Hey Guys, can anyone advice me on this before my hosting 30 days money back guarantee runs out. I have opened a forum with a briliant idea but came to realise that im dealing with people who uses internet not as i do, they are for negative things (no offence I'm also from minority background) and my forum is mainly aiming positive people. Im stil under 30days money back guarantee thingy from my host. I have done all the efforts to advertise it, SEO, facebook, digg, delicious etc.... You name it, i even wanted to print out tshirts and wear them so that people can see and know the forum, I was not aiming at profit in anyways, i did not wanted to put any adverts,but only the sharing of knowledge was my aim. I use to work as an advisor thats why. I am now very disappointed with my forum which is almost 3weeks old and not even my friends and people i know have signed up and post anything. SO im shuting it down. Can you guys tell me if im not pacient, will it be wise to put more effort and wait for results..?? i opened the the forum with a mind that its hard to make it popular, moderate etc... please help before i loose my hosting money. You can check out the forum at http://www.bmeforum.co.uk Its mainly aiming at Blacks and minority ethnics people living in the UK. Cheers.
3 weeks? You give up way too easily. Websites don't go anywhere in 3 weeks. You need to give it a year, and you need to spend that year promoting it. If you don't have enough self confidence to stand behind YOUR OWN SITE for more than 3 weeks, then yes, pull the plug now.
The Forum is a phpbb3 forum, so, it is free. and one more thing, is hosting takes only $10-$20 for low cost hosting, and $70-$80 you can get money back guarantee. if the hosting provider provides it.
just a hint here, what does BME stand for to the average passerby? http://www.bmezine.com/ "Body Modification Ezine - The Biggest and Best Tattoo, Piercing and Body Modification site on the net since 1994" http://www.bmevideo.com/ "This is an adult site displaying online videos of extreme and erotic body modification (tattooing, piercing, amputation, scarification, subincision, castration, tongue splitting and so on) as well as extreme body play (CBT, play piercing, sounding, saline inflation, anal stretching, and so on). The content of this site is extremely graphic and totally uncensored." While I'm sure there are other uses of BME out there, this one is so old, and so well-known, that I think most people who would see your link might assume at first glance that your forum is a place to talk about body modification. Perhaps your advertising needs to be targeted more. Also, how are you measuring your statistics? How are you seeing if your site has traffic - is it simply by the presence or lack of new posts, or are you actually tracking visitors, even if they don't register?
Guys you are all right, i think i gave up so quik, But the main thing is im dealing with Blacks and minority ethnics people and thats what BME stands for (blacks and minority ethinics forum), i did a deep research on a kind of a forum like that but havent seen any up to now so im asuming there is none. Actually it targets people from different backgrounds who are not white to advice them as they seems to be more lowly developed... Im african myself and i know how we absolutely are... non blacks and minorities can be experts and give advice to minorites or even have the knowledge so i cant say its for minorities visitors, its for everyone but targets advice to them sort of people, I use to work at one advice charity firm here in England and ooh my god, minorities seems not to know a lot of materials which actually are free online, and their problems were even not of that scale of queueing up for proffessional advice.. My aim to start a forum was their children who are educated here in britain can well know the internet in like 5 yrs time... Anyways, i will give it a go, be pacient and wait, post new things etc, actually saw on one forum that someone adviced to create many accounts on different names and post the replies my self to make people see that its a going on thing and realy they can find what they need, so do you guys think thats ok? WIth regards to my forum, can anyone help me get a proper niche? as may be education only etc.... or general forum is ok...like what ive done education, housing, business etc.. NB: Have a look at the forum and let me know, you can PM me if you like bmeforum.co.uk Thank you.
The BME name is very well known, as Innovati pointed out, plus their new team is quite picky, so you should either change name as your forum is very young (well, in that case you'll loose all your advertising work), or send them an email to check if they're ok with it, preventing you to have to change it when it will be used. Other than that, I would advise you to get a nice template/design as yours is pretty basic, and drastically limit the number of forums to a handful, adding new forums as you'll have more members and posts. As a matter of fact, a general chat forum could be very useful to see what users are looking for in terms of subjects. Think about it as a lab to get specific niche needs. A forum for members self-introduction is useful too, as a lot of visitors will check it to see who you are and who the other posters are, giving a fealing of real people behind the scene.
Thanx fench-webbbie, Its well understood, but i dont think the change of a name is quite an option for me now, because the term BME here in england is well popular and easy to remember as it is always used everywhere on media etc. for the tempelete thing you are quite right, i will change the outlook and work more on design plus making it general for the beginning..dont you think that general forum lacks niche? and what would people come in for if its too general?? they can easily find other things online and divert them away.!!! NB: im gonna make it green army just like digitalpoint.. lol i love the style here... Thanx
As the most important poster in your forum, your posts will give the first impression and you can widen your subjects to as many niches as you want, see which ones get the most attention and focus on them.
Yeah that is a very good idea, thank you. i will work hard on it very very hard. I actualy need to make it my home there for it to go on better. Thanx