better ways orlets say more cost/effective.. thats it. Regarding moderators, i am kindda afriad being alone and facing some 100 and maybe more posts/day.. i just cant handle it. So is the need to meat people that might get interested in being a part of this all. Anyway, thanks for your comment.
Sorry, I think your taking my post the wrong way. My point is: don't worry about finding moderators until you need them. Focus your energy into getting to that point. I have no idea what your forum is or is about, but I can tell you from experience that you can't just "start an adwords capmaign that will guarantee me some 200 posters." You can buy traffic if you want, but people won't bother creating accounts and posting unless they are compelled to. Your forum may be compelling enough...I don't know. Anyway, it sounds like your confident that people will sign up and post so all you need is traffic. Aside from Adwords, etc. there are several ways to get traffic (articles, press releases, etc.). Good luck, and when you're ready to "release" your forum, I'd be interested to check it out!
I have been running a bonsai forum for about a year now. Luckily my forum was started by me and a group of about 250 people who posted at another forum until it disappeared. I was lucky in that I had automatic posters and knew most of the members. Selecting moderators can be a big deal, because you don't want to have to moderate the moderators. The only sure fire way I have found to select good moderators is to let them belong to the community for a while and get to know them. Watch their posts, especially in topics where you have not posted. You would be surprised how many people try to position themselves to become moderators once your board gets big. For every good moderator out there though there is another one who is going to cause trouble. Driving participating members in can be tricky. Like was said adwords may bring people to your front door but a lot of them don't stay for coffee. Developing links with other websites in my subject has helped tremendously in driving people in who join and contribute for the long term. Make sure to include a "How did you hear about us?" question on your registration from so you know what's working and what isn't. Hope some of this helps. Good luck!
I wouldn't worry about the moderators for a while unless you just have zero time to spend on the board. With a few users at first there probably won't be much to moderate anyway. I used adwords to get my main forum going and eventually let word of mouth and SE traffic take over. Now I have around 200K posts and over 1500 members. Even with that I only have about 10 global moderators and only 5 or 6 of them are really active. Thats even on a sports website with a smack talking forum that has to be looked after all the time.
Work on building the forum, hopefully you will be able to find moderators from your posters. You can put your own content in the forums to start to build traffic, you can try some advertising to bring in people. There is no easy way way to build forum traffic.
Uhm here is a tip that works for me: Get 5 friends to join and beg them to get 2 friends each and then beg those to get more. Even though some might lose interest after a while it will work and will get you a good starting point. Just my tip, that works for me! Good luck!
Two great resources for anybody running a forum are: The Admin Zone The Staff Lounge I can't provide the URL's, because I have only just registered here. Both of these sites are dedicated to helping you get the best out of your online communities. They offer advice on getting your forum started, moderating it, customizing it and so on. There are plenty of tips about getting members on both sites. Hope that helps.
I might as well throw my link in there as well, it too is a place which specializes in forum growth and development... - http://www.adminfusion.com There really is no article or How-To which will outline every aspect of starting a forum, but there are places where you can get in depth information on more specific aspects of course...ie: how to choose software, host, staff, etc.
The only thing I worry about when buying posts... is that if you don't have the traffic in there with other people posting when the posters jobs are up, then what? All of a sudden you have absolutely no one in the forum posting anymore and these posters who used to post a lot are gone? How does that work?
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm interested in this as well because I'm getting ready to start a forum on one of my sites...
Isn't this just as good as fake posts. It's like, "Yo bob, I got some gold here." Later bob finds out its fake gold and it's worth nothing. BB