Starting a project around a forum

I am about to install a forum, prob phpbb, aiming at building a regional sports enthusiasts' community, more specifically regarding a tournment. Can't say more right now, sorry.

I wonder if you guys have some hints and tips as to how to plan it out.

For instance, advertising the forum, recruiting mods, rewarding them, monetizing the site (although it's going to be just a hobby and profits are not a priority, rather I would consider reinvesting them in the forum, promotion, logos, banners, mods, vB, etc), fighting spam, extra services, expanding the site, etc.

Any input would be appreciated and greens given out, as I typically do, to the best advice (in my view ).

I have no budget right now since I don't know if it'll succeed or if it will be a failure in its first year as often happens.

Basically I'd like to see if DP can help me plan it out appropriately so i don't waste my limited (sigh) time.

Thanks!

 

Wisdomtool, your advice is very welcome, thank you!

And right, I do lack time at the moment, and I'll probably lack in the future too, as almost everyone on these forums.

By that I mean that if I'm serious, and I am, I'll find some time to put into the project, but I do hope that with a decent plan it'll be worthwhile.

That's why I am looking for advice, so I don't waste the little time I have right now and end up with a plan that can't work.

If money is secondary and it will be easy to monetize, fine, that's good.

Motivation? Yes, I just hope that I can build a community similarly motivated, even small, that can sustain the project.

The forum (phpbb, which I know already) would actually provide the opportunity to communicate in a different way than right now, limited to an existent, but not interactive website, emails and telephone.

I just hope to fill in a need, but I do need to let everyone know that the service is available.

Unfortunately with forums it's hard to get them going, then it's even harder to manage them, but I hope I can get some help when there, that's what mods are also for, although i don't have a clue on how to reward them.

So, any other constructive opinions would be immensely appreciated.

 

You didn't get the clear impression if your forum is to be a resource of your web-site (web-site as web-presentation) or a stand-alone forum (with no web-site), this differs many things.

 

Thanks for your question, sportiana!

There's already an official website, but it's not interactive, that is there aren't forums that allow members of the community to interact as in a forum.

So basically it's the forum.

If it works, I am sure that the project could be expanded, blogs, personal or team pages, an estore, a wiki, etc, but the core would always be the forum as in most projects built around a community.

Any advice and/or info, maybe a case study, would be greatly appreciated!

 

Sorry for 'You didn't get the clear impression', I meant 'I didn't get the clear impression'. It can be easier having a forum as your site's help resource, its back-end support, interactive part that people use needing additional info/discussions.

Having a stand-alone forum with no web-site content to bring it traffic is different because you have to attract visitors with the structure of categories/topics and quality of conversation, people get to be judgmental and massivety comes in as a factor, people rather pass to join a hardly active stand-alone forum with several members and posts.

If you take Digital Point Forums for example, there is a web-site in front of it that defined the nature of forum (SEO stuff at its core) and brought it visitors. Now that the forum has a high number of members, its owner can take extended holiday, lots of members bring in even more members, diversity of subjects, and people interested to become forum moderators.

Starting a stand-alone forum is not the hardest part of forum's life, it's its everything, either forum sees a strong rise of activity through members population and posts from the beginning or it may lay around empty for ages like a ship wrack on a deserted island along with more than many forums of similar destiny.

You have to figure out the way to have strong increase of members by tomorrow, next week, next month. Once you have reached active member population, you can take a extended vacation as well, lots of members give motives for other people to join, lots of topics turn up in lots of search engines search results that brings traffic to the forum.

My advice for you is to find a way to make a 'boom', if it goes well, active forum will maintain itself. People try to make a 'boom' by offering prizes or giving various motives/benefits for members to join.

You wrote: 'forum aiming at building a regional sports enthusiasts' community, more specifically regarding a tournment'. Figure out the way what would make a 'boom' in your case. Maybe you can create a poster stating 'you can find some info regarding tournament only at this forum' or 'at this forum you can post tournament pictures, comment results' and place that poster next to the entrance where tournament happens. Lots of people will either rush in or won't come at all, you made a boom or not. That's a plan A.

Plan B is to team-up with a couple of your friends and start discussions online, 5 friend-members with lots of topics will bring in some traffic through Google Bot and people may want to join your discussions, so you have 5 friends and 5 strangers, then more strangers may follow and you get an active forum. Plan B is a harder way.

 

My experience tells me that running a forum site is much, much more demanding and time-consuming than running any other type of websites. Promoting your forum site is another concern. If your heart is not into it, try to reconsider your plan. If it is your passion, go for it.

 

Thanks bohol, yeah, I have been thinking about it for sometime, so I know I want to do it.

Sportiana, that is some excellent advice, thank you very very much.
Yes, it does make sense to have a main website and the forum attached to it, I guess that i should have at least, wanting to keep things a simple as possible to start with, a main page, a forum, maybe a blog, a gallery of submitted pictures would be nice too, hoping to be able to bring people in informing them of the website via email. If that doesn't work I might try texting, and eventually regular mail. Most of those details I can find.

Plan B is pretty difficult, but it would be great to implement it also, not relying too much on that to make it.

As for the poster, although a good idea, it can't be done in this case, since the tournment is held at different venues and at different times, basically more a league than a tournment.


Once again, you were very kind to share your experience and knowledge, I really appreciate it, I am greening you as soon as I'm done with this post.

To anybody else who reads me, please give me your advice, if you can, it would be very useful!